Bloomberg Businessweek has just released its 2014 ranking of full-time MBA programs, and some people may be surprised at certain schools’ new standings. For this survey, schools are ranked according to a myriad of factors, including recruiter marks (employers’ opinions of a program’s graduates) and enrolled student survey responses.
This year’s results certainly show a few major shakeups. Duke Fuqua, which ranked sixth in both 2012 and 2010 (up from eighth in 2008) knocked long-standing first-position holder Chicago Booth from that coveted spot (it is now ranked third). Perhaps even more notably, Harvard Business School (HBS), which has held steady at number two since 2008, dropped to eighth and failed to make the top five for the first time in list history.
According to Bloomberg Businessweek, Duke Fuqua graduates received high ratings from recruiters who tend to hire large numbers of MBAs. The school’s dean was quoted as saying, “To be a great leader, you need to be great in a team setting, and I think that’s where we get credit from employers.”
As for HBS’s surprising six-spot drop, on the other hand, Bloomberg Businessweek claims that a major reason for the perennial favorite’s decline is “the perception that the school caters to elites while neglecting women and minorities.”
Other notable position shifters are Columbia Business School, which moved from 13th in 2012 to fifth this year; UCLA Anderson, which advanced from 18th to 11th; and the Yale School of Management, which rose significantly (15 spots!) from 21st to sixth.
The current top 20 is as follows: (visit the Bloomberg Businessweek Web site for the full list):
- Duke Fuqua
- UPenn Wharton
- Chicago Booth
- Stanford Graduate School of Business
- Columbia Business School
- Yale School of Management
- Northwestern Kellogg
- Harvard Business School
- Michigan Ross
- Carnegie Mellon Tepper
- UCLA Anderson
- UNC-Chapel Hill Kenan-Flagler
- Cornell Johnson
- MIT Sloan
- Dartmouth Tuck
- Indiana Kelley
- Maryland Smith
- Emory Goizueta
- UC-Berkeley Haas
- UVA Darden