U.S. News & World Report’s top 10 MBA programs and their rankings differ slightly from LinkedIn’s.
From US News & World Report:
Stanford Business School and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania tied for first place, the Booth School of Business (University of Chicago) and the Kellogg School of Management (Northwestern University) tied for third place, MIT Sloan-Harvard Business School tied for seventh place, NYU Stern, Berkeley Haas, and Yale University tied for 10th place, and Dartmouth-Tuck and Virginia Darden School tied for 10th place.
According to LinkedIn, the top ten are:
Stanford Graduate School of Business INSEAD Harvard Business School The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania MIT Sloan School of Management Indian School of Management Kellogg School of Management (Northwestern University) Tuck School of Business (Dartmouth College) Columbia Business School (Columbia University) Booth School of Business (University of Chicago)
US News & World Report’s methodology includes factors such as employment rates at graduation and three months after graduation, average starting salaries and bonuses, peer and quality assessment scores, and various measures of student selectivity. The problem is that some of this data comes from universities, which survey students to get data on employment, salary, and so on. Of course, not all students respond to surveys. When I graduated, I certainly didn’t.
In contrast, LinkedIn’s ranking methodology is based on LinkedIn data, leveraging the network’s ability to gain insight into the career outcomes of LinkedIn members. LinkedIn’s five key pillars are job placement (employment rates and labor market demand), career advancement, network growth and strength, leadership potential, and gender diversity.
With both methodologies, some of the things used in the evaluation probably shouldn’t have been included. I’m a bottom-line guy. Salary, career advancement, job opportunities, etc. are obviously important. But in the case of US News, I don’t care about selectivity or peer quality ratings. With LinkedIn, I would argue that network growth and strength, leadership potential, gender diversity, etc. are all great but should be used sparingly.
But in my opinion, the main factor in favor of LinkedIn’s rankings is that LinkedIn’s data is better, and its ratings are global, not just focused on U.S. schools.