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Financial Times 2012 Rankings Are Out!

January 29, 2012 By 1 Comment

Winners and Losers in FT RankingsThe Financial Times published its annual ranking of MBA programs today. And the top 10 are:

  1. Stanford (3 year average: #3; last year tied for #4)
  2. Harvard (3 year average: #3; last year’s #3)
  3. Wharton (3 year average: #2; last year tied  for #1)
  4. London Business School (3 year average: #2; last year tied for #1)
  5. Columbia (3 year average: #6; last year’s #7)
  6. INSEAD (3 year average: #5; last year tied for #4)
  7. MIT Sloan (3 year average: #8; last year’s #tied for #9)
  8. IE (3 year average: #7; last year’s #8)
  9. IESE (3 year average #10: last year’s #9  )
  10. HKUST (3 year average: #8; last year’s #6)

The Financial Times rankings is based on two surveys: one of business schools and one of alumni who graduated in 2008. This ranking weighs salary growth for these alumni and attempts to adjust for purchasing power differences and even possible distortions caused by the size of the school. FT describes its methodology, and anyone who gives these numbers any credibility needs to understand what is being ranked and measured here.

One of the valuable aspects of this ranking is its global nature. US News and Businessweek do not rank U.S. schools with non-U.S. schools. The FT ranking compares both U.S. and international programs on several criteria, including increase in salary three years after graduation, the relative number of articles published by faculty at different institutions, diversity of teaching staff, and more. Again, for details, please see FT’s methodology.

How much should you pay attention to this ranking? Should you be combing it for schools that have gone up and abandon schools that have declined? If your criteria for a graduate MBA education match the survey elements exactly, pay a lot of attention to it. However, for most of you, while increase in salary is certainly important, it also has to be considered in the context of cost — something FT doesn’t consider. And FT uses salary across the board, not for the field you want to go into. That’s the figure that should matter to you. Then there are criteria that may or may not translate into a better educational experience for you — number of articles published by full-time faculty, for example. Is that really an important reflection of a quality educational experience? Or simply institutional bragging rights. Or could practitioner teachers also bring valuable insight and experience to the classroom without publishing a page, anywhere?

Use the results for the data, not for the ranking. If the data are important to you, then go into them more thoroughly, but don’t obsess about the ranking and changes in ranking, especially small ones. The Financial Times ranking is particularly known for its volatility. You don’t see it in the top 10, but fluctuations become more pronounced outside the top 10.

To learn more about the different MBA rankings, please see “MBA Rankings: Which Business Schools are the Best?”

For additional perspective and insight into this ranking, please see:

Linda AbrahamBy Linda Abraham, founder of Accepted.com and co-author of MBA Admission for Smarties: The No-Nonsense Guide to Acceptance at Top Business Schools.

 

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Poets and Quants Releases Their Own Rankings

January 1, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Poets and Quants decided to stop merely criticizing other business school rankings and created a ranking of its own (“The Top 100 U.S. MBA Programs of 2011”). For the second year in a row P&Q’s rankings are a composite of the five major MBA rankings: Bloomberg BusinessWeek, The Economist, The Financial Times, Forbes and US News & World Report. As a composite of other rankings, the P&Q rankings reflect surveys of corporate recruiters, MBA graduates, and deans, faculty publication records, median GPA and GMAT scores of entering students, as well as the salary and employment statistics of the latest graduating class.

For the second year in a row Harvard Business School was named the top MBA program in the US, with Stanford Graduate School of Business coming in second, University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business coming in third, University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School coming in fourth and Columbia Business School claiming the fifth spot.

John Byrne, editor-in-chief of Poets and Quants, explained that each of the rankings has a different level of impact on the P&Q rankings: “BusinessWeek, U.S. News and Forbes each have a weight of 25%. The FT is at 15% and The Economist is at 10%.” Basically, the P&Q ranking is a weighted average of all the rankings. Byrne believes that by combining these rankings in “a system that takes into account each of their strengths as well as their flaws,” P&Q can create the ideal ranking system void of the “anomalies” and “statistical distortions” of the other rankings.

Yet, developing a weighted average of a bunch of flawed stats does not compensate, much less eliminate, those flaws. In the end, P&Q rankings are guilty of the same mistakes as the rankings they criticize. Their one redeeming quality is that Poets and Quants publishes the index scores on which their composite rankings are based, giving readers the ability to decide how meaningful the differences in ranking are to them.

