2023 MBA Us News rankings have yale SOM over Columbia Business school?

Columbia MBA out of the M7? Yale SOM is at 7th place and Columbia at 8th??? How??

  1. Chicago - Booth

  2. U Penn - Wharton

  3. Northwestern - Kellogg 

  4. Standford - GSB

  5. Harvard - HBS

  6. MIT - Sloan

  7. Yale - SOM

  8. Columbia - CBS  ????????????


**Haas, Tuck, Ross are ranking higher than NYU - Stern? Stern is at 12th place pushed out of top 10!

 

Yeah it's weird

But who cares. Rankings are pointless and nobody other than maybe uninformed international students who associate it with the parent university picks Yale over Columbia for MBA

No shade to Yale, it's a good school.

Any ranking that doesn't put GSB and HBS 1/2 should immediately be invalidated

Also, M7 doesn't refer to top 7, it refers to the group of schools whose admissions people meet annually and share ideas etc. Just happened to be the top 7 schools in the rankings at the time. CBS would always be M7 even if they were ranked 50

 

Yeah! I think US News purposely screw some of the rankings so people talk about it.

Yeah, at the time I think the deans of the top 7 MBA programs had an annual get together to talk about admissions/business. It's still hapenning, but to put Yale over Columbia is pretty confusing. Isn't YALE - SOM like one of the newest MBA programs out there? How is it already top 7 this year? Yale undergrad is great, it's MBA is good as well, but in my opinion it isn't M7! I know a lot of people would take ROSS/STERN over Yale SOM. Suprised it's actually that high. 

 

I've heard good things about SOM and in terms of it vs. Ross/Stern I think it depends on what you're looking for. I think putting it above Columbia or Haas is a pretty big stretch. But it is a good school, no denying that. I just don't know of anyone who would choose to go there over the aforementioned schools unless there was significant money/scholarship considerations.

Same way I don't know why anyone would pick Booth or Kellogg over HBS or GSB all else equal like the rankings would make you think. 

All this is to reiterate that rankings are dumb.

 

But the reason why peopel originally thought H/S should be 1/2 is because... they were ranked 1/2 back in the 90s, so somewhat circular reasoning? So basically what once was should always be, and nothing should ever change? But I do agree as of this moment in time, H/S should be 1/2

 

I mean, we could get into the "chicken and egg" argument over this. But I think stepping outside rankings, looking at the underlying quality of the people there and the exits you typically see is pretty eye opening and a much better gauge of quality. And while the rankings may reinforce this to some extent, I think this was true before rankings were a thing.

Kind of a side note, but as someone who is currently attending a non-H/S M7, it's ironic to me that for how much people think M7s are the best, 80-90% of the class is pretty underwhelming in terms of experience.... it basically feels like I'm attending with a gazillion international students who are sponsored by MBB, with the balance being a bunch of domestic students who are former Big 4 audit/consulting and people who held non-core roles (marketing) at various companies. Not saying I'm any more impressive than any of them but that's just the reality. And while there are differences depending on your recruiting objectives I have trouble saying that any M7 is better than another (outside of H/S, and to a much lesser extent W) so the "rankings are dumb" thing definitely feels true for those.

All that is to say that my perception of H/S students is that their pre-MBA backgrounds are much more impressive overall, and then looking at the recruiting opportunities and outcomes for roles at top VC/PE/HFs it's night and day. Then you can get into the proportion of people who want consulting that they send to MBB vs. other schools, and track record of alumni starting and/or running billion dollar companies. You don't need to look at a ranking to know that they're just generally better schools than the rest. And given the fact that the boomers who went to both schools in the 70s-90s before rankings were a thing are now at the top of the business world, I suspect the same was true before the rankings.

 

Apart of it is probably stupid factors like how woke the school is and stuff like that

 

I think rankings are fine. It's there so that people can talk about them.

I also think any top 20 MBA program have about the same quality of education. The difference comes down to the exit opportunities after graduation, alumni, professor and the school's overall brand/network. Sometimes if someone isn't hard pressed on high finance like PE/VC/HF, going to the best ranking school with the most amount of scholarships is the sure way to go. Saving money is super important! It all depends on what someone is recruiting for. If someone just wants to climb the rank and get a better job then they should consider the school with the most money given. 

Any top 25 MBA i think is pretty respected in most fields. Those who want PE/VC/HF should definitely go to HBS/GSB/WHARTON though. The connections and opportunities at those schools are superior to other programs and even then it is so competitive there is no gauarantee someone will break in without prior work experience.

