What If The U.S. Schools Walk From The Financial Times MBA Ranking?
ApplicantLab |
July 23, 2025

In a thought-provoking discussion, the Poets & Quants “Business Casual” podcast, with hosts John Byrne, Maria Wich-Vila, and guest Matt Simons, delves into a potential shift in the landscape of MBA rankings. The conversation centers around U.S. business schools possibly boycotting the Financial Times’ (FT) annual MBA ranking, a move reflecting broader tensions between ranking criteria and the evolving values within American business education.

Matt, filling in for Caroline Diarte Edwards, shares insights on how the FT’s ranking methodology, which emphasizes international diversity and sustainability metrics, may misalign with U.S. institutions’ priorities and legal frameworks. Historically dominated by American schools, the FT list has increasingly seen European and Asian programs take the lead. This trend has become more pronounced, with renowned institutions like Harvard and Stanford struggling to make the top ten, attributed partly to criteria conflicts and alumni response requirements.

The episode also explores legal and cultural shifts in the U.S. affecting MBA programs’ participation. High-profile schools might view the FT’s emphasis on gender parity and international factors as problematic, potentially leading to legal disputes in the current political climate. With UT Austin-McCombs and UVA Darden stepping back from certain partnerships, the discussion suggests a rising trend where U.S. schools might abandon global rankings altogether, prompting a re-evaluation of what such rankings truly mean for prospective applicants and the future of business education worldwide.

Episode Transcript

Note: This transcript was generated by AI and may contain minor inaccuracies.

[00:00:07] – John

Well, hello, everyone. This is John Byrne with Poets & Quants. Welcome to business Casual, our weekly podcast with my co-host, Maria Wigvilla, and we have a special co-host filling in for Caroline DRT Edwards, Matt Simons, my partner in CenterCourt, and a long-time watcher and player in the European field. Welcome, Matt.

[00:00:32] – Matt

Nice to be here, John. I’m sorry that Steven Butler couldn’t be here in my place.

[00:00:38] – John

Now, Matt, you recently wrote a rather provocative article that I want to talk about because you imagined a world in which no US business school would participate with the Financial Times in its annual MBA ranking. I can understand why that might be so. We had run a piece on how the cultural shifts in America now could legally bind a US school in terms of diversity and some of the metrics measured by the FTE, which Which, frankly, are out of pace with what’s going on in the US. Needless to say, the European and Asian schools have made a lot of progress in this ranking over time. Many US schools consider it biased toward non-US schools for a number of reasons, given the metrics in it. And if you look at the last top 10 list the FT put out, more than half the schools are not in the US. They are, in fact, in Europe. So why did you imagine that the US schools would completely abandon the Financial Times this coming year?

[00:01:56] – Matt

I’m not sure I’ve ever done anything to be provocative, John. She Peaky, perhaps, but not provocative. But you’re right. When the FT, when Dela Bradshaw conceived an FT business school ranking back in 1999, obviously, she was late to the game compared to what you’d already achieved. But she set out to produce an MBA ranking for the global manager of the 21st century. And as you know, it’s a methodology that had many international components as that reflected both the students, the faculty, even the board members, how that quite relates to the MBA program, I’m not sure. But over the last 20 years, we just looked at some of the numbers. 2005, you had 57 of the top 100 in the FTE MBA ranking that were US business schools, and they were fulfilling eight of the top 10 places. 20 years later, this year, there are 41 US business schools and only three, Wharton, Columbia, and MIT Sloan, that were in the top 10. Now, Stanford, quite markedly, was absent from that ranking. Harvard had slumped down to number 13, its lowest position. As you say, the Europeans and Asians have all become far more competitive, but I think it speaks to 22% of the FT methodology that looks at diversity, that looks at ESG and sustainability as it’s taught in the program, and even a carbon footprint of the campus.

