Ten Business Schools To Watch In 2016

Hockey great Wayne Gretzky once quipped, “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.” You could apply the same advice to choosing a business school. Sometimes, the decision comes down to more than cultural fit and professional interests. It may also require you to look at the long-term and ask yourself, ‘How will an MBA from this school be viewed in 10 or 20 years?'

In 2004, Washington University (Olin) finished 39th in U.S. News & World Report’s rankings. Since then, it has climbed 20 spots. If Gretzky were picking an MBA program back then, he would’ve undoubtedly picked up on Olin’s rising incoming GMAT scores and outgoing placement rates. And he would’ve known to give it a second look. So which schools are poised to make big moves? Here is Poets&Quants’ list of the ten programs to keep an eye on in 2016.

(Editor’s Note: These schools are not ranked in any order.)

Yale School of Management: Yale is sometimes caricatured as a refuge for romantics, where the socially-conscious view business as a means to solve social ills. If that’s true, it may be the recipe for the future. This year, Yale trended upwards in nearly every ranking metric. For starters, it cracked the Top 10 (for the first time) in Poets&Quants’ 2015 annual MBA ranking – a remarkable seven spot leap from two years ago. Not surprisingly, recruiters have taken notice. The school ranked #1 in diversity of recruiters drawn to campus according to The Economist. It also placed 9th among recruiters in the September Bloomberg Businessweek survey, along with notching a 4.3 score from recruiters in U.S. News and World Report – beating out Columbia, Haas, and Tuck.

But it’s not just recruiters singing the SOM’s praises. In the same Economist survey, students and alumni ranked Yale 4th in both quality of classmates and personal development and education experience. And alumni further showed their support with a 51.2% participation rate in the school’s 2014-2015 fund raising campaign – a nearly 10% jump in two years.  That is second only to Tuck – and the school generated an additional $961K from alumni over the previous year to boot. Such momentum has also paid off in recruiting. Bruce DelMonico, the school’s assistant dean for admissions, describes the Class of 2017 as the strongest he has seen in 10 years. And the school enjoyed a 25% increase in applications in 2014-2015, boosting both the percentage of both women and international students to 40%.

Now, the stars are aligned. In 2014, the school moved into its 250,000 square foot Edward P. Evans Hall. And Dean Ted Snyder – the architecture of the University of Chicago’s rise to being a Top 5 MBA program – is now into his fifth year at the helm. With strong funding and a stellar faculty, expect Yale to climb a few more rungs in the coming years.

Vanderbilt University (Owen): If you can’t beat them, hire them. That was Vanderbilt’s thinking behind recruiting M. Eric Johnson, associate dean of the Tuck School of Business, to be its dean in 2013. A former Owen faculty member for eight years, Johnson has been tasked with importing Tuck’s intimate, upbeat, student-centric culture to Nashville. Already known for its southern friendliness and strengths in leadership and ethics education, Owen has seen a rise in incoming student GMAT scores and undergraduate GPAs during Johnson’s tenure – not to mention a jump in placement rates (90.8% to 93%), starting base salaries ($100,513 to $108,255), and starting bonuses ($20,138 to $22,484) between the 2014 and 2015 graduating classes.

However, Owen’s biggest selling point may be its location. Nashville is often called the “Silicon Valley of Healthcare,” boasting a booming metro area that’s flush with Fortune 500 companies. And coupling a Tuck-inspired small school culture with a vibrant business scene may just be the ticket to long and lucrative careers for Owen grads.

Rice University (Jones): I dare you to find anyone who has something negative to say about Jones. This year, Rice made headlines in the Bloomberg Businessweek rankings, finishing 3rd in the alumni survey and 2nd in the student satisfaction survey. In fact, Jones was one of only three schools (Haas and Anderson being the others) to finish in the Top 10 in both categories. Oh, and it ranked #3 in terms of alumni career satisfaction in a 2014 Forbes survey. Talk about a happy customer base!

Like Owen, Rice is a relatively small program that benefits from being based in a thriving business community. The Houston area boasts 26 Fortune 500 companies – the third-largest concentration in the United States. Plus, Rice is home to the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship, ranked  by UBI Index as the top university-managed business incubator in 2014. And the program is a steal financially, with 94% of full-time MBA students receiving grants averaging $33,320 per year! That said, the school’s biggest plus remains its people. “Fantastic experience,” writes “Jesus” about his time in the MBA program in Forbes. “I remain very close to the school and I consistently see how hard and effectively the staff work to make the school an even better place.”

