UNC Kenan-Flagler Protests Ranking Error

Background

• QS has admitted that they did not contact us for this ranking. They admitted that they used data, often out-of-date information, collected for another purpose. They explained our exclusion by saying that they confused our business school with another North Carolina school (NC State).
• Every major ranking organization notifies schools of impending rankings and requests data as input. QS did not. Virtually all data-collection organizations have verification and validation procedures. QS did not. Every publication announcing rankings would at least cross check that major schools from existing, established rankings were included. QS did not.
• We and other schools have already uncovered multiple serious issues in data collection and analysis. The salary figures for our and other MBA Programs are outdated or wrong. Some data come from 2004, some from 2005, and some schools have reported the numbers don’t match their data for any year, even though QS contends that the data are all from 2006. If we were to use accurate Kenan-Flagler salary data alone, we would expect to be in the top 15 schools. To document, the average Kenan-Flagler base salary for the Class of 2006 was $89,494. The average signing bonus was $22,971. The number of students employed at 90 days post-graduation was 91.5%.
• In every major business publication that ranks MBA programs – BusinessWeek, Forbes, U.S. News & World Report and The Wall Street Journal – The University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School is ranked in the top 20 of all business schools. The Wall Street Journal ranking, based solely on recruiter ratings and the closest to the purported methodology used by QS, places us No. 8 in the nation, yet we do not even appear in the top 50. We are the only major business school missing in the list of 50.