[00:03:26] – Matt

And these are things that are increasingly delicate and perilous for the US schools. So perhaps the continuation of that trend now, being provocative, it was to say, what about if everybody, all the US business schools ghosted the FT in 2026, and suddenly you’ve got this deliciously unhinged result that sees five UK business schools in the top 25. The champagne already flows on the Fontainebleau campus of INSEAD. But suddenly, you might have 11 of the Indian Institutes of Management, the IIM. And as I said to you, does that make a new M11? But yeah, it’s certainly a trend. It’s heading that way. You could say, well, if there was just one US business school, then we all know what they would post on LinkedIn next year. We’re the number one US business school in the world. So I think we’ll see at least one taking part.

[00:04:23] – John

I mean, the other part of this is the fact that very prestigious schools, schools that, frankly, people would do anything to get into, like Harvard and Stanford do not do well in the FT ranking. In fact, Harvard couldn’t even make the top 10 this past year. Stanford didn’t appear at all, largely because they couldn’t satisfy the alumni response rate required by the FT. Back in early June, we ran a piece called the Financial Times MBA Ranking Now Encourages US Schools to Break the Law. While the FTE took issue with that, as you point out, one-fifth of the criteria for the ranking literally could be argued that it violates current US law, which is sad, but it is true the way things are going in the US right now. So you’d have more than an excuse not to participate. The FT gives credit to schools that are close to gender parity on female faculty, female students, women on the board, international faculty, international students, international board, and international mobility. All criteria that you could argue the Trump administration would basically sue over and have a sector Department of Justice on the FT if it were based in America, because that is exactly what it has done to schools that have any preferential policy policy based on these factors.

[00:06:02] – John

And in fact, the latest news is that UT Austin-McColems had walked away from its partnership with a consortium. Now, UVA Darden has done the same, and we would expect some other public schools to follow as well, which is really sad because the consortium has done great work in encouraging underprivileged and minority students to go to business school and to pursue business careers. Maria, what make of this? Do you think it’s possible that at least some of the US schools will say enough and walk from the FT?

[00:06:38] – Maria

Well, to the point that you just made, they might not have a choice. If they’re being asked to submit information about ESG or DEI or any of the other now out of favor alphabet soups, they simply might not be allowed to submit that information if they’re even continuing to track it officially. So they might actually end up being ineligible to submit. I think we have long talked about a fantasy land where a lot of the schools just band together and boycott the rankings altogether, demanding a ranking system that makes a little bit more sense and is less subject to whims and the capriciousness of whatever the waiting is in a given year. But yeah, I think it would be interesting because I think the financial times, Matt said earlier that he doesn’t like to be provocative, but I think the financial times likes to be provocative. I think that They enjoy coming up with some of these weightings that produce results that are very unexpected, the ESG, DEI being one piece of it. I think the other piece that really hurts the US business schools is that percentage increase in salary. So Yeah, even though Harvard and Stanford have these eye-wateringly high salary levels for graduates, the fact is that people who get accepted to those programs in the first place were usually making quite a bit of money before because they were successful.

[00:07:57] – Maria

Because to get into those business schools, you have to be successful when you’re entering the program as well. So that’s an odd… That’s one of those metrics that really actually punishes a school for letting in more successful students. So it has this inverse relationship, in my opinion, to actually determining a school’s quality. So I think it’s an interesting thought exercise, certainly. Definitely worth checking out and thinking through. But as Matt pointed out earlier, if even one US school breaks the as it were, then they will by default, be the number one US school in the Financial Times ranking. And wow, what a bonanza for the marketing team, right? So it would really require a level of self-discipline and trust for all the US schools to band together and boycott the rankings. But it would be an interesting time if that happened.

[00:08:52] – Matt

John, we’ve talked about schools gaming the system, and of course, you’ve actually testified in court for schools that have been being caught with a hand in the till. But I think the most common gaming that you’ve described is being selective with the rankings that you would participate in. Currently, Harvard Business School participates in all the rankings, whether or not they truly want to. And it didn’t prevent them getting near record volumes of applications last year to the full-time MBA program. So clearly, those bigger schools, the big brands, would perhaps feel quite immune to this. But I could see them picking and choosing among the three, four, five rankings that are out there.

