The disappearance of the EMBA-Global suite, the joint Columbia/HKU/LBS degrees ranked fourth and eighth worldwide last year, is just one major difference in the most recent FT ranking. Columbia Business School's own EMBA, ranked 34th last year, also left the ranking. Columbia was recently found to have mis-stated data supplied to rankings bodies. https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2022/09/11/columbia-university-admits-submitting-inaccurate-data-for-last-years-us-news-rankings/



Other schools most likely left the ranking over small sample sizes: 10th place Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Korea University Business School, number 20, also lost their places. 59th-placed University of Georgia (Terry) and Zhejiang University School of Management, at 65, were also removed. More surprising were the University of California at Irvine losing its place, the Merage school has been advancing on other fronts, the University of Pittsburgh, Rice University and Lingnan.



A more strategic disappearance is the OneMBA, the ambitious global MBA cofounded in 2002 by UNC Kenan Flager and Erasmus RSM. Both have pulled out, leaving long-term partners EGADE and FGV with Miami and Xiamen universities. 



Less surprising removals were Vanderbilt University, perhaps because of modest salaries, Grenoble Ecole de Management and Sabanci Business School.

PS The OneMBA programme pages on the EGADE and Xiamen web pages are offline, suggesting that the program will wind up. 

[Edited by Duncan on Oct 23, 2022]

Conclusion: rankings should be be taken with a grain of salt :)

Well, I'd say that the fact that schools get dropped from rankings if they fake data, don't have significant data volumes or have poor outcomes means that you can take the FT rankings more seriously than others.

110% in agreement. Focus on your goals and where you want to live after you finish. The rest is much less important.

When I was shortlisting business schools the ranking played an important part for the initial selection but it wasn’t the only factor.
I also considered:
Level of courtesy and professionalism of their communications (an indicator of culture) 
The % of international students (I wanted to widen my network beyond the UK)
Teaching and assessment methods
Choice of electives

These were important to me and each applicant will have their own priorities. 

[Edited by MBA podcaster on Jan 11, 2023]