 
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As a non H/S M7 graduate, my general opinion is that the rankings are really Stanford and Harvard at the top, with Stanford being a clear number 1. Wharton is slightly ahead of the rest of the M7/T10, but really only for breadth of network and some select finance roles. The rest of the M7 are honestly similar in terms of study body. The difference is really in regional power, how classes/curriculum are structured, and to a small extent the "focus" of the school. The T10-T20, I think of as being even more regionally or specific industry focused, with some, but not as broad of access to the "top" jobs such as top tech, BB/EB, MBB, etc. To unpack my comments about the rankings:

Stanford has a very small class size relative to H/W and as someone who has meticulously reviewed the entire resume book for GSB, I can say with certainty that 80%+ of the students are very accomplished. We're talking a mix of traditional high powered careers, unique foreign roles, great leadership and ECs, just the all around very high achieving group. There are always a few legacy and/or normal candidates, but the general populous is quite accomplished. The proximity to tech and the Bay Area has also really helped them and they graduate the most unicorn founder by significant margin compared to other schools.

Harvard has the name, legacy, and network, which for an MBA is most of the battle, but honestly, from conversations/interactions with students and a look at the resumes of all the students (I had to do a recruiting project a while back, looked at the resume books of all the top MBA programs), HBS is much more of a mixed bag of students. I'd say 1/4 of them look like Stanford students, so top resumes, great backgrounds, great socres, etc. But a majority are honestly very pedestrian. I'm talking, Semi Target School, 4/5 years at Deloitte, HBS. Or non target state school, 5 years at GE, HBS. HBS has such a large student body, they cater to a lot of different groups and also cater to a lot more legacy industries. This is especially true if you're a minority. Not to be inflammatory, but I saw a lot of very average female candidates that had the profile I mentioned above, and they were admitted to HBS. HBS is also very structured with its case method and high frequency of class, which I think is more of and old school teaching style.

Wharton is a great school, same type of profile as HBS, big, some very accomplished students, a lot of average business students, a little more modern in its teaching approach as in, they are more creative with lab classes, new classes, etc. Much more of a finance-y vibe though and a little more party hard and intense. A lot of H/S rejects, especially among the Finance cohort. Otherwise pretty good placement all around. 

From here I kind of bucket Booth/Kellogg/MIT as similar-ish schools. Kellogg and Booth out rank MIT pretty consistently, but that doesn't really matter. Booth is obviously finance focused, very open curriculum and experience, which is good for some and bad for others. Very free market in approach to things. Like Wharton, has been more modern and creative with teaching approaches and experiential learning. Strong in the midwest, but lacks some access to top finance roles that HSW have access to. Consulting and banking recruiting is very strong, tech is ok.

Kellogg is the "softer skills" version of Booth, which is partially true, but there's not as big of a gap as one would think. It's not like everyone at Booth is a quant and everyone at Kellogg is a marketer. Kellogg is more of a cohesive campus feel up in Evanston, you have cohort focused learning for I believe the whole first year, and tech and consulting. are the stronger suits. Also good with lab classes, internships during the year, etc. 

MIT is going to be smaller and tech focused. A little less social than a Kellogg/Booth. Can place decently into industries as well, but there's fewer people so less volume in general.

Columbia has been beat on for years and I see it as a great option for New York focused roles and perhaps Asset Management, but likely weaker in most other areas versus the schools listed above.

There's too many schools to go into detail about for the rest of the T10/20 but what I've heard is that the farther down you go the more you start to focus bot regionally on roles, on F500 type of roles, and for lower tier consulting firms. So while Fuqua has a decent chance at MBB/Banking it would be tougher coming from CMU.

At the end of the day, most students at M7/T10 business schools look largely the same. There is a top group of very accomplished students at both Stanford and Harvard, but beyond that, most folks kind of look the same and could probably cross shop from Wharton down to ... whatever you deem is the cutoff on the Top 10, so Tuck or SOM. Unless you're seeking a top PE/VC/HF/AM type of firm, most schools in the T10 will give you just as good of a shot at MBB/Banking/Tech with some minor nuance between the schools.

That's all just my opinion though, I'm sure some folks will disagree.

 

Nice post! At what point would you not consider getting an MBA? Would it be M7/Top 10 or bust for you? Would you go to a school like UNC or a top 25? 

