Darden’s ranking has dropped significantly in this year's Bloomberg Businessweek’s listing of the nation’s best business schools, slipping from No. 10 in 2013 to No. 20.
The ranking marks Darden’s lowest by Bloomberg Businessweek in more than 10 years. During this period, Darden has been in the top 10 twice.
Darden Dean Robert Bruner said this is not likely to affect decisions made by the school.
“We do not manage the school to the rankings,” Bruner said. “To do so would be like a weathervane that twists with each new wind.”
The lower ranking came in part due to student survey reviews, according to Businessweek. But Darden Student Association President Heidi Davies and Executive Vice President Lee Robertson said students are as pleased as ever with their Darden experiences.
“Based on our internal survey of student satisfaction at the end of last year, our student satisfaction was as high as it has ever been,” Davies and Robertson said in a joint email. “Neither of us took the survey ... [but] both of us would have responded with only positive things to say about the Darden experience.”
Davies and Robertson pointed to changes in Businessweek’s ranking process as a possible cause for the dip.
“The new methodology had significant effects on the rankings, with many top schools rising or falling by double digits,” Davies and Robertson said. “Over the 26 years that Businessweek has been measuring student satisfaction, only Darden has regularly topped that part of the measurement criteria.”
Bruner said he could not say for sure whether the school’s decline in ranking was due to lower surveyed student satisfaction. Such a determination would require the data Businessweek used, he said.
“We would need to see the underlying data of the survey, which Businessweek has not shared in the past,” Bruner said. “I understand that they will share some data this year, and we will learn what we can from these sources and look for every opportunity to raise our game.”
Davies and Robertson said that independent of rankings, Darden has set high goals for improvement in the next few years.
“Darden has a very clear strategy for continuous improvement across a number of areas,” Davies and Robertson said. “We have absolute faith in the administration and the leadership at Darden to execute this strategy.”
Bruner said he hopes these goals will be reflected in future rankings, as well as in the eyes of potential students and employers.
“We manage to our mission, vision and values,” Bruner said. “[We] trust that if we serve those very well, the world will grant us the stature to which we aspire.”
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