The 2025 Financial Times MBA Ranking
Maria |
February 25, 2025

In the latest episode of Business Casual, John Byrne, alongside Maria Wich-Vila and Caroline Diarte-Edwards, delves into the Financial Times’ 27th annual MBA rankings. They discuss the surprises and constants such as Wharton‘s consistent top position and Stanford’s absence due to a low alumni response rate, with Harvard‘s unexpected drop to its lowest rank ever.

The conversation highlights the implications of these rankings on MBA programs globally. John, Maria, and Caroline critique the methodology behind the rankings, pointing out the potential biases and the disproportionate weight given to international factors. They argue that such rankings may not fully capture the true essence and quality of the educational institutions, suggesting a broader view that considers multiple ranking systems and longitudinal data for a more accurate assessment.

Episode Transcript

[00:00:06.960] – John

Well, hello, everyone. This is John Byrne with Poets and Quants. Welcome to Business Casual. I’m with my co-host, Caroline Diarte-Edwards and Maria Wich-Vila. We are here with yet another ranking. Yes, indeed. The Financial Times published its 27th annual ranking this past week, and it’s just loaded with crazy things that we need to talk about. Let’s talk about what isn’t crazy first off the bat. Wharton repeats as the number one MBA program in the world, according to the Financial Times. If you look back over the course of the FTE’s rankings over 27 years, Wharton has actually been the big winner. They’ve won 13 times more than any other school. The second-place school, Harvard, has won seven times. Then Stanford, London Business School, and INSEAD of each one, top honors in this ranking three times. So the Wharton news is expected in a way. Here’s what’s shocking. You won’t find Stanford Graduate School of Business in the ranking at all. The reason because the FT says that not enough alumni at Stanford responded to their surveys, so they kicked Stanford out. Harvard Business School comes in at its lowest rank ever in the Financial Times. It’s 13th, tied with Cornell, which is a real head scratcher, of course.

[00:01:52.110] – John

There are a number of schools that did rather poorly. The Chicago Booth fell out of the top 10. It’s now 17th. It ranked 10th last year. Dartmouth Tuck dropped 8 places to rank 20th on the list. Yale School of Management fell nine spots to rank 24th. The University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business, which previously had a lot of rankings momentum, fell 17 places. It now ranked 50th. Only two years ago, Marshall was ranked 21st on the FT list. Then there are some big winners, obviously. The biggest top 10 winner this year is East Side A business school in Barcelona. It jumped nine places to rank eighth from 17th last year. Other notable climbers include SUFE in Shanghai, up nine spots to rank 12th from 21st, and IMD in Switzerland, which is up 14 positions to rank 22nd from 36th in 2024. Caroline, what do you make of this? Your beloved school now ranks below IESE in Spain.

[00:03:05.370] – Caroline

Well, it’s still in the top five, so I’m pleased to see that.

[00:03:09.930] – Maria

So it’s a great ranking.

[00:03:13.180] – Caroline

But no, honestly, it does look very topsy-turvy when you look at the list, and it clearly looks very biased against the US programs. You’ve got a lot of fantastic US programs that are pushed quite way down the and a lot of good international programs, but really more second-tier programs that are very close to the top. So I just think that people won’t give this much credence. It doesn’t look like a very valid methodology or a valid ranking. And when you dig into what is driving this, the ranking gives a lot of weight to international factors, which, of course, I appreciate coming coming from INSEAD and the value of an international education, but that is great for some candidates. It’s not what all candidates are looking for. So I think that those international dimensions are probably over-indexed here, and that is giving a big boost to the European schools. So we know that with the European schools, a lot of those candidates are coming from countries outside of the European Union or the European continent and may have been earning lower salaries pre-MBA, and they’re going to work in other countries post-MBA. So for example, there will be several students who are coming from India pre-MBA, going to study in Europe, and maybe working in London, for example, post-MBA.

[00:04:47.800] – Caroline

You would expect those students to see a big uplift in their salary, and that gives the school a big advantage in this ranking.

