Whether you're a prospective student, a recruiter, or a donor, use business school rankings with caution.
Since BusinessWeek launched them in 1988, and the Financial
Times developed a more international and comprehensive version a few years
later, business school rankings have become increasingly important in the
decisions and choices of MBA candidates, recruiters, and even donors.
The rankings also unleashed an arms race among business schools
by uncovering information and making it public. Business schools are by now
accustomed to responding to press questions such as: What are the starting salaries
of your graduates? What are their average incoming GMAT scores? What proportion
of your graduating class is female? How international is your faculty? How
frequently do your faculty publish in the top academic journals? The data are
used by the newspapers to compute the rankings, using algorithms that have become
increasingly opaque over the years.
The rankings have had some beneficial effects for the
industry. They have made applicant, recruiter, and donor choices and decisions
more data-based, and driven by transparent and comparable numbers. Rankings have also made competition for the best candidates more open, and made business schools more responsive to the demands
of students, recruiters, and donors, at least on the dimensions used in the rankings.
But does it make sense for you to use the rankings as a
guide?
The rankings measure business schools on a number of variables, but it is unlikely that the variables included in the rankings are exactly the ones you would use to rank business schools for your own purposes. If you are an MBA candidate interested in marketing, should you pick a business school with the highest starting salaries if those salaries merely indicate that most of the jobs are finance jobs?
The rankings measure business schools on a number of variables, but it is unlikely that the variables included in the rankings are exactly the ones you would use to rank business schools for your own purposes. If you are an MBA candidate interested in marketing, should you pick a business school with the highest starting salaries if those salaries merely indicate that most of the jobs are finance jobs?
Even in the unlikely scenario that the variables included in
the rankings are exactly the ones you would use, would you assign the same
weights to them as the FT or BW do? Is the number of women on the school’s
board as important to you as it is to the FT, or more important, or less important? If the importance you attach to any of the variables is
different, the rankings these publications produce will not match your preference
ranking.
Furthermore, there may be many other variables that are of
interest to you that don’t even figure in the rankings – location is an
important one, as are the types of industries represented in the recruiter
list, the nature of the network you will develop (geographies and industries
represented), and so on.
Finally, the rankings offer a very limited window into the
relative quality, and more importantly, the fit of the school for you.
If you were asked, which is the better car, a Ferrari California or a Toyota
Sienna Minivan, you would no doubt respond, “depends for what purpose.” For a Sunday drive on winding country
roads, the Ferrari would be great. But to haul a sofa from a friend’s place, or
to carpool a bunch of kids to their soccer practice, it is pretty much useless. It
is the same with business schools.
In assessing business schools, don’t just ask “is this
school good?” Ask “is this school good for me?” To answer that question, you have to do much
more homework than looking up the rank.
Photo credit: Michael Johnson
Photo credit: Michael Johnson
2 comments:
The fit of the school and program are very important to ensure students’ satisfaction and academic success. But prospects are less likely these days to apply to university for altruistic reasons (e.g. become a better person, contribute to society). Prospective students now look to post-secondary education as a step toward a career.
With that in mind, prospects see a school’s high rank as not only an indication of a quality education, but I would argue more importantly see it as an indication to future employers of the quality of its graduates. Graduates from top-ranked business schools walk into an interview holding an advantage without ever saying a word, since employers are even less likely than applicants to examine rankings’ criteria and weightings. Employers who are not familiar with the differences between programs will view a Rotman grad as having had the credentials to be accepted and to graduate from the top-ranked business school in Canada (according to the FT).
So I agree that it’s important for a prospective student to re-evaluate the rankings’ criteria using their own weightings to find the right fit, but they should also consider the advantages gained from having a top school’s name on their diploma.
Thanks for sharing this, I have began to do some research on my own. I am currently seeking for the right business school that is the closest proximity to my current home. I believe that I will ultimately decide the school that I choose will definitely be good for me.
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