Global MBA Rankings 2018 - QS vs Bloomberg Businessweek

The QS Global MBA Rankings 2018 are the most in-depth, evolved and robust rankings we have ever complied. We believe that they provide students with an essential tool to compare and contrast the best MBA programs across the globe.

However, we also recognize that no single ranking can provide a full overview of a school or the programs that they offer. As such, it is vital to compare the established rankings on the market, in the same way that you would compare the business schools that are included on each one.

By understanding the methodologies behind each ranking, applicants can search schools based on what is most important to them.

With Bloomberg Businessweek’s Best International Business Schools 2017 unreleased at the time of writing, this piece restricts itself to a like-for-like comparison with the US-specific Best Business Schools ranking. The overall QS Global MBA Rankings 2018 position of the school is included in parenthesis.

How do the QS Global MBA Rankings compare with the Bloomberg Businessweek Best Business Schools 2017?

Something that both rankings agree on is that Harvard Business School offers the best MBA program this year.

In fact, it is the third year running that Harvard Business School tops Bloomberg Businessweek’s annual ranking of top MBA programs in the US.

Further down the top 10 however, there are a number of discrepancies. Most notable of these is Bloomberg Businessweek’s decision to rank the Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University as the 10^th best MBA program in the US. While there is little doubt that the MBA program at Jones Graduate School of Business is of high quality, its positioning at the expense of Yale School of Management, UC Berkeley Haas or Michigan Ross is certainly eye-catching. In the QS Global MBA Rankings 2018 the program is the 38^th in the US. For context, the school ranks 29^th in the U.S. News & World Report Best Business Schools Rankings 2018 (also US-specific).

How does the QS Global MBA Rankings 2018 methodology compare with Bloomberg Businessweek Best Business Schools 2017?

Learn more about the QS Global MBA Rankings 2018 methodology.

What does the Bloomberg Businessweek Best Business Schools 2017 concentrate on? 

QS CEO, Nunzio Quacquarelli, highlights the fact that, “The Businessweek ranking places an emphasis on employability, which is fundamental to most MBA applicants.” While this is a major positive, the way in which data is gathered, and used, causes issues which we shall come onto shortly.

The Businessweek rankings are complied, in part, using an employer survey (35% of total) completed by 686 recruiters, an alumni survey (30% of total) completed by around 10,000 students who graduated between 2009-2011, and a student survey (15% of total) that gathered 9,461 responses from graduates in the class of 2017. 

What are the negatives of the Bloomberg Businessweek Best Business Schools 2017? 

What should be one of the biggest strengths of the Bloomberg Businessweek Best Business Schools 2017 ranking, actually turns out to be one of its major weaknesses. According to Quacquarelli, “The major limitation is the employer survey sample, which covers only a few hundred employers, most of which are based in the US. The ranking is therefore not very helpful for candidates seeking to study or work outside the US.”

In contrast, the QS Global Employer Survey that forms part of the QS Global MBA Rankings 2018 has collected 158,000 responses between 2012-2017, with more recent responses holding a greater weighting.

Additionally, the Bloomberg ranking looks at how many MBAs are hired from each school. This greatly favours schools with larger class sizes. The Bloomberg Businessweek Best Business Schools 2017 also relies on a significant amount of data collected from students and alumni. As with any ranking that relies on student and alumni surveys, there is always a danger that responses will be embellished, or exaggerated to improve the ranking of an individual’s respective school.