The Economist MBA Rankings

Graduate School Business School - MBA
1

<p>2005 Rankings, I have to say I was a bit surprised</p>

<p><a href="http://mba.eiu.com/index.asp?layout=2002rankings%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://mba.eiu.com/index.asp?layout=2002rankings&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>I've never heard of IESE, but that's probably because I don't speak Spanish..</p>

<p>School Rank (out of 100)
IESE Business School - University of Navarra 1
Northwestern University - Kellogg School of Management 2
Dartmouth College - Tuck School of Business 3
Stanford Graduate School of Business 4
IMD - International Institute for Management Development 5
Chicago, University of - Graduate School of Business 6
New York University - Leonard N Stern School of Business 7
Michigan, University of - Stephen M. Ross School of Business 8
Columbia Business School 9
California at Berkeley, University of - Haas School of Business 10</p>

2

<p>Looks good. Where's Wharton?</p>

3

<p>Where's Harvard?</p>

4

<p>I think Harvard and Wharton decided not to participate in the ranking.</p>

5

<p>I would also say this ranking is highly questionable, even if you don't count the notable absences of HBS and Wharton. For example, the notion that Dartmouth Tuck is #3 in the world, better than Stanford, MIT, Chicago, Columbia and INSEAD? The notion that INSEAD is only the 3rd best in Europe? That seems dubious.</p>

6

<p>Isn't LSE really good as well?</p>

7

<p>Not for Business. Lodon Business School is one of the top 3 or 4 MBA programs in Europe. LSE is decent, but not one of the toip 5 in Europe.</p>

8

<p>Here is an interesting article about MBA programs.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.geocities.com/topmbaprograms/Top5MBA.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.geocities.com/topmbaprograms/Top5MBA.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

9

<p>this part of the article really worries me "On the other hand, if you graduate first in your class in finance at NYU, get a 780 on the GMAT, and work at Boston Consulting Group for three years, the admissions committee at Stanford Business School could decide they’ve already let in enough people like you, and the spot could go to someone with a 3.2 GPA in English who worked in a NGO in Africa. " </p>

<p>I know that that business school admission is very unpredictable and are not focused as much on just grades. But what is the chances of someone with a 700+ GMAt score and 2 years expereince as an Ibanking financial analyst, being rejected into a top MBA program?</p>

10

<p>I would like to add to this...... LSE does no have an MBA program</p>

11

<p>
[quote]
I know that that business school admission is very unpredictable and are not focused as much on just grades. But what is the chances of someone with a 700+ GMAt score and 2 years expereince as an Ibanking financial analyst, being rejected into a top MBA program?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I'll put it to you this way. I know a guy who got admitted to HBS, Stanford, Wharton, the MIT LFM program (dual-degree MBA/MS in engineering), and the Kellogg MMM program (dual-degree MBA/Master's in Engineering Management), but got outright rejected from Yale. Look at the US News MBA rankings to see just how ridiculous that is.</p>

12

<p>here would like to tell u sakky tht yale has a very high reject ratio...a very low acceptace rate....if ur into yale consider urself to be with absolutely the best. now I know ppl may argue but its true tht u can probably get into harvard but still may get a reject from yale....besides the rankings dont consider the quality of students hence accept or reject doesnt matter much when ur looking at US news rankings....</p>

13

<p>I thought it was interesting that only 1% of Wharton's MBA Class of 2005 had 0-2 years of working experience. Mind you, that's 7 people in a class of 743! I thought it was common for someone to do a 2 year ibanking stint and then enter an MBA program. However, they do say that 22% of the class had 3-4 years of working experience. Is the analyst position at investment banks 2 years or 3?</p>

<p>Source: <a href="http://mycareer.wharton.upenn.edu/report/profile_2.cfm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://mycareer.wharton.upenn.edu/report/profile_2.cfm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

14

<p>
[quote]
here would like to tell u sakky tht yale has a very high reject ratio...a very low acceptace rate....if ur into yale consider urself to be with absolutely the best. now I know ppl may argue but its true tht u can probably get into harvard but still may get a reject from yale...

[/quote]
</p>

<p>A "very low" acceptance rate? I don't know about that.</p>

<p>According to the latest USNews Graduate School rankings, here are the admit rates for the various B-schools</p>

<p>HBS - 15.7%
Stanford GSB - 10.8%
MIT Sloan (just regular Sloan, not LFM, which is even harder) - 22%
Northwestern Kellogg (just regular Kellogg, not the harder MMM) - 24.2%
UPenn Wharton - 21.1%
Yale SoM - 28.1%</p>

<p>So Yale clearly has the highest admit rate of all the schools mentioned.</p>

<p>Let's take a look at the average GMAT and GPA of the schools
HBS - 3.64/707
Stanford GSB - 3.56/712
UPenn Wharton - 3.52/714
MIT Sloan - 3.5/700 (again, just regular Sloan, not LFM)
Northwestern Kellogg - 3.45/700 (regular Kellogg, not MMM)
Yale SoM - 3.42/683</p>

<p>So Yale has the lowest values for both GPA and GMAT for all of the schools mentioned.</p>

<p>So if you get into Yale, are you one of the absolute best? I suppose that depends on how you define 'absolute best'. What I can say is that the average student, according to the stats, is not as good as the average student at the other schools mentioned. In fact, looking at the entire top 15 of B-schools, I see that Yale has the 2nd lowest average GMAT score (lowest is Virginia). </p>

<p>
[quote]
besides the rankings dont consider the quality of students hence accept or reject doesnt matter much when ur looking at US news rankings....

