An adaptive scheduling method and apparatus that adaptively perform scheduling based on a coordinated rank in a multi-cell communication system are provided. A master base station may schedule, with a first priority, master terminals, each of which has a preferred rank equal to a transmission rank of the master base station, and may transmit, to a slave base station, information associated with a group of scheduled master terminals. The slave base station may schedule, with different priorities, slave terminals based on whether a transmission rank of the slave base station is equal to the coordinated rank for the master base station.