A few days ago, I published a pretty long rant analysis of the 2026 Financial Times’ MBA ranking. To be clear: I LOVE how much data the FT gives us — they are truly generous in their transparency, and while we (well, certainlyI) ca find fault with the almost 20 metrics they use, at least they are trying to be thoughful about it! That’s not something that I can say about a lot of other “rankings”, so I tip my hat and sip my tea at them appreciatively (that’s what you do in London, right?).

When I posted this on social media though, a commenter brought a very good point re: my ire at the FT usage of “percent salary increase” as a key weighted element in the rankings.

This person’s very good argument was (to paraphrase it): “If a business school helps people 2.5x their salary from where it was before enrolling vs. only 2x it, then doesn’t that speak to the transformative nature of those programs, vs. the programs like Harvard, MIT, Wharton, etc. that accept people who are *already high performers* in the first place and who, presumably, would have CONTINUED being high performers, even without the business school?”     

Ahhh… the classic “nature vs. nurture” debate!  This is a great point!  And to be clear — the “percentage salary increase” is one of the most USEFUL metrics that the Financial Times gives us. I encourage a lot of MBA candidates to look at it!

HOWEVER. That doesn’t mean that it should be given high weight in a “RANKING” if the ostensibile raison d’etre of a ranking is to, well — rank things in an order of “best”, “very good but not quite best”, “solid but a bit beneath ‘good'”, etc. 

Here’s a video where I pull  data from the ranking (again, pip-pip and cheerio, FT, for being so transparent with your numbers!) and make this argument via video — transcript below. 

Full Transcript: 

I love the fact that they report on this metric, right? The salary percentage increase, I think, is an incredibly valuable metric because there are so many business schools out there that are great for so many people. And at the end of the day, these programs are in fact able to do what a lot of business school applicants are hoping for. They are in fact able to provide a real change in the trajectory of someone’s career. They are in fact able to help people leapfrog into a higher career stratum than they would’ve otherwise been able to be in.

So from that perspective, I love the fact that the FT reports on the salary percentage increase. So valuable. I think it helps when sometimes I talk to people at the beginning of the business school journey, I will frequently hear something like, well, it’s M7 or bust. You know, it’s Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, or bust. And I’m often like, look, slow your roll, man.

There are so many programs out there. That are going to get you. They might not be the first ones that you think of, but wow, does that even matter? I mean, whoo, look at some of these numbers, $170,000. That is nothing to sneeze at, especially if it’s 1.5 times more than what you were making before business school.

I mean, wow, that is life-changing. And these schools can really change people’s lives. And I think it’s important to have this metric available because I think it helps open people’s eyes to, to be a little bit more open-minded And I think that’s wonderful. Where my little quibble is, is that I believe this is an important metric to report upon. However, I do not believe that it is a metric that should have significant amount of weight in the rankings, because if we think about what is the purpose of a ranking, it is meant to be some sort of a representation of relative quality.

Now rankings, the entire concept of them is flawed. The entire— for me, the entire concept of an ordinal ranking is ridiculous. Like, school versus 2 versus 4 versus 7 versus 6. Yeah, like, there, there’s sort of these tiny miniature marginal differences. I think that school rankings should instead be in buckets.

Like, here is the top bucket, and then here is the also very good but just underneath the top bucket, the next bucket. Um, but no one, no one listens to me. Uh, but so anyway, to the extent that a ranking is intended to be some sort of a measure of a program’s quality, I don’t think that this metric is one that should be included in the weighting. Look again, life-changing levels of improvements in salary. But when I look at, okay, so these were the top 5 programs by the salary percentage increase, but now when I look at it by the weighted salary, right?

The top 5 US programs by weighted salary, it’s not entirely accurate to say that, well, these programs, you start with people who have lower incoming salaries and they end up in the same place as the other programs. The numbers do not really— the numbers would tell a slightly different story. So if you look at the weighted salary a few years out for the top 5 programs by salary, we’re talking about a $70,000 a year difference, roughly $240,000 a year versus $170,000 a year. That’s about a 40% difference, which I don’t think is a small— you know, if we were talking 5%, even 10%, I’d be like, well, yeah, 10%, that’s nothing. It’s, you know, nothing.

But 40%, I do think, is a pretty— it’s a pretty significant difference, uh, that is worth noting. And so your point about like, well, they were letting in the people who were already on a You know, if you were making— let’s see if we can— if we figure out. Okay, so if we take this, these numbers, then we can sort of back into what’s an implied pre-MBA salary. You know, that would indicate maybe something in the mid-$60s before MBA versus, you know, $110, something— $110, $115 for these other programs. I get your argument.

Your argument is like, look, these people were already clearly high achievers prior to business school. And so is it not true then that the business school, like they would’ve continued to be high achievers. And in fact, this is true. Some of the most successful, financially successful people I know skipped business school altogether and they didn’t need it. However, I think GMAC often does polls or surveys of MBA graduates, and I think the vast majority of them at a minimum say that they’re glad that they went to business school, that they do feel that it was worth their time.

So how much of this is nature versus nurture? We, we will never know. But I would gently push back on the fact that I— because these numbers, essentially, to the extent that they’re lower than, say, these numbers, it effectively penalizes these schools in this ranking. And for that reason, I don’t think that it should be part of the ranking, because you’re penalizing a school for letting in more successful people. But there’s a benefit to attending.

Like, first of all, if you are a more successful person, think of the opportunity cost that you’re giving up. So the fact that these schools are able to lure away people to give up 2 years of their in order to go to business school in the first place, I think is a pretty good indicator of the desirability or the perceived desirability of those programs. Also, I do think that there is merit to thinking about like, who are my peers going to be in a business school? And if a, if a school is attracting people who were more successful prior to business school, I actually think that that is an indicator of the quality of the school, not only because it shows that people are willing to give up those 2 years of salary, but also think about who the peer group is once students someone is in the school, right? That means that if you’re attending one of these schools, this percentage isn’t as high, but you’re surrounded by people who prior to business school were already achieving on a different level.

And also, after they graduate, they continue to achieve on a different level. True, the slope is not as sharp, right? But the net result is a larger number. So I think that this implies that perhaps at the school itself, you might be surrounded by people who are driven. Some people might say more competitive, uh, which might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but people who are more driven.

And also after they graduate, they continue to be driven. And so I think that also implies something pretty powerful about the ultimate benefit of the network, because business school isn’t just the 2 years you go there, and it’s not just the that first job you get out of school, or that third job you have 5 years out of school. It’s also who’s your network going to be, and, and who are you going to call 10, 15, 20 years after graduation to invest in your company, or to partner with your company, or to start a company with. So I do think that there is value to attending a school and to have your peers during school and after school be people who were, for lack of a better term, high performers. I don’t think that this should be punished because I do think that this does yield a better business school experience and a better result in the long term.

And so my quibble— again, I love this metric, I think this is an amazing metric to provide— but my quibble is that this should not be given honestly any weight at all, and certainly not the high level of weight that it’s given. Because again, you’re punishing the schools that You know, you’re basically indicating that I— what I would say is an indication of quality, an indirect indication of quality, but an indication of quality all the same. You’re basically punishing the schools that have sort of higher quality, quote unquote, coming in. And that to me is counterintuitive and kind of wrong. And so that’s why I continue to think that this should not be, uh, reported upon.

Absolutely tell us, it’s important. I think it’s great to know. I love using this information. But I don’t think it should be used in terms of like, let’s figure out which programs are the quote unquote highest quality programs. But what do you think?

What did I miss? Let me know. Thanks.