U.S. Schools Crush World In Cuisine?

OPEN ENROLLMENT: BOOTH AND DARDEN RANK 2 AND 3 

North American schools dominated this category, with 11 American (and two Canadian) schools landing in the top 20.

The University of Chicago’ s Booth School Business climbed three spots to the #2 ranking in open enrollment, with survey respondents ranking the school #1 in preparation and course design and #2 in faculty and skill development (The school also ranked in the top 5 in teaching, food, and facilities).

Not surprisingly, the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, which prides itself among the elite teaching institutions, ranked #1 in both teaching and faculty. It also finished #2 to Booth in course design and #2 IMD to aims achieved. It even ranked #2 in food and facilities, behind only Stanford and IMD, respectively, in those categories. However, the school’s #23 ranking in follow up sticks out as an area for improvement. Besides that, Darden scores top 10 nearly across the board. What’s more, it jumped 11 spots from #14 to #3 in just one year (and even tied overall winner HEC Paris in the open enrollment category)!

Harvard and Stanford rank sixth and eighth, respectively, in open enrollment, with Harvard slipping two spots over the previous year. Harvard is a near mirror image of Darden, ranking highest in teaching (#3), faculty (#3), and aims achieved (#4). Harvard’s achilles heel? That would be course design and follow up, according to the Financial Times, where it finished in 15th place for both. Like Harvard, Stanford fared poorly in course design and follow up (where it ranked 12th and 16th respectively). More surprisingly, Stanford came in at #15 in teaching quality, below Northwestern (Kellogg), UCLA (Anderson), and Washington University (Olin).

Among other American institutions, Wharton, popularly regarded as a top three MBA program, only ranks #19 in executive education, down eight spots from the previous year. Wharton is particularly lagging behind in skill development (#25), teaching (#24), course design (#23), and follow up (#22) according to survey respondents. Thunderbird actually switched places with Darden, tumbling from #3 to #14, a lingering hangover from a chaotic 2013. Columbia also dropped four spots to #25, with its lowest marks coming in skill development (#30), preparation (#31), and, ironically, food (#45). Perhaps they should cater in some Junior’s cheesecake.

UCLA, Washington University, and the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business were the big winners on the American side. UCLA, which wasn’t even ranked by The Financial Times last year, popped up at #20, scoring a top 10 result in preparation. Washington University leapfrogged nine spots to #17. It ranked in the top 10 in seven of ten categories, including preparation (#2) and course design (#3). And the University of Michigan was the model of consistency. Although it slipped out of the top ten to #11, it never tallied less than a 12th place ranking among the ten survey categories, ranking in the top ten six times, with the highest being the quality of participants.

Looking for consistency and excellence? Check out IMD, the top-ranked program. It finished in the top five in nine categories, including #1’s in developing skills, meeting expectations, and facility quality. In fact, the only place where it possibly fell short was on follow up, where it still ranked a respectable #7.

So which schools were this year’s big winners? Start with China’s Xiamen University’s School of Management, which went from unranked to #53. The University of Alberta, which was unranked in 2013, also entered the list at #66. Other big movers include the Indian Institute of Management (+10), the Center for Creative Leadership (+9), and the UK’s Henley Business School (+9).

Conversely, the IESE Business School dropped from #2 to #6. The Melbourne Business School – Mount Eliza plunged ten spots, while Norway’s NHH tumbled eight. And The Rotman School of Management at Toronto University , one of the great success stories of recent years, slipped five spots.

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