Assumming someone is just trying to advance in their career how should they go about choosing which MBA to attend? For me, I think any school top 25 MBA is worth it and people should go to one that gives the most money if they simply just want an MBA to their name. Others might disagree though. What do you think?

 

Completely depends on your goals. If you have an Ivy league undergrad degree and have done 2 years of banking and 2 at a MF, then going back for anything other than H/S probably doesn't make much sense.

If you're a former Teach for America teacher and want to work in a corporate role, make a six figure salary, but only work a 9-5 job, any T20 or so school will help you rebrand and get a good job somewhere in corporate America.

Generally the better the school, the more options you'll have. Personally, for me I wasn't H/S or bust, but I was M7/T10 or bust. I left my prior role as a VP in PE and wanted to explore other career options but keep an avenue open to PE, but mostly in the MM. I knew H/S were likely out of reach given my background, but going to a school too far outside of the T10, would limit my chances to find good buyside roles. I also knew if i wanted to stay in finance and the buyside, that a stronger B school name would help me. 

If I had wanted to switch to consulting or do LDPs, then I could have been more open a broader variety of schools. 

At the end of the day, it's a personal decision, comes down to what type of background you have, what you want do use the MBA for, what you want to do after the MBA, and where you are in your life. If you have a family and know you want to do North Carolina based MBB consulting, Duke might actually be a better option than Kellogg, especially if it's cheaper. People get really hung up on stuff like Yale vs Berkeley or Columbia vs Booth, at the end of the day, they're all very similar. It just comes down to the nuance between the schools, where you'll fit best, and what school aligns best with your goals.

 

Everything Harvey Specter said up above is 100% true.  The only thing I’d add/clarify is that in 99.8% of cases the hiring companies care more about your pre-mba background than your school (for non banking/consulting roles).  Your school might open a door if that company recruits on campus, but you’re probably not getting a product management role without CS experience, you’re going to have a hard time doing asset management without prior finance/research experience, same thing with PE/VC, same thing with niche F500 roles, etc.  These places don’t care nearly as much as you’d think about the name of the school - they have 1000’s of applicants across the top 10-15 schools with the background they’re looking for and it’s an uphill battle if that’s not you. 
- not an analyst

edit: anecdotally, I noticed that the people with name brand undergrads and work experience seemed to do better at the more desirable banks than others too.  This doesn’t apply to women who banks were basically falling over themselves to hire

 

Agree! But for someone who let's say wants a career change and just wants a typical 9 to 5 corporate gig I think most top 25 MBA programs will allow them to do that successfully. Or someone who wants like a leadership development program or some sorts they will be ok within the top 20 for sure. Top 25 maybe a little of a stretch for some people, but I think outside of top 25 it's not worth going to get an MBA. That's my own opinion though. 

 

Agreed for the most part.  Places like Ohio State (top 40) still have average salaries of like 100k+ after graduation though so still might be worth it depending on the person and goals.  Agreed with the LDP part though.

 

Haas, Tuck and Ross have always been better at Stern for an MBA? I'm not sure why you're so shocked, I don't think they were Top 10 for a while...

 

I don't think Tuck/Ross has ever been the absolute go to school over Stern. It all comes down to personal preference. Stern is more than well respected and located in NYC. Its alumni are well represented on wall street and various high places in finance. Tuck on the other hand is in Hanover which location wise can be a deal breaker for a lot of people. Ross and Stern are considered pretty equal to my knowledge. Haas is west coast so it's a little different if someone wants to work on the west coast. Great school though! Most of the time schools outside of the M7 comes down to personal fit and preference. Most people wouldn't go to Haas for east coast placements. It's a great school, but it wouldn't make most sense for people. 

 

Bouncing back on this tread as your various points of view are very interesting for an international student like me (from Europe, currently located in the UK). Would you say that for an international (with a kid…) looking to relocate in the US and willing to work in IBD, an MBA would worth it? Currently at a top Real Estate PE fund (working only at asset level and would like to do corporate stuff deals) but don't have much money on the side. I would need consequent help to not be overwhelmed by debt. Any input appreciated.

 

I am too inexperienced to comment on that. Maybe  can be of better help.

But base on what I know, I think if you want to break into IB, especially in the U.S. you will need a story to why you are doing that and why you want IB. I assume you are in your 30's with a kid and in this industry I know age can be a huge deal breaker for a lot of these employers. It shouldn't be, but that is just how it is though.

Also, do you really want this? You will be grinding and working with like 22/25 year olds everyday for 80 to 100 hours a week. This is brutal hours for someone that has a kid.

