B-SCHOOL RANKINGS: DEAN ROGER MARTIN'S VIEW

Rankings that Rotman participates in:   BusinessWeek   The Financial Times

The rankings are a mixed blessing.  On one hand, they provide MBA candidates with a 'measuring stick' of sorts to assess global business schools.  On the other hand, they are flawed in many ways, ranging from pretty relevant to really unfortunate.

The biggest problem is that they require us to allow the various media outlets to contact our graduates in order to produce an issue that sells large amounts of advertising.  Helping newspapers and magazines sell advertising is not our business:
our business is helping our students and graduates, and our graduates are fatigued from the number of surveys coming at them. As a result, we have chosen to participate in the two rankings that candidates seem to find helpful and that we believe to be sensible.

The leading global ranking in our view is the Financial Times. It ranks all schools globally and has the most transparent and broad ranking system, featuring 21 measures across a wide variety of categories and an explicit weighting of each of the criteria. We also participate in the BusinessWeek ranking.  The ‘first-mover’, it has been ranking MBA programs biannually since 1988 (versus 1999 for The Financial Times) and has a very large following. BusinessWeek surveys current graduates (i.e. spring 2008 graduates for the fall 2008 ranking), takes into account the views of recruiters and assesses the research output of the schools, so it is quite comprehensive. It's key weakness is that it ranks U.S. and International schools separately –- hardly an approach consistent with the global economy.

Read my thoughts on the most recent Financial Times Ranking.
Read my thoughts on the most recent BusinessWeek Ranking.

The rest of the rankings each have some merits, but in our view, not enough to further bother our graduates in order to participate. Click here to read why we do not participate in The Economist rankings.

Any inquiries regarding surveys should be directed to Ken McGuffin, Manager, Media Relations at mcguffin@rotman.utoronto.ca or by phone at (416) 946-3818, or to Suzanne Spragge, Assistant Dean, External Relations & Chief of Staff at spragge@rotman.utoronto.ca or by phone at (416) 978-4232.