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Queen's School of Business checks in at No. 86 in the FT ranking of the 100 top B-schools.Lars Hagberg for The Globe and Mail

Six Canadian business schools made the 2015 Financial Times top-100 global list of full-time MBA programs, released Monday, with several of them dropping a few spots.

As usual, the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management led the Canadian pack this year, in 53th place, down two spots from 2014. However, the Toronto school maintained its top international billing on research, as measured by faculty articles in noted journals, jumping to fourth spot globally this year from ninth in 2014.

The other Canadian schools on the list, with rankings in brackets, are the University of British Columbia's Sauder School of Business in Vancouver (81); Queen's School of Business in Kingston and the University of Alberta's School of Business in Edmonton (tied at 86); The University of Western Ontario's Ivey Business School in London, Ont., (97) and McGill University's Desautels Faculty of Management in Montreal (100).

The only Canadian school to rise in the rankings was Alberta, which moved up from 100th spot last year.

Queen's is a participant this year for the first time since 2009.

"We made significant, market-driven changes to our full-time MBA program over the last few years, and wanted to wait until those program enhancements were established before re-entering the ranking," dean David Saunders stated in a press release.

Conspicuous by its absence is York University's Schulich School of Business, which last year placed 66th on the London newspaper's list, considered among the world's most influential school rankings. Schulich dean Dezso Horvath was not immediately available for comment.

In addition to a survey of graduates of 2011 for this year's ranking, the FT assessed 20 factors such as salary, value for money and presence of women and international faculty, in a school's performance.

The greatest weight is given to salary, such as the average pay of alumni three years after graduation and the difference, on average, in earnings before and after earning an MBA. As a result, a school whose MBA graduates land high-paying jobs as investment bankers, for example, will score better than one whose alumni choose lesser-paying jobs.

For the third year in row, Harvard Business School in Boston came in first place.

Increasingly, schools from India, China and Singapore are climbing higher in a ranking traditionally dominated by schools from the United States and Europe. This year, China's Fudan School of Management recorded a significant gain in the rankings, rising 28 spots to 55th place, according to the FT.

In the survey of MBA graduates, 95 per cent of those questioned stated they had achieved their aims (to boost salary, learn about general management and to network) three years after leaving school, the FT reported.

On average, alumni salary is $133,000 (U.S.), up 93 per cent over pre-MBA pay.

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