The data provided by P&Q (as well as the individual rankings that constitute P&Q’s) is far more valuable than the actual rankings. Averages frequently hide what’s important – like salaries in a particular region or field, or admissions stats for different test scores, qualifications and groups. But with the index scores applicants can prioritize what they are looking for in schools and then see how high specific schools scored in those categories.

Bottom line: You need to do your own ranking based on your own values, not a weighted average of others’ values.

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Accepted’s Most in 2011

December 30, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Best of 2011 at Accepted.comWhat worked for you last year? At least what worked at Accepted.com for our readers? And that’s YOU!

Here are a few posts, articles, and resources that proved particularly popular:

Top Ten Most Visited Accepted Admissions Blog Posts of 2011

  1. Harvard Business School 2012 Essay Questions, Deadlines, Tips
  2. INSEAD 2012 MBA Application Questions, Deadlines, Tips
  3. London Business School 2012 MBA Application Questions, Deadlines, Tips
  4. 2011 Rankings: BW’s Best Undergraduate Business Schools
  5. NYU Stern 2012 MBA Application Questions, Deadlines, Tips
  6. Kellogg 2012 MBA Application Questions, Deadlines, Tips
  7. Columbia 2012 MBA Application Questions, Deadlines, Tips
  8. 2012 Common Application Essay Tips
  9. Stanford GSB 2012 MBA Application Questions, Deadlines, Tips
  10. Chicago Booth 2012 MBA Application Questions, Deadlines, Tips

5 Most Downloaded Special Reports of 2011

  1. 5 Fatal Flaws to Avoid
  2. From Example to Exemplary
  3. Best MBA Programs: A Guide to Selecting the Right One
  4. Leadership in Admissions
  5. MBA Rankings: What You Need to Know

5 Most Popular Articles

  1. Writing Your Grad School Personal Statement
  2. Go for the Goals in Your Statement of Purpose
  3. Tips for Writing Letters of Recommendation
  4. MBA Admissions: Low GMAT or GPA
  5. The Letters of Rec Too?!?

6 Most Viewed Webinars

  1. AMCAS Essays for Acceptance
  2. Law School Personal Statements with Pizzazz
  3. Highlighting Your Strengths in the Common Application
  4. MBA Reality Check: Evaluate Your Profile for Acceptance
  5. 4 Essentials in an Executive MBA Application
  6. The Art of a Gripping MBA Goals Essay

5 Most Visited Chats Pages:

  1. Duke NUS Medical School Admissions Q&A
  2. Consortium 2011 MBA Application Strategies (2012 version is here.)
  3. 2011 London Business School MBA/MiF Admissions Chat (2012 version is here)
  4. 2012 INSEAD MBA Admissions Q&A 
  5. 2011 Columbia MBA Admissions Q&A

With the year drawing to a close, I have a request. We moved to a new blogging platform in September, and since then, you folks have really stopped asking us questions. On the old blog, we frequently received profile evaluation requests and “what are my chances?” questions on school tip posts. We welcome them! And miss them in our new abode.  Don’t be shy. If you have a question or would like your profile evaluated, just ask.

And what’s the mostest of the mostest at Accepted? The absolute best? YOU! Our readers, followers, circlers, fans, friends, participants, and most of all, our clients. Thanks for a wonderful 2011.

Linda AbrahamBy Linda Abraham, founder and president of Accepted.com, co-author of MBA Admission for Smarties: The No-Nonsense Guide to Acceptance at Top Business Schools.

 

Applicants, learn the 5 fatal flaws to avoid in your application essay, statement of purpose, personal statement, or secondary essay with our FREE special report, 5 Fatal Flaws.

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Yale Law May Have the Toughest Admissions, But Baylor is Most Competitive

November 8, 2011 By Leave a Comment

As reported by the National Jurist, The Princeton Review’s new law school rankings are in, and while some listed are generally found at the top, other names might surprise you. The rankings mostly draw from student surveys from 167 law schools, with a few also stemming from statistical data, and result in 11 top 10 lists in different categories.

