TJ is #1 Again

For the second consecutive year my high school was selected by US News and World Report as the top public school in the country (article). This year two of my alma maters have been ranked #1 and I am, once again, humbled. It is a great honor to have been selected for such institutions and not a day goes by that I am not thankful to have had the opportunity. Now, at the cusp of my next stage in life, I hope to be able to live up to the high standards set by my peers. While I can't promise results, I can promise to do what I've done throughout my academic, professional, and athletic careers: my best.

More Rankings

Business Week released its 2008 MBA rankings this week. They categorize schools as either US or ouside the US. IMD clearly falls into the latter category and was ranked #7, disappointingly down from #4 in 2006. Only one major ranking (the Wall Street Journal) remains this year. The WSJ ranked IMD #1 in the world last year; I hope we can keep our crown!

Number One

You may remember my January post about IMD's MBA program being ranked #14 in the world by the Financial Times. Last week we were ranked #1 in the world by The Economist. This ranking should be taken with the same grain[s] of salt as the Financial Times but, still, it feels good.



It is humbling to play a small part in such a great honor and I credit our faculty, staff, and accomplished alumni for this feat. I'll do my best to go out into the world and live up to it!

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.