[00:09:33] – John

It’s true. I remember the year where Bloomberg Business Week crowned Duke Fuqua, the number one MBA program, which obviously drew a lot of interesting comment because the Duke was over, obviously, Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, Columbia, MIT, Chicago, Kellogg, the usual suspects. When these These results appear and they’re unbelievable. I think they actually do more damage to the rankings credibility than anything else. Maria, don’t you think?

[00:10:10] – Maria

Sure. I mean, if the rankings go against what is intuitively true to the MBA ecosystem, then it does call it into question. Matt, just a second ago pointed out that Harvard has had… It certainly has not damaged the number of people applying to Harvard or Stanford. And the yields are also not only is the number of people applying very large and continues to be very strong, but the yield percentage is roughly 85 % for both Harvard and Stanford, in the high 50 %, almost 60 % for schools like Wharton and in Fuqua. So It’s not just even that they’re attracting more applicants, but the applicants that they are attracting truly want to go there. So I do think that this intuition that maybe these rankings or there’s something is a little off about them. I do think that are keen on that. They’re hip to it, as it were. And so they understand that something’s a little off with these FT rankings, and maybe I shouldn’t really use them as a true north or a true guiding principle about where I apply.

[00:11:13] – John

And Matt, you have to admit that Harvard ranked 13th, its lowest FT rank ever this year, doesn’t really mean much of anything to Harvard, and it wouldn’t mean much of anything to its graduates or the employers who gleefully hire HBS grads, right?

[00:11:35] – Matt

I think at some point the alums might feel that the school was being neglectful, or at least have the wherewithal to question, Is there a strategy? Are you prepared to just let the school slump. It’s not that it’s Kodak, and they’re all hoping to now work for NVIDIA. But it’s a school that expects great results, I’m sure, across the board. Certainly, the students have high expectations, and I think it builds into the personal brand. So ultimately, Harvard Business School continues to attract talent from across the world. But it wouldn’t surprise me if alumni reunions, the 5, 10, 25-year reunions, it’s, what’s happening at the school? Are we not performing or taking this seriously? So I think that still there is a discussion there to have. But I do like the idea that it would shake things up. We’ve always said, there’s no one best business school, but maybe the best business school for you. And as it at least encourages individuals to look perhaps more closely at schools. You mentioned Duke. What was that, 2014, when they crowned the business week ranking? I’m sure that Ames achieved and happy students at FUQUA, off the charts.

[00:12:49] – Matt

So the number one school for so many people. Whether the media can ever successfully capture that’s another story.

[00:12:57] – John

I think your article has real basis, in fact, because so many schools are really unhappy with this ranking in the US. So I mean, Harvard at 13th, tied with Cornell this past year, would give Harvard plenty of incentive to say, This is ridiculous. We’re not going to play anymore. Chicago Booth falling out of the top 10 and being ranked 17th from 10th the previous year. They have plenty of reason to walk away. Dartmouth Tuck, ranking 20th on the list. Yale fell nine spots to rank 24th, even behind schools in Singapore and even behind many schools that no one would ever place the Yale program at. And then you had USA SC’s Marshall School, which plunged 17 places to rank 50th. Two years ago, incidentally, the FT ranked the Marshall School MBA 21st. So that is one heck of a swing. 21 to 50 in two years, which also obviously reflects on the credibility of the list. So seriously, how many US schools do you predict? It’s an estimate. It’s a guess. We’ll walk from the FT ranking next year.

[00:14:20] – Matt

Well, every business school that you’ve referenced, if they have a law school or a med school, they’ve shaken things up with US news. And so perhaps as they look at their peers across the quad, the same discussion is taking place at business schools. It might not be that there are 41 that goes to the FT in the coming year, but I think if another three or four big names stepped away, then they’d have a credibility issue.

[00:14:48] – John

The other really interesting trend that’s going on right now, and this is also a function of the Trump administration, is that a quiet shift is underway. Europe is capturing the attention of American students in growing numbers, and there’s some new data out there that suggests the movement is far from structured than speculative. And I wonder what you think of that, Matt, since you were over there in Europe, are the European schools getting more attention from American students who, frankly, may want to escape the country?

