MBA Rankings

The Financial Times, which traditionally gives IMD's MBA the lowest ranking (#14 in the world and #4 in Europe this year) of any publication, just ranked IMD as the #1 school in the world for executive education, tying it with Harvard Business School. The FT also ranked IMD #1 in the world last year in its "ranking of rankings," which considers the MBA, executive MBA, and other executive education programs. Although I would love to see the MBA ranked higher, my kudos still go out to all of my professors who contributed to the high executive ranking.

Rankings should obviously be taken with a heaping spoonful of salt. However, as a quantitative person, I like knowing how my organization is measuring up against others in specific evaluation criteria. The key is to understand those criteria instead of just taking the ranking at face value. The FT ranking, for example, surveys MBA alumni and asks them questions such as from which schools they are most likely to recruit new MBA graduates, possibly biasing the ranking toward larger schools.

As the rest of the major publications announce their rankings this year, I will keep everyone updated.