All rankings of educational programs, including MBA, have a common problem associated with either methodology or data availability or both. This, in turn, leads to accusations of data manipulation and erodes public trust in educational institutions.

For example, in March 2022, a former dean of Fox Business School, Moshe Porat, was sentenced to 14 months in prison and fined for manipulating the MBA rating of his program. Sometimes, even professors themselves find and talk about errors in the position of their university in the rankings. For example, last month, professor of mathematics at Columbia University said that his university was ranked 2nd by U.S. News by mistake. The professor published an article with a detailed analysis of the compiled ranking, in which he explains why the data provided by the university to the publisher do not represent the real state of affairs. Of course, most likely, there was no intentional manipulation of data, but since Columbia University is one of the leading universities, the situation could not go unnoticed.

In early April, it became known that Rutgers Business School, located in New Jersey, USA, created fake jobs for its students. The business school wanted to demonstrate that the graduates of its MBA program are easily employed, which will raise the school’s position relative to other universities in the rankings. As result, the HR manager filed a lawsuit against Rutgers Business School. She said that school administrators used a temporary agency called Adecco Employment Services Inc. for hiring MBA graduates. The lawsuit alleges that the business school used more than $400,000 from donations to fund these jobs. At the same time, the university’s website indicates that in 2022, the business school was in 16th place, according to the US News & World Report rating, and 3rd place, according to the rating in the Financial Times, in terms of employment among MBA graduates in the USA.

Taking the latest Executive MBA rankings from the Financial Times, the top 3 spots belong to HEC Paris, CEIBS, and HKUST Business School. At the same time, the oldest in the USA and one of the world’s leading business schools, Wharton, is ranked 38. The FT Executive MBA Ranking considers many factors, but the most weight in the research methodology is given to average income of students. Looking at all the factors closely, you will notice that some regional programs are more characterized by high income than others. In practice, this means that in some countries, EMBA programs are designed for managers in the beginning of their careers, while in others, they join these programs at later stages. On the one hand, there are definitely advantages to studying in a program with top-level leaders, even if the vast majority represent one region. On the other hand, this factor also has a negative consequence. For example, such programs are characterized by a generally lower educational load. Thus, this rating relies heavily on student experience, which means that the position of a business school will largely depend on students and not on the educational program, faculty, and career opportunities.

Further work on rating methodologies for educational programs and developing precise evaluation criteria can become a way to avoid errors and data manipulation. Do not forget that ratings of the same programs in different sources may differ. Each of them gives only an approximate idea of ​​​​the organization’s position relative to others.