Here are the law school winners in each category:

  • Best Professors – Boston University
  • Best Career Prospects – Northwestern University
  • Best Classroom Experience – Stanford University
  • Most Competitive Students – Baylor University
  • Toughest to Get Into – Yale University
  • Best Quality of Life – Duke University
  • Most Chosen by Older Students – University of New Mexico
  • Most Diverse Faculty – Southern University
  • Best Environment for Minority Students – University of Hawaii at Manoa
  • Most Conservative Students – Ave Maria University
  • Most Liberal Students – Northeastern University

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The Financial Times’ EMBA Rankings Get Ranked

November 7, 2011 By Leave a Comment

While there is never a shortage of MBA rankings, The Financial Times recently released its EMBA rankings for 2011. At first glance the rankings seem pretty uneventful, as there were no major shifts in the top ten spots in comparison with last year’s rankings.

For the third year in a row, Kellogg’s joint Executive MBA program with Hong Kong’s UST Business School claimed the number one spot. Meanwhile the Trium Program, a three-way partnership between HEC Paris, the London School of Economics and New York University jumped from third to second place. Columbia Business School and London Business School’s joint EMBA program fell one spot from second to third this year.  And the number four spot was taken by INSEAD’s EMBA program, and the fifth by the University of Chicago’s Booth School.

While the rankings seem pretty predictable, Poets and Quants (“Another Wacky Ranking From The FT”) felt that, once again, there is something a little fishy with the Financial Times rankings. The FT rankings are known for their “roller-coaster results,” yet P&Q questions how:

  • The average grad of Kellogg’s program is getting paid $419,416 a year within three years of graduation, while Trium grads make $307, 808 and Columbia/London EMBA grads earn $259,833.
  • A school in the top 100 can rise or drop in double-digits within a single year. 42 schools in the top 100 ranking experienced double-digit gains or losses. And City University’s Cass School of Business in London was ranked tenth last year and fell to the 29th spot this year.
  • Korea University Business School’s EMBA program ranked above Columbia, Cornell and Oxford partially because of its PhD program.  What could a doctorate program possibly have to do with an EMBA program?

It all comes down to the fact that P&Q believes the FT is using the wrong methodology to measure educational value.  For example, P&Q questions whether a school’s diversity in female faculty, staff and board members should affect the program’s rankings. Moreover, by clustering their numbers too close together the FT rankings make it appear as though there is a big gap between higher and lower ranked schools when in fact there may not be any statistically significant difference.

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The Economist Posts Which MBA? 2011 Rankings

October 19, 2011 By Leave a Comment

As we already know, not all schools are created equal.  So The Economist has put out its 9th “Which MBA?” rankings, ranking the top thirty international MBA programs in the world.

The Economist explains that it formulates its rankings after first asking students what led them to pursue an MBA, and then publishing the responses in its “Which MBA?” guide.  The magazine then mixes the information gathered from the guide with salary and faculty qualifications, along with other subjective measures, to formulate its rankings.

However, the methodology of the rankings has been questioned. Poets and Quants looks at some of the surprises in the top 100 rankings and expresses skepticism at their validity in light of some unexplained, dramatic swings in ranking from year to year.  While it is uneventful that Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business took the number one spot, and Chicago School of Business moved down to the number two spot this year.  It is surprising that Harvard only took fifth place, Wharton fell seven spots and was ranked in the fifteenth place, and Britain’s Cranfield School of Management fell eight places to the twenty-third spot.

What worries Poets and Quants is the inconsistency of the rankings. How could Australia’s University of Queensland jump 35 spots in a single year? And how could Henley Business School plummet 40?  It just doesn’t make sense.

However more troubling than the rankings gyrations is a little poll conducted by The Economist titled “Should a school’s ranking be a serious consideration when choosing an MBA programme?” At the time of the writing of the 1007 responses, 66% said “yes.” While online polls are not scientific, these results are disappointing. Rankings should NOT be a serious consideration when choosing where to apply or even where to attend.  And rankings with this lack of consistency deserve much more than a grain of salt.

