Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to Select a Business School Based on the Rankings-Business World as a Case in Point

The ranking of Business schools (B-Schools) has become an industry in itself that further creates confusion in the mind of aspirants due to information overload than to give a clearer picture. Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) makes decision making process more meaningful and easy for the aspirant as it considers the interaction between the criteria unlike most of rankings which are more direct by nature and do not consider interaction effects. This paper uses AHP as a tool to provide another way of deciding an alternative apart from the methods the ranking magazines or websites follow. AHP as a tool serves the purpose when the nature of attributes is mostly qualitative. This paper provides detailed explanation of arriving at decision when several attributes are considered. This paper has considered 5 main criteria and 57 sub-criteria. Though the literature claims that AHP is better tool when fewer criteria are involved, this paper makes an attempt to use AHP when several criteria are involved by allotting them weights. The role of weights is mostly to get the consistency in pairwise comparison right. The scope of the paper is both horizontal (across industries) and also vertical (within the education industry).