Top 20 2013 Best Part-Time MBA Programs (2011’s rank in parentheses)
1. CMU Tepper (3)
2. UC Berkeley Haas (5)
3. SMU Cox (7)
4. UCLA Anderson (2)
5. Elon Love (1)
6. Loyola Marymount (13)
7. Rice Jones (6)
8. Chicago Booth (17)
9. Rollins Crummer (44)
10. Michigan Ross (9)
11. USC Marshall (16)
12. Lehigh University (15)
13. UNC-Greensboro Bryan (50)
14. Emory Goizueta (23)
15. Washington Foster (10)
16. Worcester Polytechnic (8)
17. San Diego (14)
18. Nebraska (N/A)
19. Villanova (12)
20. NC State Jenkins (30)
As you can see from the above list, there were some super high jumps and drops in this year’s part-time MBA rankings. There are newcomers to the top 20 list that didn’t make it to 2011’s rankings at all (Nebraska), and there are others that made huge strides to make to the top 20 from much further down the list in 2011 (like NC State Jenkins which jumped from 30th place to 20th place, Rollins Crummer which jumped from 44th to 9th, and UNC-Greensboro Bryan that jumped from 50th to 13th).
Other big jumpers further down the list include South Florida which jumped 31 spots from 67th place in 2011 to 36th place this year, and Utah Eccles which jumped 28 spots from 65th to 37th.
Big losses include Nevada which fell 20 spots from 4th place to 2011 to 24th place this year, and Texas McCombs which fell 24 spots from 11th to 35th place.
See the BW article, “Carnegie Mellon Takes Top Spot in Part-Time MBA Ranking,” for more details, including a breakdown of the top part-time MBA programs according to U.S. region.
My thoughts:
Those whopping jumps and dives raise suspicion in my mind about the rankings’ validity. Schools are like aircraft carriers. They don’t turn on a dime. Incremental change over time is much more believable than a quantum transformation in a mere two years.
