As the ranking comes out this month, any predictions?

https://www.ft.com/mba-ranking-preview

It seems that Asian BS will do better, while US will go down a bit

I don't know if US schools will drop substantially. Remember, the surveys are based on graduates three years out so that would meant the class of 2015, when things were on the upswing, and all these new issues associated with Trump were on the horizon.

The bit about Canadian schools is interesting: In 2001, there were 9 Canadian b-schools in the ranking - now there are only three, and they've all been dropping in position for the past several years. I wonder if Queen's and/or McGill will drop off this year? McGill dropped off last year.

These Canadian schools are doing extremely well. The Financial Times ranking is now only worshiped by British schools on the verge of bankruptcy and other emerging programs from South America, Africa and Asia.

American schools are on their own league to give the Brit paper a damn.

The FT is doing themselves and all their loyal readers disservice as their outdated and biased ranking does not justice to many wonderful programs around the world such as Canadian programs

Donho, considering that the data are audited by KPMG could you say how there is bias? Surely you also see the low salaries for Canada's MBA graduates?

Disclaimer: I don't have proof or source for the things below, only rumor

I have heard about universities instructing their graduates how to answer the surveys to inflate salaries and employment statistics, claiming that if the university ranks well, it is good for the graduate (it is)

I can see how both the graduates and the universities would want that. So it may be true (or not). It is a flaw in the ranking system when you survey people invested in the interests of their school for their statistics. Basically: humans may lie

However, I really can't see a conspiracy to lower Canadian schools specifically, or any other country for that matter

[Edited by George Patsoulis on Jan 17, 2018]

I have heard about universities instructing their graduates how to answer the surveys to inflate salaries and employment statistics, claiming that if the university ranks well, it is good for the graduate (it is)

However, I really can't see a conspiracy to lower Canadian schools specifically, or any other country for that matter

I really doubt there would be coordinated salary inflation, not on some coordinated level. There's no incentive for a single respondent to lie, much less a group of them. But that is a good question, though - how does KPMG audit the salary statistics? Anybody know?

The methodology says that "KPMG audits a number of schools every year," meaning they don't look at all the results. Rather vague, that is.

I think you have a common sense idea of what auditing means in the real world. If it's good enough for companies to audit that way, then it's good enough for MBAs. Of course KPMG does not look at every receipt when they audit accounts, but random checks of everything works very well. I was a senior manager at Deloitte, and it really was my experience that the big four firms really have first class auditing methods that are the best available.

They contact the companies to confirm if the salaries reported are accurate?
Or they check if the numbers the schools report, match the answers the graduates give on the questionnaires?

Anecdotal info: No one ever contacted my workplace and we have MBA grads from great schools. (our company would not give away salary info really)

Maybe there's a company size threshold for the audit?

FT rankings 2018

http://rankings.ft.com/businessschoolrankings/global-mba-ranking-2018

Many new entries! :)

... and why IE is not present on the list...

https://poetsandquants.com/2018/01/28/why-ie-business-school-lost-its-ft-ranking/

That's just clickbait about IE :(

"The FT has told the school that it was excluded from the ranking because the British newspaper was unable to collect a representative sample of the program’s Class of 2014 alumni."

Could be the same with Macquarie Graduate School of Management, which was also in the top half last year. On the other hand, University of South Carolina's Moore School has perhaps been hit hard by American exceptionalism. I am much more surprised by University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign falling out, since they had risen last year. The exit of University of Iowa: Tippie perhaps validates it closing its full-time MBA on the Iowa campus (but I think it continues on the CIMBA campus in Italy.)

Other disappearances are less surprising:
George Washington University,
Babson College: Olin,
Grenoble Ecole de Management,
Temple University: Fox
Birmingham Business School
Ipade Business School
Vlerick Business School
Queen's University: Smith

PS Very interesting that most of the schools with a reported fall in salary are in the UK. Surely that is the Brexit dip of Sterling at work? It makes Edinburgh's big rise all the more remarkable.

[Edited by Duncan on Jan 29, 2018]

I get the feeling the PPP does not really reflect reality as intended

One hand it gives schools from 3rd countries a chance to compete, but in reality, most people ask for advice to choose schools in U.S. the U.K. the EU and lately Canada - and real salaries (not PPP ones) are definitely a factor

[Edited by George Patsoulis on Jan 29, 2018]

Can anyone shed some light regarding the prospects for students who have applied on some of the schools that are now out of top 100 in FT Rankings?

Well, for the schools higher up which didn't make the response rate, not much impact. But the schools lower down generally had below average outcomes last year and students will probably not have better outcomes this year. Ipade is a very strong school so I think it must be foreign exchange which is pushing it down. My guess is that Illinois was also affected by data sufficiency.