Notre Dame (Mendoza): How is this for a good year? In 2015, Mendoza soared 12 spots to rank 24th in the Poets&Quants MBA rankings – the biggest leap of the year. Perhaps this was a foreshadowing of the banner year enjoyed by the Class of 2015. Here, three month placement leaped from 87.7% to 93%, with average starting bases rising from $102,404 to $108,219 (and average bonuses up over $1,500 to $21,099). Make no mistake: Mendoza grads benefit from the aura of the Notre Dame brand. More importantly, they can tap into one of the world’s strongest networks. Mendoza alumni themselves rank the school’s “network effectiveness” and “potential to network” as the 5th and 8th best in the world respectively according to The Economist’s latest survey. And that opens a lot of doors for talented and ambitious Golden Domers.

Jack Welch Management Institute: Ever wish business schools would run themselves like businesses? At the Jack Welch Management Institute, they literally practice what they preach. The school culture is based on customer service, where faculty and leadership measure themselves against customer satisfaction metrics. Here, there is continuous dialogue between students and school on faculty, curriculum and services. In fact, survey results help dictate pay. In conjunction with Jack Welch’s philosophy, the bottom 10% of faculty performers is weeded out too.

Such relentless focus on customer service and educational impact explains how the Institute has emerged as one of the fastest-growing MBA programs, with the student population climbing from 140 to 1,057 students in just four years. Beyond its popularity, the Institute delivers the goods. This summer, its Net Promoter Score hit a record 77, higher than NPS scores produced by leading brands like Amazon (69) and Jetblue (68). And this 77 score far exceeds educational stalwarts like Duke Fuqua (67), Wharton (51), and the Harvard Business School (41).

And the future of the Institute looks bright indeed. The program is led by Craig Clawson former managing director of Duke Corporate Education – consistently ranked among the top providers of customized executive education by the Financial Times. It also continues to draw executives from top names like IBM, General Electric, and FedEx. Not to mention, the Institute’s 80 year-old namesake is still heavily involved in its curriculum and operations (not to mention regularly engaging with his “customers”).

Students as customers? That’s all part of the Institute’s faculty mantra, which is summed up in one word: Generosity. “Believe in our students Focus on student success. Coach and mentor. Engage with compassion and understanding. Offer candid feedback. Instill confidence.” Who knew that such fundamentals could be so profound in a classroom!

University of Virginia (Darden): Darden has always been a bit of an outlier. Known for teaching excellence, it has a reputation for being a program where students work harder than everywhere else – digesting over 500 cases as part of a punishing pace. In the end, the rigor yields results. Darden finished as a Top 10 program by recruiters and students alike in the Bloomberg Businessweek 2015 satisfaction surveys. In fact, The Economist ranks Darden as the #2 MBA program globally – and the top school for both personal development and education experience.

So who would want to tinker with such success? This fall, Darden did just that, launching a mandatory experiential learning course (Innovation, Design and Entrepreneurship in Action – IDEA) or first-years to keep pace with the Rosses and Tucks of the world. They also created a Darden Academy, a weekly gathering of first-years to discuss contemporary issues. No, don’t expect Darden to stray from tradition and abandon the case method anytime soon. Instead, think of this as refreshing an already-successful formula.

And it’s a nod to this summer’s changing of the guard, with outgoing Dean Bob Bruner passing the baton to Scott Beardsley, formerly one of the four managing directors of McKinsey. Like any great consultant, Beardsley has launched an exhaustive listening tour, absorbing input and data to find that little edge that makes all the difference. No doubt, Bruner ranks as the most transformational dean south of Roger Martin and Paul Danos. But we’re excited to see how Beardsley will use his McKinseyite might to take Darden to the next level.

HEC Paris: Traditionally, business schools have supplied talent to consulting firms. At HEC Paris, the school partnered with Bain & Company in 2012 to revamp its curriculum. As a result, the school developed a program grounded in the fundamentals, but an emphasis on developing soft skills and applying creative solutions – all in a small school setting where students learn by doing.

