MBA Rankings: Online And Full-Time Programs' Ranks Demystified

Business schools place great value in MBA rankings, providing data on everything from career stats to faculty credentials – but which factors are the most important?

Business schools go to great lengths to improve their programs' MBA rankings, which is probably motivated by how much value MBA candidates place in them. Where a school is placed in a certain ranking greatly influences applicants' study choices.

Rankings are one of a few ways in which business schools are utilizing big data, collating information on everything from career statistics to faculty credentials.

The big rankings providers – the FT, Bloomberg Businessweek and The Economist, to name but a few – also muster considerable resources to deploy this data to the business school world. So you should probably understand how each ranking is formed, to better inform your choices.

The graphic below, provided by the Whitman School of Management, provides an overview of how five major publications are ranking the world’s MBA programs – for both online and on-campus courses.