Economist MBA Rankings for 2010

Recently The Economist released the 2010 edition of its global business school rankings. As the editors of The Economist noted in their introduction to this year's rankings, "Usually, schools move up or down just a few places year on year. This time around, however, swings have been wilder."

Why the big changes? Blame the global economy. Digging deeper into The Economist's rankings methodology, you'll see that the "Open new career opportunities" and "Increase salary" categories together make up more than half of the overall score a school earns. Naturally, as the rough economy meant that some schools had an especially hard time placing grads in high-paying jobs (or, in some cases, in any jobs at all), those programs took a hit in the rankings.

Without further ado, here are the top 20 schools in the rankings:

The Economist Business School Rankings - 2010

1. University of Chicago - Booth School of Business


2. Dartmouth College - Tuck School of Business


3. University of California at Berkeley - Haas School of Business


4. Harvard Business School


5. IESE Business School - University of Navarra


6. IMD - International Institute for Management Development


7. Stanford Graduate School of Business


8. University of Pennsylvania - Wharton School


9. HEC School of Management, Paris


10. York University - Schulich School of Business


11. University of Virginia - Darden Graduate School of Business


12. Columbia Business School


13. Massachusetts Institute of Technology - MIT Sloan School of Management


14. New York University - Leonard N Stern School of Business


15. Cranfield School of Management


16. Northwestern University - Kellogg School of Management


17. Henley Business School


18. University of Southern California - Marshall School of Business


19. London Business School


20. ESADE Business School

How to Use These Rankings
When you start researching your target MBA programs, of course it make sense to pay to the rankings. Simply by existing, the rankings influence other applicants, employers, faculty members, and other key people. However, trying to discern which is better of two programs when one program is ranked higher by U.S. News and the other ranks higher in The Economist's rankings... Well, that's not really the point. Use the rankings to help yourself get a feel for the "lay of the land," to determine what level of program competitiveness you might have a shot at, and to spot programs with specific strengths you might otherwise have missed. Then, do your own research (our free Annual Reports can help you a great deal here) and decide what programs fit you best.

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