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The Bloomberg Businessweek rankings were made public today.

https://www.bloomberg.com/business-schools/regions/us

SMU Cox ranked 31, moving up 11 points from 42 in the last ranking, our biggest move up in any ranking in years.

This ranking factors in input from employers/recruiters, the graduating class of ’21, alumni from the classes of ‘13/’14/’15 and data submitted by the Cox School on compensation, learning & entrepreneurship.

Compensation counts for 35.7%
Learning counts for 25.8%
Networking counts for 17.8%
Entrepreneurship counts for 12%
Diversity, a new factor this year, counts for 8.6%

MBA programs from 119 schools were surveyed from around the world. 84 U.S. schools were ranked. Rankings were based on 19,955 surveys from students, alumni, and recruiters, as well as compensation and employment data from each school. The new Diversity Index was based on data provided by schools on race, ethnicity, and gender in their classes.

In the overall ranking, here’s how we fared compared to our fellow Texas business schools:
UT Austin McCombs 21
Rice Jones 22
SMU Cox 31
UTD Jindal 32
A&M Mays 35
TCU Neeley45
Baylor Hankamer 59
Houston Bauer 68

In the Diversity Index, SMU Cox ranks 31. Among Texas schools in the Diversity Index, we are second. Here’s how the Texas schools rank on this index:
TCU Neeley 22
SMU Cox 31
Baylor Hankamer 33
Rice Jones 46
UTAustin McCombs 47
UTD Jindal 52
Texas A&M 70

Finally some good news regarding rankings. Is this pertaining to the graduate school alone, or does it factor in the undergrad business programs? Also I find it quite ironic that TCU and SMU are the 2 most diverse business schools in Texas.

It is graduate programs, and primarily the FT MBA. That is the program that the b-school rankings focus on most heavily. Cox is spending more time on the rankings criteria to be mindful of the rankings, for better or worse.

Poets and Quants for undergrads releases their rankings in January. Here are all the Texas schools that were included + Tulane for 2021.

#11 - UT Austin McCombs
#26 - SMU Cox
#33 - Houston Bauer
#38 - TCU Neeley
#44 - Tulane Freeman
#71 - UTD Naveen Jindal
#74 - Texas Tech Rawls
#91 - UT Arlington

There were only 93 undergrad programs ranked. One major factor that sets Cox’s undergrad program apart is its average SAT score of 1465, which was topped by only 5 other schools on the list (Penn, WashU, Notre Dame, Carnegie Mellon, and Cornell). SMU has no trouble attracting top aspiring business talent, surely in part due to the extensive scholarship allocations. I myself was a BBA scholar class of ‘20.

School - SAT - Acceptance Rate
SMU - 1465 - 63%
Tulane - 1430 - 18%
UT Austin - 1378 - 19%
TCU - 1325 - 51%
Houston - 1306 - 24%
UTD - 1240 - 52%
TT - 1175 - 66%
UTA - 1090 - 87%

Our tuition is obviously scaring off a lot of high school students, yet somehow we are blessed with a very talented pool of applicants to choose from. We need to lower tuition and raise our national profile, although the latter would be difficult as a small liberal arts university. When I was in high school in Plano, very few classmates were considering SMU primarily for the fact that it’s very expensive. People simply aren’t privy to the extensive scholarships given to great students, making SMU seem like a well-kept secret of the upper class.

StangGang wrote:Our tuition is obviously scaring off a lot of high school students, yet somehow we are blessed with a very talented pool of applicants to choose from. We need to lower tuition and raise our national profile, although the latter would be difficult as a small liberal arts university. When I was in high school in Plano, very few classmates were considering SMU primarily for the fact that it’s very expensive. People simply aren’t privy to the extensive scholarships given to great students, making SMU seem like a well-kept secret of the upper class.

SMU isn't a liberal arts college.

Personally, I am more concerned with student football interest than test scores.

It's quite surprising that SMU's acceptance rate is 63% while UH's is 24%.

I believe SMU is pivoting a bit to not focus so much on test scores because it's not constructive to US News rankings. A larger focus is need-based aid, placement, retention and graduation.

tristatecoog wrote:It's quite surprising that SMU's acceptance rate is 63% while UH's is 24%.

I believe SMU is pivoting a bit to not focus so much on test scores because it's not constructive to US News rankings. A larger focus is need-based aid, placement, retention and graduation.

That makes sense - a vast majority of the students coming into the MBA programs at Cox have no test scores as test scores are no longer required at Cox - this from a current PMBA student.