That's Right…It's Round Up Time!
It's been a busy week in the world of MBA and college admissions. Check out some of this week's highlights with an exciting Accepted.com round up!
- Even the most prestigious of MBA programs (like HBS) have been called under scrutiny since the recent financial crisis, reports the Financial Post last week. And yet even with such criticism, top MBA programs (like Harvard) are receiving more and more applications. One reason for such an increase in popularity, explains the article, is Harvard's position in the published rankings. But how reliable are these rankings? With so many ranking reports out there, so many ranking methodologies floating around, and so many surveys and questionnaires that tackle different sorts of questions, how can anyone attribute any justifiable weight to rankings? Surveys show that university adcoms, professors, and students all agree that the rankings are subjective and should not be relied upon, and yet the media seems to continue going rankings-crazy.
For more information about the value (and lack thereof) of rankings, check out MBA Rankings: An Accepted.com Special Report now.
- The Chronicle offers highlights from the career of USC's now retired president Steven B. Sample, particularly his campaign to find a successful leader to replace his iconic role. Sample, who was president of University of Southern California, is praised for his enthusiasm and success at marketing and has "engineered one of the great recent transformations in American higher education" with his rebuilding and rebranding work at USC which in turn affected the economy and culture of Los Angeles. The new president, who will be named sometime next month, has large shoes to fill, especially since USC’s endowment took a hard hit by the recession. .
- More than one-third of university faculty members saw a dip in their 2009-2010 salaries, reports a recent Chronicle article. Faculty salaries at private doctoral institutions, on the other hand, actually saw a salary increase of about 1.7%.
- CNN Money's Fortune Magazine ran an article recently on the strengths that military veterans bring to the business world. Wal-Mart U.S. is making particular strides to recruit junior military officers. Jennifer Seidner, senior recruiting manager at Wal-Mart, explains: "The thinking was that we could bring in world-class leadership talent that was already trained and ready to go. And then we could teach them retail, because we know that pretty well." The result of such an endeavor: Wal-Mart has "tapped into a good mine of talent." Other companies, as well as business schools, are also beginning to place a higher premium on military veterans in the workforce.
- In a BusinessWeek article entitled "Business Schools Revamp the Application," author Francesca Di Meglio discusses three major changes to the MBA application process: GRE scores are now accepted by many b-schools instead of just the traditional GMAT; for non-native English speakers, the IELTS is accepted in addition to the traditional TOEFL test; application deadlines are earlier; and last but not least, b-schools will now accept video and/or audio components to the application. Chicago Booth is considered a pioneer is the multimedia aspects of admissions. UCLA Anderson picked up on the trend, offering applicants with an option to present an audio submission, and 70% of applicants accepted the challenge. As Mae Jennifer Shores, assistant dean of admissions at Anderson says, "A lot of business schools have concerns about authenticity. This was a way to get a more authentic view of a candidate."
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Financial Times Global 2010 MBA Rankings
The Financial Times published today its 2010 ranking of global MBA programs. Its ranking attempts to "assess the effect of the MBA on ... subsequent career progression and salary growth." Consequently it draws its data from the schools themselves and from surveys of graduates at least three years after earning their MBA degree. In building its rankings, FT analyzes "alumni salaries and career development; the diversity and international reach of the business school and its MBA programme; and the research capabilities of each school." For complete information on FT's methodology, please see "Getting to Grips with the Method."
The best business schools according to FT:
- London Business School
- University of Pennsylvania: Wharton
- Harvard Business School
- Stanford GSB
- INSEAD
- Columbia Business School
- IE (tied with Columbia)
- MIT Sloan
- Chicago Booth
- Hong Kong UST Business School
I have long argued that far more valuable than the overall rankings are the specialty rankings. Here are FT's specialty rankings:
Top for international business
1 Thunderbird School of Global Management
2 University of South Carolina: Moore
3 Georgetown University: McDonough
4 Insead
5 George Washington University
6 Hult International Business School
7 IMD
8 Manchester Business School
9 University of Southern California: Marshall
10 London Business School
Top for finance
1 University of Chicago: Booth
2 New York University: Stern
3 University of Pennsylvania: Wharton
4 Rice University: Jones
5 University of Rochester: Simon
6 London Business School
7 Columbia Business School
8 Macquarie Graduate School of Management
9 University of Iowa: Tippie
10 University of Toronto: Rotman
Top for accountancy
1 Brigham Young University: Marriott
2 University of Chicago: Booth
3 University of Texas at Austin: McCombs
4 New York University: Stern
5 Macquarie Graduate School of Management
6 University of Rochester: Simon
7 Cornell University: Johnson
8 University of Pennsylvania: Wharton
9 Rice University: Jones
10 Texas A & M University: Mays
Top for entrepreneurship
1 Babson College: Olin
2 Stanford University GSB
3 Imperial College Business School
4 UCLA: Anderson
5 University of California at Berkeley: Haas
6 MIT Sloan School of Management
7 University of Cambridge: Judge
8 IMD
9 Wisconsin School of Business
10 Insead
Top for economics
1 University of Chicago: Booth
2 Cranfield School of Management
3 MIT Sloan School of Management
4 Yale School of Management
5 University of Rochester: Simon
6 Imperial College Business School
7 Melbourne Business School
8 University of Pennsylvania: Wharton
9 IE Business School
10 New York University: Stern
Top for corporate social responsibility
1 University of Notre Dame: Mendoza
2 University of California at Berkeley: Haas
3 Yale School of Management
4 Ipade
5 University of Virginia: Darden
6 Brigham Young University: Marriott
7 Esade Business School
8 University of Michigan: Ross
9 University of North Carolina: Kenan-Flagler
10 Thunderbird School of Global Management
Top for general management
1 University of Virginia: Darden
2 Harvard Business School
3 Ipade
4 Dartmouth College: Tuck
5 IMD
6 University of Michigan: Ross
7 University of Western Ontario: Ivey
8 Northwestern University: Kellogg
9 Stanford University GSB
10 Duke University: Fuqua
Top for marketing
1 Northwestern University: Kellogg
2 Duke University: Fuqua
3 Indiana University: Kelley
4 Ipade
5 Esade Business School
6 Wisconsin School of Business
7 Imperial College Business School
8 University of Michigan: Ross
9 HEC Paris
10 Cornell University: Johnson
Rather than list all my important caveats for using rankings, I'll simply refer you to our MBA Rankings Report.
 By Linda Abraham, President and Founder of Accepted.com.
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