Each year, well-known business publications such as "US News & World Report", "Business Week", "Financial Times", "The Economist", and the "Wall Street Journal" publish rankings of selected MBA programs that, while controversial in their methodology, nevertheless can directly influence the prestige of schools that achieve high scores.

The MBA degree has become one of the most popular masters' degrees. As more universities started offering the degree, differences in the quality of schools, faculty, and course offerings became evident. Naturally, establishing some criteria of quality is needed to differentiate among MBA programs, especially for prospective students trying to decide on where to apply. As MBA programs proliferated, a variety of publications began providing information on them. Some of these consisted of compilations of information gathered from the universities offering the degree, usually published in book form. Eventually periodicals began publishing articles describing various MBA schools and ranking them according to some perceived quality criteria. One of the most prominent of these is "Business Week", which devotes a biennial issue to ranking MBA programs.

Different methods of varying validity were used to arrive at rankings of MBA programs. The "Gourman Report", for example, did not disclose criteria or ranking methods, and these reports were criticized for reporting statistically impossible data, such as no ties among schools, narrow gaps in scores with no variation in gap widths, and ranks of nonexistent departments. In 1977 "The Carter Report" published rankings of MBA programs based on the number of academic articles published by faculty. Periodicals based their rankings on interviews with company recruiters who hired MBA graduates, surveys of MBA schools' deans, polls of students or faculty, and a variety of other means. The defunct "MBA Magazine" asked deans to vote on the best programs. The methods of obtaining ranks often changed from year to year. Initially, rankings included only a small number of universities consisting of the largest and best known Ivy League and state schools. There are also many privately compiled rankings, including the Global Top 100 Business Schools compiled by the QS network.

The ranking of MBA programs has been discussed in articles and on academic Web sites.
Critics of ranking methodologies maintain that any published rankings should be viewed with caution for the following reasons:

One study found that objectively ranking MBA programs by a combination of graduates' starting salaries and average student GMAT score can reasonably duplicate the top 20 list of the national publications. The study concluded that a truly objective ranking would be individualized to the needs of each prospective student. National publications have recognized the value of rankings against different criteria, and now offer lists ranked different ways: by salary, GMAT score of students, selectivity, and so forth. While useful, these rankings still are not tailored to individual needs, and their value is diminished if they use an incomplete population of schools, fail to distinguish between the different MBA program types offered by each school, or rely on subjective interviews.

Accreditation
Bologna Accord
The MBA degree in ऑस्टेलिया, आफ्रिका आणि आशिया
MBA program rankings