US news rankings have been the most influential of all MBA lists for a long time
Future changes in the way US News ranks business school programs effectively ban schools that do not have a full-time residential MBA program. Changes to US news rankings for methodology affect business schools featured in one or more of 13 specialist rankings covering a range of areas ranging from accounting to supply chain/logistics management.
At least 14 business schools with at least 47 individual rankings are said to be negatively affected by Ganzaga University’s Graduate School of Business Administration among those most affected by change. Gonzaga could potentially lose five US news specialties rankings last year, ranked fourth in Entrepreneurship, 11th in Finance (21), Management (31), and Accounting (41).
Schools affected by change are naturally disappointed. “Students are punished here,” says W. Brook Elliott, dean of the University of Illinois Business University in Ulbana-Champaign. “They deserve a clear and complete picture of the market when approaching such important decisions.
Tippie and Gies will lose their specialist rankings from US News
A US News spokesman suggested that the organization could cancel the changes before the rankings were released on April 8th.
However, up until then, changes have been realistic and will continue to come. The four specialist rankings achieved last year by the Santa Clara University Holiday School business school will also disappear. Reavey, who has a part-time MBA but does not have a full-time version, will be removed from the list of news for Business Analytics (11), Marketing (12), Entrepreneurship (14), and Finance (19).
Seattle University’s Albers School of Business Economics is expected to disappear from three separate rankings due to change. Last year, the school ranked 16th in both accounting and business analysis and 24th in finance.
Changes in methodology could put pressure on more schools to avoid abandoning full-time MBA programs. Many of the ranked MBAs lost money for schools remaining in the MBA business just for the US news rankings. Many schools use specialized rankings to market their programs and have third-party support for the quality of instruction in key areas.
More prominent schools that closed full-time MBA services a few years ago due to a decline in registrations. Includes Tippie College of Business at the University of Iowa. University of Illinois Gies College of Business and the Daniels School of Business at Purdue University.
Tippy began abolishing his full-time residential MBA in 2017. The school wanted to redirect resources to the university’s highly regarded part-time MBA, new specialized master’s program, and new online MBA. The strategy has been successful, but the schools ranked 35th in last year’s accounting no longer have a specialized ranking.
Gies loses four specialist rankings, including its No. Ranked by 3 Accounting
Ranked third in US News accounting in 2024, Gies College of Business closed its full-time and part-time MBA programs in 2019, focusing its resources on online products and undergraduate business programs. This strategy has been extremely successful, with GIE experiencing the explosive growth of online education and winning the MBA of the Year in 2022 by Poet & Quent. However, GIE loses four specialist rankings, besides its third accounting rank, including production/operation, management, and finance.
Purdue University temporarily phased out its full-time MBA program in 2020 after years of reduced applications, registration descent, Red Ink, and free falls in US News MBA rankings. This will lose our third-place specialty ranking in production and operation. It will also disappear from the other four specialist rankings (see table below).
Creighton University’s Heider College of Business College was also ranked 22nd in accounting last year and 17th in business analysis.
US News Ranks 133 Business Schools on April 8th
The changes to the US news ranking rules were announced to business schools participating in upcoming rankings in a notice published on March 24th.
For the latest rankings, US News says it has contacted 508 business schools accredited by the AACSB. US News told the school that 337 people have completed the statistical survey and 133 business schools will eventually be ranked this year.
US News ranks schools in descending order based on the number of nominations each receives in a peer assessment survey issued to the dean and directors. Each school in these specialist rankings must receive at least seven nominations in the area of specialization being ranked.
For the first time this year, US News will use data on both the old GMAT tests and the new GMAT focus editions introduced in Fall 2023. If schools in the MBA program reported both tests for fall 2024 participants, both tests were used in the rankings after being converted to a percentile distribution weighted by the percentage of tests for each GMAT test. US News will be labelled “(old)” on its website and academic insights on fields that contain old exam data, but according to the publication, the scores for new exams do not have this specification.
Schools lose their news specialty rankings
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)Project Management (4), Entrepreneurship (11), Finance (21), Management (31), Accounting (41)University of Illinois (GIES)4 Accounting (3), Production/Operation (22), Management (27), Finance (33)Fairfield University (Dolan)4Astax (16), Marketing (17), Business Analysis (25), FINANCE (25), Finance (11), Marketing (12), Entrepreneurship (14), Finance (19)St. Joseph’s University (HAUB)4Marketing (17), Accounting (21), Finance (26), Business Analysis (30)Seater University (Albers_ 3 Accounting (16), Business Analytics (16), Finance (24), Creighton University (17) (22) University of Scranton (Kania)3 Accounting (19), Finance (28), Business Analysis (28) Marquette University 2 Finance (31), Accounting (35) Lockhurst University (Hertzberg)2 Business Analysis (25), Management (27) University of Iowa (Tippy)1 Analysis
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