<p>Hasn’t their B-school program been around longer? They at least initially had to be doing something more than being merely associated with Penn (though now, that is indeed probably all that matters) just as Emory, Notre Dame, UVA, and schools like Sloan are doing more than being associated with the respective institutions. I mean, Sloan ranks 9 for some reason. I have to wonder what’s the difference between say top 10-15 UG B-schools and those perhaps ranked in the 30s or lower. Is it merely the student-faculty ratio or them being associated with prestigious UG institutions (despite Emory being 20, it isn’t really perceived as being that prestigious). They could indeed be seeing past the prestige in doing those rankings. However, I really fear that they over-rate things like student-faculty ratio for the reason already stated. </p>
<p>I was just saying that Wharton’s prestige is extremely beneficial as it unfortunately allows them to easily gain a lock on certain recruiters. Even if they replaced their facult/teachers, with some who are much less apt. at teaching, recruiters won’t see it. They’ll just know that “it’s Wharton”. Same goes for recruiting even outside of B-schools at most Ivy Leagues (and some non-Ivies). </p>
<p>Schools like Emory suffer from this type of quasi-elitism I guess. Even if its faculty was indeed better (again I doubt, but it could be on par. We do at least know it is very well-qualified regardless of if it’s qualified compared to say Wharton. It’s still top league), recruiters and others(say students) will simply assume that the Ivy/MIT is better just because of them being “who they are”, essentially based upon their past success and being more well-known. It’s lesser so about quality education and consequently quality employees than about the companies/students being associated with the aurora and prestige of going to or recruiting from an Ivy/Ivy-like school (MIT, Stanford, those schools). Basically, even if Emory did become better (for certain, because we don’t go to these places, so we don’t actually know, we can only guess) than Wharton or some other peers one day even in terms of academics/qualifications, we’ll still be edged out (in terms of prospective student desirability and recruitment) by bigger names that have been around longer and have more prestige (despite rank). Prestige inflation makes it hard for noobs like us to gain credibility, so you make a good point. Once the school is solid, prestige does kind of rule. Wharton will get more play at this point merely because it’s associated with an Ivy. Keep in mind that most B-school students are primarily worried about job placement and recruitment (and in many cases, placement on Wall Street). Wharton can get complacent at this point (regardless of its rank), while ours certainly has to keep striving to make itself more visible to recruiters and prospectives so as to gain more credibility than what even these rankings can show. We have to get to the point that we are indeed so good that everyone knows it even without opening up the rankings section in a magazine. Seems as if Emory as a whole is making some progress in visibility, so if they keep it up, they’re heading in the right direction. Of course once the name is pumped up, it has to constantly strive to improve w/e to make sure it lives up to its name. You don’t want many to come here be set up for disappointment. As some posters in the past have said about our B-school; though very solid, many improvements can be made. The same can be said for the college.</p>
<p>Well, I just saw a breakdown of some comparisons, and it seems as if Wharton is not that much more rigorous than we are and its job placement is similar. None of them (top ones ) have classwork hours/week over 20 hours. However, I think the overall study time average is like 10-11 (really low compared to several decades ago) hours whereas all of these exceed 14.0. One difference is that, it seems as if Emory has less faculty members. Either that or larger classrooms because the other schools have smaller average class sizes. I ignored start salary because that mainly depends on where the students pursue jobs. If you’re pursuing in the south expect to make less, but be able to afford more off of less money, so seeing the Ivies w/60-70K does not impress me because, provided that students pursue jobs in those areas, cost of living is significantly higher than, say, Atlanta. The schools indeed seem very similar in some senses. I would have to see credentials of faculty members to check for differences. Maybe the “experience” is richer at our peers.</p>