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2012 US News Rankings Released

September 15, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The moment we’ve all been waiting for…the 2012 US News & World Report’s list of the best national universities is finally here!  Although the rankings remain pretty similar to last year’s, there is a surprising number of ties this year:

Top 10 Universities

1. Harvard University (tied)
1. Princeton University (tied)
3. Yale University
4. Columbia University
5. California Institute of Technology (tied)
5. Massachusetts institute of Technology (tied)
5. Stanford University (tied)
5. University of Chicago (tied)
5. University of Pennsylvania (tied)
10. Duke University (tied)

Here are some of the other new rankings, offering a bit more variety:

Top 10 Colleges with the Lowest Acceptance Rates

1. Curtis Institute of Music (4%)
2. Alice Lloyd College (7%)
3. Harvard University (7%)
4. Stanford University (7%)
5. Cooper Union (8%)
6. United States Naval Academy (8%)
7. Yale University (8%)
8. Brown University (9%)
9. Princeton University (9%)
10. College of the Ozarks (10%)

Top 10 Colleges that Offer the Best Value

1. Harvard University (61.4% receive aid; average discount is 73%)
2. Yale University (56.6% receive aid; average discount is 73%)
3. Princeton University (59.4% receive aid; average discount is 68%)
4. Stanford University (51.2% receive aid, average discount is 70%)
5. MIT (62.6% receive aid; average discount is 66%)
6. Columbia University (50.3% receive aid; average discount is 68%)
7. Dartmouth College (52.4% receive aid; average discount is 65%)
8. California Institute of Technology (53.1% receive aid; average discount is 59%)
9. Duke University (43.2% receive aid; average discount is 64%)
10. Cornell University (47.8% receive aid; average discount is 64%)

Other rankings include: A+ options for B students, the campuses with the most ethnic diversity, and the schools with the highest graduation rates.

You may also want to check out the article, “Ensuring the Accuracy of the Best Colleges Rankings and Data,” which explains how US News calculates rankings. Don’t forget that rankings aren’t everything, and it is more important to think about what you want in a college than what some rankings say are important. Remember:, the data in the rankings is more valuable than the rankings themselves.

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Law School News Roundup

September 14, 2011 By Leave a Comment

  • Student Loan Burden Soars. Above the Law believes that the student loan market is going to crash and suggests law school applicants begin thinking about whether their education is worth what they are paying for it.  While a good education can give you a boost, in these economic times with student debt climbing 25% since 2008, “it’s just not enough of a boost to cancel out the high cost of education.”
  • And Another Ranking Takes it on the Chin. If you thought the critiques of law school rankings had finally ended, Above The Law takes a jab at the National Jurist’s fifth annual list of the 60 ‘Best Value’ law schools. While the National Jurist has changed its ranking methodology to include “fairness,” this additional category has put schools ranked 121 in US News high up on the National Jurist’s list.
  • Milken Donation to UCLA Law. The National Law Journal reports on the much debated $10 million donated to UCLA Law School by Lowell Milken to fund the Lowell Milken Institute for Business Law and Policy. Law professor Lynn Stout has sparked a lot of controversy by arguing that accepting the gift may “tarnish” the school, due to Milken’s history with securities regulators. However, Dean Rachel Moran responded: “We do not believe that decades-old, unproven allegations should serve as a basis for rejecting a gift from a person who has made enormous contributions to the betterment of others and now wishes to do even more.”
  • Paying Back Student Loans. Although there has been much written about the difficulty law school graduates are having finding employment, The Connecticut Law Tribune does a good job of summarizing the issues many new lawyers deal with when having to pay back their loans. The ABA is doing a lot to tackle the issue, but student loans are still one of the biggest concerns—if not the biggest concern—for graduating law students.
  • Stats Sink. The Washington Post reports that law school applications are down 10% nationwide, because of the difficulties law graduates have faced in the job market. At University of Missouri enrollment is down 11%, at UCLA it is down 16%, University of Michigan had a decrease in enrollment of 14%, and Washington University has also had a 12% decrease in enrollment. An even scarier statistic is that only slightly more than two-thirds of spring 2010 graduates had jobs requiring law licenses nine months later—and only 87.4 percent of the class of 2010 had any sort of job nine months after graduation.

