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Businessweek’s Undergrad B-Schools 2012

March 23, 2012 By Linda Abraham Leave a Comment

Bloomberg Businessweek ranks undergraduate business programs similarly to how it ranks the MBA programs, a combination of student satisfaction and recruiter satisfaction surveys from 2010-12 spiced with data like median starting salary for grads, which schools send the most grads to top 35 MBA programs, and “academic quality” indicators let average SAT scores, student faculty ratios, and average class size. For details, please see How We Ranked the Schools.

BW’s Top 10 Undergrad B-Schools:

2012 Rank	School	2011 Rank
1	Notre Dame (Mendoza)	1
2	UVA (McIntire)	2
3	Cornell (Dyson)	5
4	Penn (Wharton)	4
5	Emory (Goizueta)	3
6	MIT (Sloan)	9
7	Michigan (Ross)	6
8	Washington U ( Olin)	14
9	Boston College (Carroll)	16
10	UNC-Chapel Hill (Kenan-Flager)	8

The chart shows very little change in the top five, and a little more change in positions 6-10. Notably Washington University and Boston College moved up from 16 and 14 to 8 and 9 respectively.

A few interesting factoids in the analysis provided in “Behind the Ranking: What the Numbers Show.”

The most popular majors were finance (26%), accounting (24%), and marketing (18%). Finance’s popularity is somewhat surprising because hiring and bonuses are down in the field. Hope springs eternal…
Half of all business students intend to pursue an MBA later in their career.
The class of 2012 is more optimistic than the Class of 2011.
That optimism isn’t unfounded: More employers are recruiting at undergrad business schools.

Given the widespread interest in obtaining a degree later, I was curious about the “MBA Feeder Rank.” BW identifies those schools that “send the most grads to the 35 top MBA programs identified in previous Bloomberg Businessweek rankings” and ranked from 1-10, that ranking is:

UVA (McIntire)
Washington U – St. Louis (Olin)
Carnegie Mellon (Tepper)
Cornell (Dyson)
MIT (Sloan)
Georgetown (McDonough)
UC Berkeley (Haas)
Michigan (Ross)
Emory (Goizueta)
William & Mary (Mason)

Obviously, these numbers are somewhat surprising. (Wharton comes in below Mason? I guess you could argue that the Wharton grad doesn’t need an MBA.) More surprises are in store if you just ranked the schools by “academic quality indicators.”

1. Wake Forest

2. Villanova

3. Penn (Wharton)

3. UC Berkeley (Haas)

3. Richmond (Robins)

3. Carnegie Mellon (Tepper)

7. Notre Dame (Mendoza)

7. UVA (McIntire)

7. MIT Sloan

7. UNC Chapel Hill (Kenan-Flagler)

7. NYU (Stern)

Don’t some of these numbers look fishy? Think about it before you rely too much on the rankings.

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

Filed Under: College Admissions Tagged With: Rankings

How Important are MBA Rankings?

March 18, 2012 By Judy Gruen 1 Comment

What do the rankings trophies mean?

US News & World Report recently released its hotly anticipated annual rankings for MBA programs. These rankings, along with those of Bloomberg, BusinessWeek, Forbes, The Financial Times and The Economist, have become akin to the Holy Grail for many MBA hopefuls. While the data in the rankings have value, the rankings themselves have real limitations that applicants frequently ignore.

Rankings measure divergent aspects of a program, frequently using superficial metrics. Even when examining the same parameters, different rankings assign different weights to metrics such as GMAT scores, return on investment (ROI), and recruiter satisfaction. As a result, results can vary widely: Duke Fuqua was ranked #6 by BusinessWeek in 2010, #15 by The Financial Times 2012 Global MBA programs, #12 by US News in 2013, #12 in Forbes 2011, and #18 in 2011 by The Economist.

To make any sense of this numerical stew, applicants must understand each ranking’s methodology. For example, BusinessWeek bases its rankings on employer and student surveys with a dash of “intellectual capital,” while The Financial Times mixes in diversity and international reach, alumni salaries and career development, and research capabilities.

Once sophisticated MBA applicants understand what’s being measured, they need to evaluate which rankings measure and weigh as they do. If there isn’t an exact match, the data contain noise and can become flawed.

Many of the metrics reflect either inputs (GPA, GMAT) or outcomes (ROI). What about measurements of educational quality? You can’t rely on a simple reading of rankings here, either. Educational quality is highly subjective, and student objectives also vary, making “quality” different from student to student. For example, a woman interested in strategy consulting who wants to attend a business school with a strong women’s network should look at different factors than a man interested in management in the global energy field. For her, the surveys conducted by US News and BusinessWeek on leading schools in general management, and those by The Financial Times that rank schools based on the percentage of women in class and on faculty would be of strongest interest. In this case, looking at the metrics for very specific criteria, not the school’s overall rank, is most relevant.

