Financial Times Ranking of B schools


OK...Not good news for all those folks who strongly believe in B school rankings!

The Financial Times published their 2006 Global MBA Rankings for the top 100 full time MBA programs and this year,Queen's has been ranked 87th, down from 75th in 2005.

The data for this ranking was gathered from qualifying business schools and also from their alumni of three years. The number of alumni respondents is higher than last year, with responses from 8,300 eligible alumni (36 per
cent of all the questionnaires e-mailed to MBA alumni). This data spanning 21 categories aims to expose three main areas: the alumni's career development and purchasing power; the diversity of the school and its program; and each school's research capabilities.

The Businessweek had ranked Queen's as No 1 Intl B school and Financial times(FT) ranks it so low.Wondering why?

For the FT rankings , it is important to keep in mind that salary measures account for 40% of the ranking — 20% for weighted salary (salary upon entering an MBA program) and 20% for salary percentage increase (calculated from the beginning of the MBA to three years after graduation).

We also need to remember that other schools admit students with much less work experience —and therefore a much lower pre-MBA salary — than QSB, they have a distinct advantage in this portion of the ranking.BusinessWeek measures the satisfaction of graduates and the companies that hire them, and does not consider salary information.So, Queen's scores very high on these parameters and thus tops the BWeek rankings.

In total this year's top 100 global business schools includes 57 US schools, 27 European, seven Canadian, two from Australia, two from China, and three from Central and South America. Singapore and South Africa are also represented.