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Law School News Roundup

September 3, 2011 By Leave a Comment

  

  • The Council of the American Bar Association (ABA) announced that the ABA’s Section of Legal Education and Admissions plans on beginning to collect job placement data from law schools, and more importantly, will start making “schools accountable for the completeness and accuracy of that data.” Starting in September the annual law school questionnaire will include questions on the nature of graduates’ employment, or unemployment.
  • University of Virginia School of Law’s newspaper revealed that the school has had a hard time finding jobs for graduates this year.  Despite the fact that UVA was number nine in the last US News rankings, the Virginia Law Weekly claims that approximately 100 students from this year’s graduating class of 372 have yet to find permanent employment.
  • The Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that the legal sector has added 4,000 jobs this past July. While that does not necessarily mean that law firms are recovering from the recession, it may hint that times are getting better.
  • Drexel University Earle Mack School of Law has received full accreditation from the American Bar Association.  The Earle Mack School of Law has a one-of-a-kind co-op model, which arranges semester-long placements for students who want to work part-time or full-time.  The school has been opened since 2006 and has already graduated 404 students.
  • UCLA School of Law has announced that it received a $10 million gift from Lowell Milken to create the Lowell Milken Institute for Business and Law. This donation is the largest in UCLA School of Law’s history.
  • Above the Law takes a look at a research paper revealing which law schools produce the most law firm partners. Examining this list can give prospective or current law students an idea of what kind alumni network is or could be available to them. The top 10 schools, with the number of post-1986 partners in parenthesis, are: Harvard (946), Georgetown (729), NYU (543), Virginia (527), Columbia (516), G. Washington (447), Michigan (444), Chicago (426), Texas (384), and Northwestern (365).
  • Above the Law looks at how the blog, “Confessions of an Aspiring Yale Transfer Student,” started by Wake Forest University School of Law 1L, Tammy Hsu, infuriated many law students. Tammy Hsu’s blog was all about her plans to transfer into Yale Law School, but it was harshly criticized in threads on Top Law Schools and AutoAdmit. Tsu’s experience can serve as a warning to all current and future law school students: be carefully what you put on the internet, because anyone can find it and you might regret it.

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Current Full-Time Cornell Johnson Student Interview

August 16, 2011 By Leave a Comment

  

Accepted.com is continuing a blog series featuring interviews with current MBA students, offering readers a behind-the-scenes look at selected MBA programs. We hope to offer you a candid picture of student life, and what you should consider as you prepare your MBA application.

Cornell JohnsonHere’s a talk with a student who came to Cornell Johnson with a life sciences/criminology background, then transitioned into an international career in finance.

We hear Ithaca is “gorges” but what about those winters?

I’m a native of Hong Kong and grew up in Toronto, so the winters weren’t a big deal.  Cornell’s proximity to Wall Street was a major advantage during my job hunt.

What did you want out of an MBA program? Did your career goals change once you arrived?

I did want an Ivy League school — maybe it’s Asia — but people are way more aware of names than rankings, and that helps with the job search. I was deciding between Brand Management and Finance, but realized all the good brand management jobs were restricted to Americans. So I dedicated my search to finance, since I don’t have a green card and was not going to add an additional challenge to an already tough process.

What strategies helped you find a job?

Face to face time is so important.  I basically commuted to New York City a lot, made countless phone calls, even flew out to Hong Kong to meet people.  But the effort paid off.

What are you doing now?

I’m working in finance with the cash sales trading group in Citigroup in Hong Kong.

How did you sell yourself to them, without having a finance background?

Honestly, I think my life sciences familiarity gave me a different perspective and helped me sell myself as a special candidate. With life sciences, I’ll have a strength when selling equities in bio tech, pharmaceuticals.

What was your best day on campus at Cornell?

My best day was when I got my internship and full time offer! From then on, I could focus on my classes and social life. I was just cruising by then.

What was your worst day?

There were a few — mostly during the initial job search, when i was looking for an internship. The process was competitive, and first semester is always intense. It was very difficult to balance the academics and the job search.

Who were your favorite professors and why?

My Chinese professor was fantastic, because she really, really took the time out to make sure I learnt my Chinese well in preparation for class. I also really liked my accounting professors Margaret Shackell Dowell and Mark Nelson. Accounting wasn’t my forte, but they let me take my time to make sure I really understood the concepts.

Can you recommend any cozy places to warm up, and fill up?

Plumtrum, Sangam and State Street Diner.

And finally why do you think you got the job you want?  Any tips for incoming students on the job hunt?

Yes, network early! Get your resume ready early, be confident in yourself, be realistic, and also have backup plans.

Michelle StockmanInterview conducted by Michelle Stockman, who worked in the Columbia Business School admissions office, has a Masters in Journalism from Columbia, and has assisted Accepted.com clients applying to top business schools since 2007.  She is happy to help you with your application.

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