There has been a lot of talk around here about the MBA school rankings.
Typically, the conversation revolves around the changes – up or down – from the last rankings.
I got curious … wanted to see the landscape change over a longer-term … and picked a 10-year time horizon of the Business Week rankings – 2000 to 2010.
My going-in hypothesis was that there would be heavy inertia … that the top slots would be occupied by the usual suspects.
And, I expected schools to show relatively little movement up or down.
Here’s what I found …
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13 MBA programs held their top 30 positions – plus or minus a spot or two – in 2000 and 2010:
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6 MBA programs that were in the 2000 Top 30 improved their position by 6 or more spots between 2000 and 2010:
- UC Berkeley had the sharpest rise … 10 spots to #8
- Univ. of Chicago (my alma mater) had the most impressive gain … “only” 9 spots since they couldn’t do better than taking over the #1 ranking
- Stanford cracked the Top 10 by moving up 6 spots.
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Surprising (to me), there are 6 MBA programs that weren’t in the Top 30 in 2000 and that broke into the 2010 Top 10 … 5 just made it into the Top 30 … a proud accomplishment, but one that pales in comparison with SMU … SMU came out of nowhere – unranked as late as 2004 – and soared to #12 in 2010.
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Of course, if there are winners, there must be losers.
5 MBA programs dropped a whopping 15 places or more from 2000 to 2010.
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Another 6 MBA programs dropped 5 spots between 2000 to 2010.
- 5 of the programs stayed in the Top 30 despite their skids
- Cornell and MIT-Sloan dropped out of the Top 10
- Unfortunately, my beloved Georgetown’s slip was enough to lose Top 30 status. (Don’t worry, we’ll be back …)
Source: Business Week – 2000 & 2010 MBA Rankings
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In subsequent posts we’ll drill down to “why?” and “so what?”
Stay tuned.
The Homa Files 