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Oh really? So what is this blurb right here that I see?</p>

<p>"Student Selectivity (weighted by .25) </p>

<p>Mean GMAT Scores (.1625)
The average Graduate Management Admission Test score of students entering the full-time program in fall 2005. Scores on the test range from 200 to 800.</p>

<p>Mean Undergraduate GPA (.075)
The average undergraduate grade-point average of those students entering the full-time program in fall 2005.</p>

<p>Acceptance Rate (.0125)
The percent of applicants to the full-time program in fall 2005 who were accepted."</p>

<p><a href="http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/grad/rankings/about/07biz_meth.php%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/grad/rankings/about/07biz_meth.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

15

<p>sakky: Can you comment on what I pointed out. I'm quite curious and you seem very well informed.</p>

16

<p>There is a Business school in India called Indian Institute of Management that claims to have an admit rate of less than 1% !!!</p>

17

<p>YEs , Indian Institute of Management has an admit rate of less than 1% and thts because 1,20,000 people apply there every yr. the whole of india applies there. However since the application fees is very very very less Most ppl appear for their enterance test with little or no preparation. They apply just for the heck of it, for fun, and hence the no. of applicants goes up. but if u consider only those applicants who are serious about MBA and prepare for the test with a clear motive of gettings into Indian Institute of Management, the percentage of acceptance is remarkably higher.</p>

18

<p>All said and done. Do u really believe rankings are an ideal parameter of assessing the quality of students in a B-school. And hence sloan ranked #4 has better students than chicago GSB #6 !! ?? I am sure there is gonna be difference of opinion on this. nevertheless......</p>

<p>and about the assesment methods tht u provded in ur link </p>

<p><a href="http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/gr.../07biz_meth.php%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/gr.../07biz_meth.php&lt;/a> ...lets keep this stats away couz there are no. of ways in which these stats/methods can be challenged and for starters let me state something tht a good and knowledgable friend of mine had written. I encourage u to share on opinion on this:</p>

<p>Another large component of the US News ranking is based on student selectivity (nominally 25% of the total score). Some 16.25% of the total score comes from the mean GMAT score. While there is a some connection between the average GMAT and quality of a school, we should not automatically assume that it is a strong connection. </p>

<p>There are a number of ways that schools can post a high GMAT mean that have little to do with prestige. The most obvious is just select students with the highest GMAT. Since we are using the mean just a few students with very high GMAT scores can have substantial influence on the average. Another important point to keep in mind is the difference between perceived value and prestige. Public schools that charge low in-state tuitions will tend to attract students on the basis of value but not necessarily prestige. Students from outside the state that are not eligible for the in-state tuition would often make a different choice. This might explain the presence of some of the public institutions on the US News list of top schools. To be clear, I am not stating that these are inferior schools, just that they might not rank as high as they appear to rank if we focus on the price-independent reputation of the school.</p>

19

<p>Obviously there is no 'perfect' parameter. Every ranking has inherent flaws.</p>

<p>Ideally, rankings should be used as just one piece of information to determine where you should go. Everybody should create their own individual "mental ranking" that weights the things that are important to them. For example, for those students who are sure they want to be entrepreneurs, then Babson becomes an extremely prominent choice. For those whose passion is Operations Management, then Sloan becomes the clear top choice (and in fact, LFM becomes by far the best fit). </p>

<p>But good rankings are useful in the sense that they can provide you with some useful information to frame your decisions. For example, people who don't know anything about B-schools would probably not know that Northwestern Kellogg is a huge marketing powerhouse. </p>

<p>The reason why I believe USNews is the best ranking is simple - it tends to produce results that are the most reasonable. While one might say that this is simply an example of circular logic, the fact is, we ought to discount rankings that produce wild and weird results. I think we all have an instinctive feel that certain schools like HBS, Wharton, and Stanford are among the handful of very top schools. Hence, a ranking like WSJ that would purport to rank Stanford #44 in one year loses tremendous credibility. In general, the M7 schools (HBS, Wharton, Stanford, Sloan, Kellogg, Chicago, and Columbia) will remain the dominant 7 schools for a long time in terms of popular consciousness and recruiter desirability.</p>

20

<p>Sakky has spoken very well, however It shud have been a few post earlier instead of the statistical evidence sakky provided to prove that Yale ranks low and hence its absurd tht they can reject someone who is accepted by a "higher ranking" school such as HBS etc.. nevertheless , Sakky has further echoed(finally) my point that rankings arent a perfect parameter in judging the quality of Bschools or their program. U can be accepted in HBS yet be rejected by YAle. and also keep aside all those statistics and try to see for urself which program best 'fits' ur career goals. Treat the The US news, WSJ etc etc... a chart to know tht the program is good. and also dont be surprsed if yale rejects u couz I have friend accepted by Darden, NYU, UCLA, kelloggs, wharton and yet gettng a dung from Yale.</p>

<p>And as for US news ranking well its still absurd ( have a look at the 2007 ranking) they have included schools, which have never been ranked ever, and tht too over Rice and Vanderbilt !! nevertheless.... I leave it upto the readers to decide how they woul wanna weigh these ranking. As for help...U can always fall back on this forum</p>