Other caveats about the MBA rankings include the fact that surveys of students and alumni (BusinessWeek, Financial Times, The Economist) tend to be lavish in their praise of the schools, because they know that higher rankings increase the value of their degrees. There have even been incidents of fraud by zealous school employees seeking to game rankings for their own advancement. More innocently, survey participants may base their responses on stale experience or hearsay. And some rankings, including BusinessWeek, survey recruiters, but the interests of recruiters and applicants may differ. Finally, raw rankings don’t reveal the degree of difference between schools.

The buzz and excitement engendered by the rankings can also lull applicants into a false sense of security that they have done their homework just because they read the rankings. They haven’t. Even Robert Morse, director of data research for U.S. News & World Report, wrote on his blog, “It’s important that you use the rankings to supplement—not substitute—careful thought and your own inquiries. The rankings should only be used as one tool to help you choose the right graduate school or program, not as the only factor driving your choice.”

Rankings are a good place to begin school research and an absolutely terrible place to end it. There is no substitute for real boots-on-the-ground research about MBA programs, which involves school visits (when possible), attending school information sessions, reading student blogs, in-depth studies of school web sites, and trying to connect with current students and alumni. This all takes time, but these steps empower applicants to accurately assess a program’s distinctions, strengths, weaknesses, and personality. So in addition to looking at the rankings, MBA hopefuls should invest the time to finding the program that will give them the best MBA experience for them as distinct and unique individuals.

By Linda Abraham, president and founder of Accepted.com, and Judy Gruen, Accepted.com senior editor. Linda and Judy are co-authors of the newly-released MBA Admissions for Smarties: The No-Nonsense Guide to Acceptance at Top Business Schools.

Article first published as How Important are MBA Rankings? on Technorati.

Filed Under: MBA Admissions Tagged With: Rankings

US News 2013 Law School Rankings

March 16, 2012 By Accepted.com Leave a Comment

And here are the top 14 law schools per US News & World Report:

2013 Rank	School	2012 Rank
1	Yale	1
2	Stanford	3
3	Harvard	2
4	Columbia	4
5	University of Chicago	5
6	New York University	6
7	UC Berkeley	9
7	University of Pennsylvania	7
7	University of Virginia	9
10	University of Michigan – Ann Arbor	7
11	Duke University	11
12	Northwestern University	12
13	Georgetown University	14
14	Cornell University	13

Yes, Harvard was demoted to #3. Yes, Michigan moved down 3 notches and Berkeley moved up two, but really the top tier remained very consistent. Larger jumps and changes occurred outside the top schools, as is typical of the rankings.

And how “reliable” are these rankings? Well first you need to understand what US News is evaluating. You can find that information by reviewing its methodology. It’s fairly reliable IF what you value in a law school matches what US News has decided to measure. If they don’t match, the validity of the rankings for you declines sharply.

There are other shortcomings too – potential for manipulation and fraud, survey respondents being uninformed or biased. US News is aware of these shortcomings and when Bob Morse announced the publication date for this year’s rankings, he added a caveat:

It’s important that you use the rankings to supplement—not substitute—careful thought and your own inquiries. The rankings should only be used as one tool to help you choose the right graduate school or program, not as the only factor driving your choice.

Keep all these shortcomings in mind before you rely too much on the rankings.

Accepted.com ~ Helping You Write Your Best

Filed Under: Law School Admissions Tagged With: Rankings

U.S. News 2013 Medical School Rankings

March 14, 2012 By Accepted.com Leave a Comment

U.S. News provides two overall rankings of medical school: research and primary care.

Here are the ten best in each category.

2013 Rank	Best Medical Schools: Research	2012 Rank
1	Harvard	1
2	Johns Hopkins	3
3	University of Pennsylvania	2
4	Stanford	5
5	UC San Francisco	5
6	Washington University (St. Louis)	4
7	Yale	5
7	Columbia	10
7	Duke	5
10	University of Chicago (Pritzker)	12
10	University of Michigan (Ann Arbor)	10
10	University of Washington	9

A little reshuffling of the deck chairs here. This year’s three-way tie for tenth place expanded the “top ten,” but the same players got the seats. Every school in this year’s expanded top 10, was in last year’s top twelve with only minor movement.

