Stanford Tops QS Global MBA Rankings 2019

Stanford moved up three places to capture the top spot in the QS Global MBA Rankings 2019 pushing down Harvard to 2^nd place while Pennsylvania University’s Wharton Business School also jumped three places to 3^rd rank.

London Business School (LBS) is at number 4 followed by MIT Sloan 5^th, INSEAD dropping from 2^nd rank last year to 6^th place.

The survey by schools covered quantitative indicators such as the salary of graduates, class profile etc. For the purpose of the Global MBA Rankings 2019, QS did not ask schools to survey their alumni. Instead, schools provided career progression information on their alumni to MBACSEA compliant standards.

HEC Paris is in the 7^th place followed by Chicago Booth and IE Business School tied for the 8^th rank. Columbia is ranked 10^th.

The rankings follow a similar pattern as in the 2018 edition with US Schools 5 of the top ten ranks and the remaining going to European Schools. Even in the top 20,  the US Schools managed to capture 12 places.

Stanford achieved a perfect score for the entrepreneurship & alumni outcomes indicator. This is considered particularly significant given the growing demand from students for MBA programs to incorporate entrepreneurial elements.

London Business School is the highest-ranked European institution, while France and Spain are also represented in the top 10.

“We have just welcomed our most global MBA class to date with more than 60 nationalities per class, and a network of alumni spanning more than 150 countries worldwide. The class size too has grown. We now have 485 MBAs and women make up 40%t of the class,” David Simpson, an admissions director at London Business School, is quoted by TopMBA.

For India, IIM Ahmedabad remained the only one school in the top 50, ranked 48, moving up one place from the previous ranking. IIM Bangalore dropped to 74th spot from 58^th in 2018. Indian School of Business (ISB) too dropped from 93 to tie at 100 with Northeastern D’Amore-McKim School of Business. IIM Calcutta was in 111-120 ranked institutes, improving its position slightly after being placed among the 121-130 ranked institutes in the previous edition.  The SP Jain Institute of Management and Research remained in the 201+ rank range.

Methodology

QS said 251 programs were ranked this year. Data was collected in early 2018, using three surveys– the QS Global Employer Survey, the QS Global Academic Survey and a survey completed by the business schools themselves.

The survey by schools covered quantitative indicators such as the salary of graduates, class profile etc. For the purpose of the Global MBA Rankings 2019, QS did not ask schools to survey their alumni. Instead, schools provided career progression information on their alumni to MBACSEA compliant standards.

Data received was based on 2017 graduating class (for employment information) and incoming 2017 class for class composition.

“When this data was not available we used the most recent available data provided by the schools. In a minor number of cases we used the publicly available information to help the ranking to be as accurate as possible,” it added.

To be included in the Global MBA Rankings 2019, the program must be taught mainly on-campus (i.e. not distance-learning), be taught full-time (or at least have the option to be) and have a class size of at least 10 students.

A total of 13 criteria form the basis of five key indicators that programs were ranked on: ‘employability’, ‘entrepreneurship and alumni outcomes’, ‘return on investment’, ‘thought leadership’ and ‘class & faculty diversity’.