[00:04:56.630] – Maria

Yeah, I completely agree, Caroline. I think that the salary increases Maurice is a weird one insofar as it tends to penalize success. One of the best ways to get into a top business school on the front-end is to have had an incredibly successful career prior to applying to business school. As a result, the applicants to what we traditionally think of as the world’s top business schools tend to be entering business school already earning a six-figure salary, $100,000, $150,000 or more. Obviously, not every student is entering with that salary level, but a lot of them are. A lot of them from management consulting, a lot of them from the finance industry, which makes up a significant portion of the class in most business schools, and especially those in the US, like the Harvard’s and the Stanford’s and the Wharton’s. A lot of the incoming classes are already making a lot of money. So yes, they do make a lot of money on the tail end, but they came in already making money. To me, this metric or this emphasis upon what’s delta, what’s that percentage increase, is something that… It’s an interesting metric to provide for sure, but it may not necessarily be on its own an indicator of program quality because by definition, some of the most successful business school students in the world, they’re already successful before.

[00:06:20.960] – Maria

That’s what got them into the top business school in the first place. That metric is one that has always bothered me a little bit, and it does seem as though some of the top US programs and even some of the top European programs are not perhaps getting that recognition that they would otherwise be getting.

[00:06:41.470] – John

Yeah. And I should point out, six of the top 10 this year are European schools. After Wharton at number one, you have Columbia at number two, IESC business school in Barcelona, number three, INSEAD at number four, tied with Bucone in Milan at at number 4 as well. Then comes in the number six position, MIT Sloan, followed by London Business School, which is seventh, East Side A, which is eighth, Atchase Paris is ninth, and then Kellogg is 10. Now, I think that all of us would agree that if one were accepted to Harvard at 13th, which is below Seebes, most people would not go to any of the schools above it. That’s just a reality. What’s not counted is generally more important than what is counted. I always think there are a couple of stats that are never used in rankings that are extremely important and tell you a lot about the quality institution. Number one is yield. In other words, if you send an invitation to an applicant to attend program, what percentage of those applicants actually come? That’s a really good indication of the quality of a program or the perceived quality by the applicant pool.

[00:08:12.190] – John

No one uses that number in a ranking, even though I think it’s probably far more important than many of the 21 metrics that the Financial Times is using in its ranking. Another metric that I think is extremely important is evalment. Now, we don’t have the endowment spread across the students, divided by the number of students you have, gives you an indication of the resources that a school has to get the best faculty, to get the best students through scholarships to have the best facilities, the latest up-to-date technology, and basically, endowment per student would be an ideal metric in a ranking, and that there’s nowhere to be seen here. If you could measure the actual student experience and do it in a reasonable way, that would be really an incredible thing to have because after all, most people want a great experience, and the better the experience, the more likely it is you probably would attend an MBA program. That really isn’t measured in the sense. Even when you survey alumni or recently graduated students, you get the cheer leader effect, which prevents you from getting an honest view because everyone who fills out these surveys knows that their responses are reflected in a ranking that has something to say about the quality of the degree on your CV.

[00:09:49.770] – John

So people are less than honest in many of the answers that they provide. Caroline, any other thoughts about this ranking this year?

[00:10:00.060] – Caroline

Yeah, well, it is a bit of a head scratcher quite literally. And I think you make a good point about yield, because when candidates have choices between schools, I think it says a lot about where they go, right? And we know that, for example, in the US, Harvard Business School and Sanford Business School have the top yield. So that would suggest that they are the top schools, yet they are not the top schools in this particular ranking. And Just among our client pool, we do not often see people applying to Bocconi and Asade, for example, but we do have a lot of candidates who are applying to London Business School, to INSEAD, and also, for example, to Cambridge, which is 35 in its ranking. Ridiculous. It just doesn’t reflect reality. I think candidates are just going to dismiss the ranking. So unfortunately, I think it’s going reflect badly on the FT rather than badly on the schools.

