Bloomberg Businessweek reject challenges to its MBA rankings

Bloomberg Businessweek has rejected challenges to its MBA rankings by a Yale University professor who tried to replicate its methodology, reports John Byrne of Ports & Quants.

Byrne reports, “The statement comes after an in-depth analysis of the ranking by Anjani Jain, deputy dean overseeing academic programs at Yale University’ School of Management. Using Businessweek’s reported scores for each school, Jain found that applying the stated weights to the five metrics used by the magazine would lead to results that are ‘egregiously off-kilter when compared to the published ranking’ (see his full analysis here). He calculated that the only way to replicate the ranks published by Businessweek is to apply a very different set of weights to the five metrics used to rank programs.

“Jain’s recalculation would change the positions of 23 of the Top 25 business schools. The academic found that applying the stated weights to scores published by Businessweek would cause MIT’s Sloan School of Management to fall uncharacteristically to a rank of 21 from 7th; the Jindal School of Management at the University of Texas in Dallas to oddly skyrocket into the Top Ten, placing ninth, a rise of 22 places, and Emory University’s Goizueta Business School to achieve its highest rank ever in tenth place, eight spots better than the published ranking of 18th.

“But a spokesperson for Bloomberg News maintains that ‘the premise of Anjani Jain’s analysis and your accompanying story (published Oct. 8) on Bloomberg Businessweek‘s B-School ranking is inaccurate. Both should be corrected. Neither Poets&Quants nor Yale had access to the raw scores that are used in calculating the ranking, which Businessweek pointed out to Yale multiple times prior to the analysis’ publication.'”