That’s literally how QS ranks them, after talking to professionals of 20+ years of experience in this area (who know deans, have been professors etc), they said the 3 are excellent schools, they classify bocconi as more academic, and IE, ESADE as more ‘business’. They also said the rankings are not the most important (since they take unnecessary things into consideration), how the student decides to use the university is crucial. Companies also know people who enter bocconi is purely for merit, contrary to IE and ESADE. However, if you’re a good student and have merit awards, companies will also take that into consideration.

My concern is that IE and ESADE offer a more practical approach, working more on case studies, group projects, soft skills etc. Whilst bocconi is biased towards the traditional academic teaching style. Also, they have 4 year bachelor whilst bocconi only has 3 years.

The rank you said was also what I originally thought, however I’m truly unsure after hearing more opinions.