[00:11:04.130] – John

Yeah, and Oxford is way down as well, along with Cambridge. And those two are really great MBA programs, interesting Intimate in world-class universities, top five universities overall. The interdisciplinary work and the collisions that MBA students have with scholars in every conceivable field at Oxford and Cambridge results in a magical educational experience, and yet they are not ranked very well at all in this ranking. The other thing I want to point out is Bocconi. Bocconi has been doing very well in this ranking in more recent years. I mean, far better than we think they deserve. Their incoming cohort is only 146 students. They They do have nice international diversity, although 21% are from Italy, 14% from Europe, excluding Italy. But it’s just no one would go to Bocconi over London Business School, INSEAD. Atchec Paris, IEC, or certainly any top 10 or 20 US business school. And yet here they are ranked way up in this ranking, basically tied with INSEAD in fourth place. I find that, to be frankly ridiculous and makes no sense whatsoever. Who would go to Bocconi over MIT, London Business School, Kellogg, Harvard, obviously, even though all of those programs are ranked below Bocconi.

[00:12:58.070] – John

Last year, Bocconi did well, too. They were ranked third. So this year, they’re ranked fourth in a tie with it in CIA. I just don’t believe it. I don’t think anyone who’s in the business believes it. So dear reader and dear listener, don’t you believe it because it ain’t true? That’s just no, it’s nonsense. A lot of the results are nonsensical, for God’s sake. But rankings are this way. They’re incredibly controversial. We all have a love and hate interventional chip with them. We’re also obsessed with them. But truth be told, this is just not an honest portrayal of the quality of the world’s best MBA programs. Maria, your take?

[00:13:47.640] – Maria

My take is the same. I agree. I think another element I would want to point out is just whenever there’s a ranking that has such massive fluctuations from year to year and schools will bounce up and down in very large numbers without some clearly identifiable reason for doing so, it does call the methodology into question. I think it makes it seem very capricious, and that level of capriciousness does make it seem a little bit less serious. One thing that is interesting is that I think you guys are reporting on not just what the current ranking is, but what it was a couple of years ago as well. You can look for yourself and see that, Oh, well, Harvard a few years ago was fourth, and now they’re 13th. Usc was 21st, and now they’re 50th. Asade was 30th, and now they’re eighth. Wow, these are pretty wild swings that really cannot be easily explained, I think, on a gut level. Maybe the numbers bear it out, but if the gut, it the gut instinct reaction that you have when you see some of these swings, it doesn’t really quite pass that test. While the numbers themselves, this might be what the numbers, in fact, spit out when they ran the calculations, there’s something about the methodology that is not quite meshing with what I think the market at large feels.

[00:15:19.560] – Maria

I agree with you, John.

[00:15:21.940] – John

Yeah. Not to pick on Bocconi, but I have them in my mind now. Five years ago, Bocconi was ranked 29th, and then this year, fourth, and last year, third. That’s a 25-place difference for one school. Believe me, there are even greater differences. For example, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics They went up 32 spots in the last five years. They were ranked 47th five years ago, and now they’re ranked 15th. I’m really incredibly suspicious of that because these big swings, you got to know that year to year, and even over several years, these programs don’t change all that much, and neither does the composition of the intake of students. When you see these big swings, it’s a reflection of, generally, a methodology that’s not truly capturing the quality of the institution in this sustained and reasonable way. Then you also might even question the gains that are played by schools and administrators to make their schools look good, given the metrics that the FT deploys to rank schools. Now, I’m going to just say I give the FT a lot of credit for auditing the results that they receive from the schools. Every few years, they have an auditor come in and just look over the numbers that are provided by the schools.

