The Bloomberg Businessweek Best B-Schools ranking starts from the basic premise that the best judges of MBA programs are graduating students, recent alumni, and companies that recruit MBAs. Those stakeholders are asked questions about everything from jobs to salaries, classroom learning to alumni networks. Because these stakeholders can have differing and overlapping needs and interests, the schools are ranked based on five indexes that capture fundamental elements of business school education: Compensation, Learning, Networking, Entrepreneurship, and Diversity (for US schools only).

The methodology consists of two steps.

Step 1: Generating weightings for each index.

Rather than define the relative weighting of the indexes ourselves, as most rankings do, Bloomberg Ranking let the stakeholders define them. Surveys for all three stakeholder groups begin by asking respondents to rank the five most important factors when considering business school (or in the case of employers, the most important qualities when hiring business school graduates). Each factor is tied to one of the five indexes. Stakeholders’ answers determine the weightings of each of our indexes. Five points are awarded for each top-ranked factor, four points for the second-ranked answer, and so on. This year’s surveys resulted in the following index weightings:

US Schools/Schools In Europe, Asia, and Canada (Figures do not sum to 100% due to rounding):

Compensation Index - 37.4%/36.9%

Learning Index - 25.5%/25.2%

Networking Index - 17.4%/24.1%

Entrepreneurship Index - 11.6%/13.8%

Diversity Index - 8.0%/-

Step 2: Determining school scores for each index.

Survey takers first answer how well their schools delivered on the five factors chosen in the previous section based on a seven-point scale (“completely agree” receiving seven points and “completely disagree” receiving one point). Next, they are asked to agree or disagree with statements regarding their business school experience that appear for all respondents, regardless of which factors they chose initially. These universal statements are also tied to one of the five indexes and are scored on the same seven-point scale. Statements tied to each index touch on the following themes:

Compensation: Salary after graduation, alumni salary, percent of class with job, percent of class with bonus, size of bonus.

Learning: For the schools’ core mission, the ranking explores the quality, depth, and range of instruction, focusing on the curriculum relative to real-world business situations; emphasis on innovation, problem-solving, and strategic thinking; mentoring and support from instructors; class size; and collaboration.

Networking: This index gauges the quality of networks cultivated by classmates; students’ interactions with alumni; effectiveness of the career services office; quality and breadth of alumni-to-alumni interactions; and the school’s brand power, according to recruiters.

Entrepreneurship: Students and alumni tell us whether their school took entrepreneurship as seriously as other career paths and rate the quality of training they received to start a small business or startup. Recruiters rate schools according to whether graduates show exceptional entrepreneurial skills and drive.

Diversity Index: From US schools, the ranking also collects data on the race, ethnicity, and gender of their class members. The Diversity Index rewards schools for recruiting both minority students and women, with additional weight given to underrepresented minorities.