[00:15:26] – Matt

Well, Emily came to Paris five years ago, and then to enter Rome, and there was a big spat between Macron and the Italians over that one. So over a few years, and perhaps with a change in the White House, US candidates. I’m not sure that we’re seeing it yet for the full-time MBA, certainly at Fortuna, as you know, with Caroline, and we have many former members of the LBS and an Inciate admissions team. I think this is probably more at the early career Master’s in Management level, which is the European flagship. And if you look at the job market for US graduates in the past 12 months, and certainly for all those coming out of school this summer, perhaps the idea of, well, why not head to Europe for some fun and some friendship already at the graduate school level, it’s where you see a lot more mobility compared perhaps to undergraduate choices. But yeah, Europe’s having a moment. I mean, it’s got world-class schools. And I think to come back to some of the earlier alphabet that Maria was describing, for those where it’s not just about the paycheck, but it’s about purpose, that themes of diversity and inclusion and sustainability, these are things that really matter to individuals.

[00:16:45] – Matt

And if they feel that they’re being fulfilled, INSEAD has revamped the entire core curriculum to have sustainability across everything. And who doesn’t want to come to London, Paris, Barcelona, and Milan? So, yeah, I I think European schools are going to have at least a very positive three, four years.

[00:17:04] – John

Maria, what do you think?

[00:17:06] – Maria

I agree. I think that the European schools, this is their moment to really grab, pick up this opportunity that the US has decided to abdicate its role as the leading destination for not just business education, but education in general. And so you don’t have to have an MBA and strategy to know that one of the first things you do one of your competitors drops a ball is you swoop in there and you grab that ball and you score as many goals as you can. So I think that the European programs are absolutely going to see a huge surge from US students, from students from the rest of the world, Because they have that good combination of the quality of life in Europe is excellent. The fees are not quite as high as they are in the US, so you don’t have to take on quite as much debt. And so net-net, it’s a pretty good deal, all things considered. And so I wouldn’t be surprised. I think that this shift may have been happening anyway, because you can’t spend more than a few minutes, at least I can’t, on social media without hearing or reading articles about even things like, Hey, the medicine system in Europe, you get a year, or you might get a year off for maternity leave and all these humane policies that we can’t even dream of in the US.

[00:18:25] – Maria

And so I think that knowledge or awareness of the European lifestyle has been increasing in recent years. And so this is just one more element that I think is going to drive Americans and non-Americans alike to start looking further afield. So I suspect this will continue.

[00:18:44] – John

And Matt raises a good point about values. I think this generation greatly values purpose and ideals and a keen interest in trying to do something to help with social issues, with climate change. Frankly, right now, the European schools are in a much better position to deliver on those values that align with many students in the US. In terms of sustainability, I mean, frankly, in the US, it’s been all but wiped out, along with DEI and ESG. We’re returning back to a 1950s model of what a company should do, which is basically earn profit for its investors. And we thought we had moved away from that more toward a stakeholder model in business goals. But the pendulum is swinging back, given the cultural shift in the US. If you want to read about this at the Poets and Quants, it’s called Europe Rising: US Student Interest in EU Business Program Surges Amid Domestic Shifts. And I just want to ask One last question about the Financial Times ranking. I mean, if the M7 schools as a collective group decided to walk, and after all, they all meet together, the deans of the M7 schools meet on a regular basis, along with the heads of admissions as well as the career management people.

[00:20:21] – John

It’s like a little private elite club, and they could meet and just say, You know what? This FT ranking is just BS. Us, and we’re going to walk from it in mass. It would be like the US not showing up for the World Olympics. So in other words, if the US isn’t there competing in the Olympics, what Olympics is it? All right, then. Well, thanks, Matt, and thanks, Maria. This is John Burn with Poncequoits. Thanks to all of you for listening.

P&Q Podcast "Business Casual"
What If The U.S. Schools Walk From The Financial Times MBA Ranking?
ApplicantLab |
July 23, 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.

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