2013 Rank	Best Medical Schools: Primary Care	2012 Rank
1	University of Washington	1
2	UNC Chapel Hill	2
3	Oregon Health and Science University	3
4	UC San Francisco	5
5	University of Colorado–Denver	4
6	University of Nebraska Medical Center	7
7	University of Massachusetts–Worcester	8
8	University of Michigan–Ann Arbor	20
8	University of Minnesota	6
10	UCLA (Geffen)	16

I find it noteworthy how little overlap there is between these two groups. Only the University of Washington, UC San Francisco, and University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) are in both groups. Also, while the research schools were very stable, the schools known for primary care had a moderate amount of change. Michigan shot up 12 positions to #8 and UCLA jumped six to join the top ten.

How meaningful are these rankings? First, you need to understand what U.S. News is weighing and evaluating. Check out its methodology and then decide whether these criteria match yours in choosing a medical school. If they don’t, then you need to develop a list of qualities you consider important and choose where to apply based on your list, not U.S. News’.

Keep in mind that given the high cost of medical school and the intense competition for medical school slots – most of the schools listed above have acceptance rates of less than 10%, and many are south of 5% — you need to be realistic. Don’t get your heart set on one school unless you have stellar stats and experience.

Also, keep the rankings in perspective. You don’t need to memorize them or cite them chapter and verse. You can use them as a useful repository of data. Remember the counsel given by Robert Morse, director of data research for U.S. News & World Report:

That’s good advice.

Accepted.com ~ Helping You Write Your Best

Filed Under: Medical School Admissions Tagged With: Rankings

US News 2013 MBA Rankings

March 13, 2012 By Linda Abraham Leave a Comment

And here are the top 10 per US News & World Report:

2013 Rank	School	2012 Rank
1	Harvard	2
1	Stanford	1
3	University of Pennsylvania (Wharton)	3
4	MIT (Sloan)	3
4	Northwestern (Kellogg)	5
4	Chicago Booth	5
7	UC Berkeley (Haas)	7
8	Columbia	9
9	Dartmouth (Tuck)	7
10	Yale	10

As you can see the changes are somewhere between slight and miniscule. Larger jumps and changes occurred outside the top 10, but the statistical significance of these changes becomes questionable due to fewer responses farther down the list.

And how “reliable” are these rankings? Wait a bit. We’ll be writing more on that.

By Linda Abraham, president and founder of Accepted.com and co-author of the new, definitive book on MBA admissions, MBA Admission for Smarties: The No-Nonsense Guide to Acceptance at Top Business Schools .

Filed Under: MBA Admissions Tagged With: Chicago Booth, Columbia Business School, Dartmouth Tuck, Harvard Business School, MIT Sloan, Northwestern Kellogg, Rankings, Stanford GSB, UC Berkeley Haas, US News, Wharton, Yale SOM

Financial Times 2012 Rankings Are Out!

January 29, 2012 By Linda Abraham 1 Comment

The Financial Times published its annual ranking of MBA programs today. And the top 10 are:

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

“That Time of the Year Again,” by Conrad Chua, Head MBA Admissions and Recruitment at Judge Business School
“MBA Rankings” by mba50
“Stanford Rises to Top of New FT Ranking.”

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

Filed Under: MBA Admissions Tagged With: Financial Times, Rankings

Poets and Quants Releases Their Own Rankings

January 1, 2012 By Accepted.com 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.

Filed Under: MBA Admissions Tagged With: Chicago Booth, Columbia Business School, Harvard Business School, Rankings, Stanford GSB, Wharton

Accepted’s Most in 2011

December 30, 2011 By Accepted.com Leave a Comment

Best of 2011 at Accepted.com What 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

5 Most Downloaded Special Reports of 2011

5 Most Popular Articles

6 Most Viewed Webinars

5 Most Visited Chats Pages:

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.

By 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.

Filed Under: Admissions, College Admissions, Grad School Admissions, Law School Admissions, MBA Admissions, Medical School Admissions Tagged With: Chicago Booth, Columbia Business School, Harvard Business School, INSEAD, London Business School, Northwestern Kellogg, NYU Stern, Rankings, Stanford GSB

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

November 8, 2011 By Accepted.com 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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Filed Under: Law School Admissions Tagged With: Baylor, Duke Law, Northwestern, Rankings, Stanford Law, Yale Law

The Financial Times’ EMBA Rankings Get Ranked

November 7, 2011 By Accepted.com 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.

Accepted.com ~ Helping You Write Your Best

Filed Under: MBA Admissions Tagged With: EMBA, Rankings

Businessweek’s Undergrad B-Schools 2012

How Important are MBA Rankings?

US News 2013 Law School Rankings

U.S. News 2013 Medical School Rankings

US News 2013 MBA Rankings

Financial Times 2012 Rankings Are Out!

Poets and Quants Releases Their Own Rankings

Accepted’s Most in 2011

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

The Financial Times’ EMBA Rankings Get Ranked

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