Winners and losers in the MBA rankings game

The full-time MBA ranking published last month by The Economist brings the 2011 season of media rankings of business schools to a close, and the results will be met with the usual mix of joy, despair and skepticism by the business school community. Staff, students and alumni will be assessing the impact of their school's standing in the global market, while potential applicants may over rely on these league tables to determine their shortlist of target schools.

Those Canadian business schools that took part in the Economist ranking did well, with five of them moving up and just one dropping. The Schulich School of Business at York University climbed one place to 9, and McGill University's Desautels entered the ranking at 64. This is in part a reflection of the relative strength of the Canadian economy, and the diverse career opportunities enjoyed by graduates.

But several other big-name Canadian schools - Queen's University, University of Toronto Rotman and Western Ontario's Ivey - are notable by their absence, despite doing well in the international rankings of Business Week and the Financial Times. While the time and staff resources required to complete the requisite MBA surveys have ballooned in recent years, schools often self-select to appear where their school will rank most strongly. 

For Peter Todd, dean at Desautels, the school's decision to participate in all the major rankings gives applicants a broader international perspective across an aggregate of results. "For us this is not a game where we are asking ourselves where we will do best. There is some diagnostic value for ourselves, but we also ensure that we don't fixate on what any one particular ranking is asking for. We do what we think is right, and focus on giving the students the best learning experience - the rankings will then take care of themselves."

So how much should we read into these results from The Economist and the other major rankings produced by the Financial Times, Business Week, Forbes and U.S. News? The Economist admits that comparing "a one-year Danish program with a cohort of 50 students with a two-year American one with 1,000 is tricky. Some would say futile."

Read full article: The Globe and Mail, November 3, 2011