Every admissions and marketing team knows the ritual: yet another ranking or accreditation lands, and the school's position becomes the day's crisis or celebration. But how does performance across multiple rankings and accreditations actually shape prospective student interest? My research, newly published in the Academy of Management Learning & Education, offers some data-driven answers.
Using GMAC data on GMAT score submissions as a proxy for student interest, I analyzed how MBA programs worldwide performed across 13 evaluations. These comprised seven MBA program rankings, including the Financial Times's and Bloomberg Businessweek's; three accreditations—AACSB, EQUIS, and AMBA; and three institutional rankings—the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, the "Shanghai Ranking", and the QS World University Rankings. Rather than looking at each in isolation, I examined how combinations of performance across all 13 related to student interest. Three findings stand out for school professionals.
1. Students responded to combinations of performance, not single results in isolation
No single evaluation made or broke student interest. What mattered was how a school's performance across program rankings, accreditations and institutional league tables fit together. My analysis identified five distinct winning combinations—and only one consistently losing one.
Recommendation for school professionals: Assess your rankings and accreditations performance as a portfolio, rather than prioritizing individual metrics in isolation. A dip in one measure may matter far less than your overall combination.
2. Your school may not need to perform in every ranking
Programs showing no performance in as many as three major rankings—including those of the Financial Times, Forbes, and U.S. News & World Report—still attracted robust interest, provided their performance elsewhere carried the signal. Nor was this a privilege of famous schools: schools of more humble status in my data also prospered with selective performance profiles. Prospective students appeared to read the whole picture rather than penalizing a single performance gap. What mattered was coherence, not maximizing performance in all evaluations.
Recommendation for school professionals: If a ranking's data demands outweigh its value, a performance gap may be entirely acceptable—whatever your brand strength—so long as the rest of your profile stays strong. Benchmark against schools with similar performance combinations, not just similar prestige. If you can, keep performance in at least two program-level rankings.
3. Performance can work against your school
Counterintuitively, in some combinations, strong performance in single evaluation types—meaning only in institutional rankings such as the Times Higher Education ranking, or in accreditations such as AACSB—was associated with less student interest. Researchers call this the paradox of publicity: visibility attracts scrutiny, scrutiny invites comparison—and a strong performance can change which schools candidates compare you against.
Recommendation for school professionals: Don't assume every improvement translates into applicant demand. Track which results actually move your funnel metrics—and watch whether performance in one evaluation shifts your competitor set and the conversion conversations your team needs to run.
The bottom line
Rankings and accreditations strategy is performance portfolio management. Schools that treat every evaluation as existential spend heavily—on data submissions, survey campaigns, and consultants. But chasing a universal excellence that the data suggests students may not always find attractive may prove counterproductive. Schools that understand their combination, and where they can afford not to perform, can redirect that effort toward what actually builds applicant interest.
Find the full paper 'Turning the League Tables: Configurations of Evaluations and MBA Student Interest' in the Academy of Management Learning & Education.