Also, factoring the cost of an MBA in the U.S. it's easily like $150k+ just based on tuition/books assuming no scholarships at all, not even accounting for cost of living such as rent, food, and other necessities. 

I think if you answer yes to all those then perhaps an MBA in the UK is a better option? I don't know though. I know LSE, LBS, and Oxford are very well respected schools in the UK. They do place very well into IB over there, but they rarely place any of their MBA post-grads in the U.S. Most placements are in UK.

If you are hard set on U.S. IB, then it's going to be a different scenario. You most likely have to get an MBA here in the U.S. from a top 10 and grind. Hopefully someone can chime in and help out more. 

 

The last thing I would say is do IB if this is what you want! If you are passionate about this. Forget about the money, prestige, and all that stuff. Is this what you really want deep down?

You will be doing 80 to 100 hour weeks with people who are worked to the bone. You will be exhausted. You will be really tired looking at excel and powerpoints everyday. You will have to deal with client meetings. You will have to pitch deals. This profession has been glamorized on TV/Movies but it isn't close to what people think it is.

This is real stressful and tiring work. If you were to do all this and break in just to leave 2 years later because it's too much, would you regret it?

Very few people stay in IB forever. I think it is very important to think about your end game. What is your end goal. Some food for thought before you make that decision. 

 

Hi, many thanks for taking the time to answer! Bouncing back on several points you touched base on, I am already working c.80h a week at my current company despite having my kid… the VP is always feeling insecure and eager to work a lot even when we don’t have an important deal flow. However, not sure how many years I will be able to keep that pace, as I am working on most weekends. For now, I am feeling good.

Regarding your second point, I should be 29 by the time I will matriculate as a 1st year MBA (If I apply and got selected of course). Is is still unrealistic to be associate at 30/31 in a BB?

Also, would you recommend any other way to get a visa to stay in the US? I am dead set to stay in the country for various reasons, and I believe M&A teams are eager to sponsor international applicants. For context, as I am already working in Real Estate Private Equity, I intend to apply either at BB/EB Real Estate teams, or better REPE firms (plan B). Plan C would be to apply to large corporate having corporate Real Estate teams to expand their capacity such as Starbucks, Amazon or Apple/Facebook etc.

 

US News is the most fucked up thing to come out in the last few decades. I genuinely think they should go back to their old rankings where they rank the top 10 colleges, and then put everyone else in the same buckets (15-25; 25-40; 40-75, and so on). This was their modus operandi in the 80s. 

US News knows that they have to "spice" things up, otherwise they wouldn't be relevant. And so they do that by putting a finger up their asses and changing shit on the margin each year. If they publish the same rankings year after year nobody would be checking them.     

 

LOL! That is exactly the point. They do that every year so everyone checks their rankings and talks about it. That's how they stay relevant.

Honestly speaking, for someone who wants a normal job out of college there is no such thing as a target college for them. If they just want a 9 to 5 job and climb the ranks most colleges ranked from 1 to 200 nationally would allow them to do that.

The only schools people shouldn't ever consider are those for-profit colleges. Other then that it's game for most people. 

 

Most of you are too young to remember this, but I started reading WSO in 2007 - and that was around the same time I started looking into MBA rankings.

The rankings themselves are simply products peddled by a media company, but they do influence actual perception: perception changes very slowly - but it DOES change.  

Media companies are always balancing the fine line between publishing a ranking that resembles broad perception enough to be credible, but differs enough to be clickworthy.  That's it.  USNews always managed to be the most senior ranking even though the parent publication is a joke in the business community (compared to BusinessWeek, the FT, Forbes, The Economist, etc) - because its ranking is the most conservative, ie) most closely resembles broad perception. 

At some level, all stakeholders know that, even if they can't consciously verbalize it, so when some magazine does a crazy switcheroo and boosts a certain school 15 spots on the ranking, or places HBS 8th, we discount that.

But if enough different media companies consistently move certain schools in the same direction year after year, that WILL, very slowly, then, over a long enough period of time, perceptions will change.