A vanilla MBA program just a decade ago, HEC Paris harbors designs of being one of the top three MBA programs in Europe. And it has made serious strides towards this end recently. This year, it ranked 3rd in Forbes’ ranking of the top two-year international MBA programs, with 2010 graduates earning $152,000 within five years of graduation – a five year gain of $77,800. The school also climbed three spots in Poets&Quants’ International MBA ranking to #5, just a shade below IE Business School, as well as raking 7th internationally in the Bloomberg Businessweek’s employer survey.

Overall, HEC Paris also remains one of the most selective MBA programs globally, with just a 16.45% acceptance rate for its most recent class. Plus, it is one of the world’s most diverse programs, with international students constituting 90% of the population. Its 16-month curriculum is seemingly the right length – not too long to siphon away too much potential income and not too short to shortchange students on learning and internships. Of course, the school’s location in Paris, one of Europe’s premier business centers, can’t be underestimated. The same is true of school’s distinctive experience, which includes organizing the annual MBAT competition, which draws 1,500 MBA students from schools ranging from INSEAD to Oxford.

Dartmouth College (Tuck): Like Darden, Tuck is replacing a rock star dean with Matthew Slaughter, an associate dean who also served a two-year stint in George W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers. Like Beardsley, Slaughter steps into an enviable situation with a tight-knit culture and a world class faculty. Plus, he inherits an alumni fund raising apparatus with a participation rate over 70% (the highest of any business school). Not to mention, 2015 Tuck grads are earning the same starting base pay as Harvard and Wharton grads (and higher signing bonuses), making $146,020 in total starting pay on average. And that doesn’t include an eye-popping 99% three month placement grads for Tuck grads!

So what can Slaughter do for an encore? We’re about to find out in 2016. While Slaughter isn’t outlining grand plans or taunting any sacred cows, you can expect some fiddling around the edges. Like Darden – notice a theme – Tuck is requiring an experiential course (TuckGO)…with the school taking students overseas to complete their consulting engagement. The program is also looking at how it can sell its unique mission to a new generation of students who sometimes view it as a survivalist camp out in the boonies. Plus, its new mantra – ‘to prepare wise leaders to better the world’ – hints at great global engagement. The world may not come to Hanover, but you can expect Hanover to reach out even more to the world.

Wharton: Two years ago, MOOCs were supposedly a threat to wipe half of the MBA programs off the map. Today, they are harmless little certifications that give students a taste of what the big players offer. Now, Geoff Garrett, the new dean at Wharton, is making a high stakes bet on MOOCs. Last February, Wharton bundled four core courses into a specialization, replete with a capstone project. Since then, the school has developed 18 more MOOCs. By this time next year, Garrett intends to up the ante and launch another 25 MOOCs (along with accompanying specializations). Is this a blue light special on brand name education – or a way to take a commanding lead over competitors like Stanford, Booth, and Columbia that have been hesitant to enter the space? Is Wharton diluting its luxury brand – or positioning itself as the household name for online MBA courses? We may not know if this bet pays out in 12 months – but we’re looking forward to seeing the early returns.

CEIBS: These days, the economic action is out east – as in China, India, Mongolia, and Myanmar. And where there is action, you’re bound to find MBAs flocking there. If you’re looking to learn how to do business in Asia – particularly China – the gateway is CEIBS (China Europe International Business School).

Thanks to its performance, CEIBS is getting increasing attention from eastern and western students alike. It placed 4th in Forbes’ ranking of two-year international MBA programs, with 2010 graduates earning $129,000 – a five year gain of $72,400. The Financial Times ranked the school 11th in the world in 2015, up six spots over the previous year with the program earning its highest marks in students’ career progression over their pre-MBA status.

And CEIBS may not be what you’d expect. For one, the program has become a major player in entrepreneurship and sustainability. Classes are taught in English in this Shanghai-based school, though students are expected to possess some Mandarin fluency. It offers a middle ground between the case and the experiential methods. Best of all, it boasts several partnerships with both western companies based in China and Chinese companies looking to beef up their presence in the west. In other words, it offers something for everyone, particularly those looking to build a network and know-how out east. As China’s influence grows on the global stage, a program like CEIBS becomes all the more attractive to globally-attuned MBA candidates.

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