<p>For those that were confused with USC Marshall's stats, BWeek corrected the mistakes in this week's issue:</p>
<p>USC Marshall's correct faculty-student ratio is 1:18.7
The correct median salary is $50,000</p>
<p>But it's rank remains the same?</p>
<p>I think USC could be elevated to around 10 or so? But it really doesn't matter. BusinessWeek conducted this ranking business with far less seriousness compared to US News, therefore appears of less integrity. </p>
<p>One thing I think they should do is try to make sure the collected data make sense (even though you relied on the schools furnishing the stat). Looked like they completely copy & paste the numbers into computer and it may take only minutes for they to print out the ranking. So the question is how can we trust all the data published? For example, Faculty/Student ratio for Carnegie Mellon is 1:5.0, how much trust can we put on that? And someone even pointed out they use the SAT score of whole school for some, but not for the others.</p>
<p>Secondly, they rely much on the subject indices. Look at the teaching quality, an Indiana student's "A" should not be taken the same as a NYU Stern's "A" when you know the student's SAT is like1189 vs 1422. Again for Carnegie Mellon, the job placement score is only a C. I personally know it is not true. </p>
<p>This BusinessWeek ranking is surely a piece of garbage if you don't even think of US News' one highly.</p>
<p>Yes.... since SAT scores imply how well the teacher gets the information to the student... that makes a lot of sense.</p>
<p>BW isn't less serious that US News. It's more in-depth. It goes into many variables, weighs them, and comes out with a ranking. All US News does is ask people to rate a school on 1-5, pure hearsay. If anything, US News is less accurate than BW.</p>
<p>With these far more accurate numbers out, I can't wait to see what USC-Marshall will rank in next year's BW ranking. Having an erroneously reported 1:60 faculty ratio as well as a $40k median salary no doubt hurt it tremendously.</p>
<p>This flies in the face of those who constantly underrate USC with comments like "I'm not really surprised to see USC that low," yet promote their own alma maters (a certain moderator comes to mind).</p>
<p>P.S.</p>
<p>Afterhours, get ready for a year of posting <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_22/c3986034.htm?campaign_id=search%5B/url%5D">http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_22/c3986034.htm?campaign_id=search</a> on College Confidential in response to the innumerable "why would you go to USC which is ranked #21 over [insert school]" comments that will be inevitably coming our way until next year's BW issue.</p>
<p>Businessweek is less serious than US News?</p>
<p>Heck no...</p>
<p>Businessweek's method is far better than US News' Peer Assessment.</p>
<p>Reading comprehension.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>BW appeared less serious than US News in their ranking business.</p></li>
<li><p>Merit of methodolgy is of subject matter. And you can denied what I pointed out in the previous post will produce inaccurate results.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>How do you figure that USC will rise into the top 10 in their rankings, just because they change the starting salary data? The starting salary is 10% of the overall ranking, meaning a slight increase in it will have a minimal effect in it's ranking. And 11 of the 19 schools that currently rank ahead of USC have a starting salary equal to or greater than $50K, USC's starting salary.
[quote]
BW appeared less serious than US News in their ranking business.
[/quote]
Since appearance has a lot to do with calculating a ranking (rolls eyes)... lets check the methodology, since that's what's really important, and we'll see who's rankings are more "serious".</p>
<p>BusinessWeek:
[quote]
There are five sources of data for the undergraduate ranking: (1) a student survey, (2) a recruiter survey, (3) median starting salaries for graduates, (4) the number of graduates admitted to 35 top MBA programs, (5) and an academic quality measure that consists of SAT/ACT test scores for business majors, full-time faculty-student ratios in the business program, average class size in core business classes, the percentage of business majors with internships, and the number of hours students spend preparing for class each week. The test score, faculty-student ratio, and class size information comes from a survey to be completed by participating schools; the internship and hours of preparation data comes from the student survey. The student survey score counts for 30% of the final ranking. The recruiter survey score counts for 20%. Starting salaries count for 10%. The feeder school measure counts for 10%. And the quality measure counts for 30%.
[/quote]
USNews:
[quote]
U.S. News surveyed deans and senior faculty at undergraduate business programs accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. Participants were asked to rate the quality of all programs they are familiar with on a scale of 1 (marginal) to 5 (distinguished). The rankings are based solely on this peer survey; 45 percent of those surveyed responded. Deans and faculty were also asked to nominate the best programs in specialty areas; the five schools receiving the most mentions in each appear below.
[/quote]
There is a reason behind every rating. There is a reason BYU is so high. A reason why Carnegie Mellon is so low. Berkeley isn't in the top 10. They have data to back up their claims, much moreso than the US News just surveying people and asking "hey, what do you think of this school".</p>