So, what's changed in the last 15 years?  Not much, but:

  • Back then, HSW was much more of a thing than it is now.  Let me explain: the three were largely considered to be on more equal footing, and the moniker was properly ordinal.  Yes, there were folks saying that Stanford was surpassing Harvard and that Wharton was starting to be a half-rung below the other two, but not nearly as much as now.  HBS was the best, with a debate around Stanford, and Wharton was the third amongst equals.  Compare that to now, where people still type H/S, but clarify they mean S/H, and that Wharton is definitely below those two, but probably still above the rest of the M7
  • The rest of the M7 were at a broad four-way tie in the rankings: there were very few differences between them.  There was no real consensus about any of them being a shoo-in at number 4 and a true challenger to Wharton: Booth = Kellogg = Sloan > CBS.  CBS was always the ugly duckling of the M7 because it's the school that coined the term: socially, the last member who gets their foot in the door is usually the loudest about their membership.  But it was still a four-way tie.  Booth didn't have the halo effect it now does, Kellogg was taken less seriously outside Marketing, and Sloan was considered a little quirky/offbeat/somehow-prestigious-but-not-quite-truly-a-real-elite-MBA.  Obviously that's changed.  CBS is now largely unable to finish in the top 7 in almost any ranking (but will always have a floor, due to the Ivy + NYC factors), while Sloan has grown in stature, Kellogg has raised money and a shiny new buliding, and Booth is clearly the contender for 4th.  People love to argue whether Booth really is challenging Wharton or if it's still a Kellogg/Sloan peer, but 15 years ago, this wasn't even on the table as a discussion - now it is.  Slow change over time.
  • Tuck was generally considered the equal of the non-HSW M7s; it just wasn't formally part of the club, but it was the Elite Eighth.  Haas and Stern were generally considered East and West mirror images, with the rest of the Sweet 16 being solid and respected schools, just lacking stardust.  Now, Tuck has been struggling while Haas has grown and Stern has fallen, so it's really more like Haas is now CBS's West Coast counterpart institutionally, and Tuck is Haas's counterpart culturally.   
  • Yale was at the BOTTOM of the Sweet 16.  In fact, it was considered a challenger brand even within that bracket.  No one really took it seriously.  However, everyone knew the gameplan Yale was following: climb US News by optimizing admission around and yield and high GMAT, improve placement at bread-and-butter employers like IB and consulting, raise money, and play the Non-Profit card to be known for something.  Back then, the lunatic fringe argued that Yale would, in the fullness of time, join the M7.  It was dismissed as balderdash, but I distinctly remember comments saying: "Columbia should be very, very worried: they themselves did their own version of Yale's playbook to climb the rankings (in the 80's they were as low as 14th), but Yale's got a stronger parent brand, and is close enough to NYC to nullify the recruiter location advantage."  The fullness of time has proven those people right: Columbia has lacked the weapons to defend itself from Yale's climb, and they are increasingly competing in the same spaces.

So, overall, not much has changed, but individually minuscule and largely risible/easily-dismissed ranking changes, easily discounted in isolation, tend to add up over time into small but clearly discernible changes in perception.  The main stories are really that there has been movement within tiers that now creates friction at the edges between tiers, and Yale is one of those stories:

  • Yale SOM went from a bottom Sweet 16 player to one of the tier leaders, and, along with Haas and Tuck, is a challenge for Columbia;
  • Columbia's slide continues.  It will never implode - has too many assets and strengths - but the loftiest aspiration from even its most ardent defenders is: "it's just as good as non-HSW M7", while there are numerous voices saying it's clearly in the Tuck/Haas tier, and now, even Yale SOM.
  • Booth, Kellogg and Sloan have all crafted solid brands and shored up their weaknesses.  Sloan is a real MBA, well-regarded across all industries, and not just an afterthought bastard stepchild at the Western world's greatest engineering university.  Kellogg is still the soft-skills marketing school, but they're solid across the board, including finance.  Booth is still the finance/analytical/free-market economics school, but is now much more modern/hip than it is nerdy/miserable.  These three all compete primarily with each other, but the only one that is also regularly pit against Wharton is Booth.  
  • The shift within HSW: from being an ordinal moniker of broadly-equal caliber schools, the general consensus now is that it's S/H, and then W.
  • Sandy Kreisberg said it best: about 15 schools call themselves top 10.  It's really a handful of schools claiming the 10th spot, because the top 9 are clear to everyone.  The difference is that in 2007, Stern was the 10th school.  Now it's Yale.

15 from years now, probably not much will change, but who knows - maybe it'll be Yale SOM that's being regularly pit against Wharton instead of Booth. I doubt it, but I was also a doubter back in 2007-2009 that Yale SOM would be able to challenge Columbia. 

The truth is you're the weak. And I'm the tyranny of evil men. But I'm tryin', Ringo. I'm tryin' real hard to be the shepherd.
 

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