[00:17:00.820] – John

To my knowledge, they’re the only major ranking that actually does any due diligence on the numbers. That is not done at US News. It’s not done at Bloomberg Business Week. I give the FTE a lot of credit for that. This is a powerful ranking. I mean, it is the number one ranking for Europe and for Asia. It carries much less cache in the United States and North America. But everyone in Europe and Asia looks to this ranking, and it does impact applicant volume, and it’s important. It’s a shame that it’s as wacky as it is and as counterintuitive as it is. I mean, Harvard at 13th? My God, behind CEIBS, Duke, Kellogg, Attecer Paris, East Side A, Bocconi. I IASC. Now, come on. Who believes that? You know what the endowment is at Harvard Business School? It’s $5. 4 billion. That’s the current endowment at Harvard Business School. You know how much scholarship money Harvard gives out every year to MBAs? $47 million. This is a resource-rich school that hires the absolute world’s best faculty, gets the best students, places them in great jobs, has more CEOs and more successful entrepreneurs than any other school in the world.

[00:18:45.230] – John

The rank 13th? Mm-mm. Don’t believe it. That’s just one of many anomalies on the list. I’ll just say, Hey, this is fun and entertaining to look at, but man, don’t take this seriously. Don’t believe it. You got to do your own research and your own work to figure out what school is best for you. Certainly, don’t rely on the FT. I think we covered it, don’t you think, guys?

[00:19:22.610] – Maria

Please, we’ve done enough damage already. We’ll show a little mercy. We’ll lit them up off the mat at this point.

[00:19:31.310] – John

Indeed. There you have it. Check out our article. We’re digging deep into our analysis of the ranking, and we really pull it apart and tell you what makes sense, what doesn’t make Who move the most up and down? Why we have some problems with this ranking in detail. Then I always think the best way to look at rankings is, number one, don’t take one ranking and consider it as gospel. Look at a number of different rankings, which is what we do in our composite ranking every year. We’re in one glimpse, you can see where every school ranks on the five most important rankings that exist, period, and where there’s consensus, you can generally say, Okay, if there’s consensus across five different rankings, I can have greater faith in that result than any one ranking. Then the other important thing about rankings is to look at them over time, not in a single a year, because in any single year, there are going to be weird anomalies that pop up in this in every ranking. So looking over time gives you a more realistic view of the school’s position in this very hotly competitive landscape of business education.

[00:20:50.830] – John

This is John Byrne. Thank you to my co-host, Caroline Diarte Edwards and Maria Wich-Vila. And thank you for listening to Business Casual.

Business School News | General | P&Q Podcast "Business Casual"
The 2025 Financial Times MBA Ranking
Maria |
February 25, 2025

Video transcript, for you skimmers out there: 

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 M seven 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 [00:01:00] of, but wow, does that even matter? I mean, whew. Look at some of these numbers. $170,000. That is nothing to sneeze at, especially if it’s one and a half 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 two versus four, versus seven versus six . You know, like, there, there’s sort of [00:02:00] 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 five programs by the salary percentage increase, but now when I look at it by the weighted salary, right, the top five 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 [00:03:00] really, , the numbers would tell a slightly different story. So if you look at the weighted salary a few years out for the top five programs by salary,

we’re talking about a $70,000 a year difference, roughly 240 a year versus 170 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, yeah, 10%, that’s nothing. It’s, you know, nothing but 40% I do think is a pretty, I think 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 sixties before MBA versus, you know, one 10 something, [00:04:00] 1, 1 10, 1 15, 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, mm-hmm. 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 thes e 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. [00:05:00] 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 two years of their salary, 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 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 the people that are willing to give up those two years of salary, but also think about who the peer group is once someone is in the school.

Right? That means that if you are 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.

[00:06:00] 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, 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 two years you go there and it’s not just that first job you get out of school or that third job you have five years out of school.

it’s also who’s your network gonna be and, and who are you gonna 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.

[00:07:00] 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, 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 , [00:08:00] quote unquote highest quality programs. But what do you think? What did I miss? let me know. Thanks.

Maria

New around here? I’m an HBS graduate and a proud member (and former Board Member) of AIGAC. I considered opening a high-end boutique admissions consulting firm, but I wanted to make high-quality admissions advice accessible to all, so I “scaled myself” by creating ApplicantLab. ApplicantLab provides the SAME advice as high-end consultants at a much more affordable price. Read our rave reviews on GMATClub, and check out our free trial (no credit card required) today!