Love them or hate them, rankings matter

The first rankings of full-time MBA programs by U.S. News & World Report and Businessweek date back to the late 1980s. Since then, many rankings have come and gone, with The Economist, Forbes and The Wall Street Journal ceasing their rankings.

As they proliferated, media organizations looked for ways to differentiate their rankings by using various methodologies and expanding from just on-campus MBA programs to also include undergraduate business programs, other master’s programs and different MBA program formats. Notably the rankings evaluate programs, not the entire business school.

Although rankings are imperfect measures of program success, they build brand awareness and, critically, help schools attract the best and brightest students. Today, UNC Kenan-Flagler participates in 16 rankings across the Undergraduate Business Program (UBP), Master of Accounting (MAC) Program and MBA programs:

UBP:

• Poets & Quants
• S. News & World Report as a specialty ranking in the annual college rankings

MAC Program online format

• S. News & World Report in “non-MBA master’s in business” ranking

Full-Time MBA Program:

• Bloomberg Businessweek
• Financial Times
• Fortune
• Poets & Quants, a composite ranking
• Princeton Review
• S. News & World Report

Online MBA Program:

• Financial Times
• Fortune
• Poets & Quants
• Princeton Review
• S. News & World Report

Weekend Executive MBA Program:

• Financial Times for the first time in 2026
• Poets & Quants, a composite ranking
• S. News & World Report with executive MBA (EMBA) as part of full-time MBA specialty rankings 

The role of students and alumni in rankings

The methodology for each ranking differs, but surveys of alumni and students — and their response rates — are critical to UNC Kenan-Flagler’s rankings. Schools need to meet a minimum response rate to be included in a ranking.

• Alumni are surveyed by Bloomberg Businessweek (Full-Time MBA), Financial Times (Full-Time, Online MBA and Weekend Executive MBA) and Poets & Quants (UBP).

This year UNC Kenan-Flagler will enter the Weekend Executive MBA Program in the Financial Times’ EMBA ranking for the first time. The global ranking measures career progression and will survey the Weekend Class of 2023 this spring.

• Students are surveyed by Bloomberg Businessweek (Full-Time MBA), Poets & Quants (UBP) and Princeton Review (Full-Time and Online MBA).

Collectively, career data is among the most heavily weighted categories in rankings. Both students and alumni have important roles to play in the rankings by:

• Students reporting internships and post-graduate outcomes (full-time jobs, graduate school, volunteer service, entrepreneurial ventures) through surveys distributed by programs’ career teams.
• Students and alumni completing surveys from the ranking organizations
• Graduating students and alumni updating their contact and employment information in the University’s database and alumni directory online. Alumni who have opted out of receiving UNC and/or UNC Kenan-Flagler emails do not receive rankings surveys, but can update their communications preferences by writing thefund@kenan-flagler.unc.edu.

The role of employers and deans

Employers and peer institutions also have an impact on rankings.

Employers who hire graduates from the Full-Time MBA Program are surveyed by Bloomberg Businessweek and U.S. News & World Report.

U.S. News & World Report surveys deans and program directors for the UBP, Full-Time MBA Program, Online MBA and MAC Program online format for what they call “peer assessments.”

They also survey deans and program directors for “specialty rankings,” which include EMBA programs, accounting, business analytics, entrepreneurship, finance, management, marketing, real estate and production/operations, among others. These rankings are not based on data but solely on peer assessments.

Stay connected

Alumni and graduating students can update their contact and employment information in the University’s database and alumni directory online. The UBP collects post-grad emails in their “Future Plans Survey” and shares them with the alumni team.