- December 23, 2021
- Posted by: Stratford Team
- Category: Business
2021 was a historic year for MBA rankings — just not in the way you’d expect.
It started with opt-outs. In January, The Economist endured a full-on boycott of its ranking, with nearly two dozen top programs declining to participate — including every M7 program plus INSEAD and the London Business School. The Financial Times fared a little better, missing the star power of Harvard, Stanford, and Wharton (not to mention MIT Sloan and Berkeley Haas). Apparently, COVID had disrupted inputs and outputs beyond their normal bounds — at least that’s what schools wanted you to believe.
Bloomberg Businessweek was the first to adopt this posture. After canceling the 2020 ranking, the magazine’s editors spent an extra year tinkering with their model. Sure enough, when the new list came out, the ranking couldn’t be replicated, casting doubt on the results. Fortune’s foray turned into much ado about nothing, while Forbes couldn’t even produce a…
