The Economist’s 2010 B-school rankings and what it means to me?

The 2010 MBA rankings by The Economist has the US schools back at the top in big time. The Economist reports that US schools are in ascendancy and that the European schools have taken a beating. The Economist places significant weight, more than 50%, on employment statistics at graduation and it is no surprise that the European schools fared badly given the extremely bad economic scenario last year. There are some major changes in the rankings this year with Tepper, Marshall & MIT Sloan being some of the top beneficiaries while LBS, INSED & IESE are some of the ones dropping down. The magazine agrees that this time there has been some substantial overhaul, in its words “This time around, however, swings have been wilder”.

What does this mean to me? Well the best part is that I have one more school in the top 10 as compared to last year’s rankings. But there could be a flip side to it as well, better ranking might mean more applications and that definitely adds to the competition. Then again, someone who is solely driven by these rankings will not be prepared to apply until R2 so if I can focus on my apps I need not bother. In any case, I think I should not bother! The rankings are good, but that’s it they are just rankings. I should just get back to my essays and not get distracted.

Here is a related article from Poets & Quants; it has a very good analysis of the changes in this year’s ranking.