<p>Tuck is certainly in a tier with Kellogg, UChicago, MIT, Columbia and above Duke, NYU, UMich, UCLA before Cal/Berkeley. Take a look at starting salaries.</p>
<p>B-Schools (IMO)</p>
<ol>
<li>Harvard/ Wharton/ Stanford</li>
<li>Kellogg, Columbia, MIT, Chicago, Dartmouth</li>
<li>Duke, Berkeley, NYU, Michigan</li>
</ol>
<p>Top MBAs in my opinion:</p>
<p>1) HBS, Kellogg, Wharton
2) Chicago, Columbia, Haas, Ross, Sloan, Stanford
3) Fuqua, Stern, Tuck</p>
<p>There is almost no difference between level three and level one, let alone between level two and level one. I just think Kellogg is sturdier and Stanford, but that is a random opinion. Both are amazing to be sure.</p>
<p>^ Stanford is renowned for a entrepreneurial focus. Kellogg is renowned for a marketing focus. Both are top echelon programs.</p>
<p>I know that this is getting a bit off topic, but I did a little digging on the snapshot function that the WSJ supplies with this article. Here is how the entire list of National Ranks b-schools (19 schools) and the top 10 among Regional Ranks for three categories
1. Average GMAT score of entering students
2. Average Total Compensation of departing students
3. % of students going into Financial Services (important note: there is no quality control in this number as the more "elite" employers are grouped with all other financial services employers)</p>
<pre><code>BY GMAT SCORE
</code></pre>
<p>1 Stanford 720
2 U Pennsylvania (Wharton) 713
3 Dartmouth (Tuck) 710
4 UC Berkeley (Haas) 707
5 Columbia 706
6 U Chicago 705
7 UCLA (Anderson) 703
8 MIT (Sloan) 702
9 Northwestern (Kellogg) 702
10 U Michigan (Ross) 701
11 Yale 701
12 NYU (Stern) 700
13 Carnegie Mellon (Tepper) 696
14 Duke (Fuqua) 696
15 USC (Marshall) 685
16 Cornell (Johnson) 680
17 U Virginia (Darden) 677
18 U North Carolina (Kenan-Flagler) 664
19 Harvard na</p>
<p>1 Emory (Goizueta) 690
2 U Florida (Warrington) 675
3 Ohio State (Fisher) 669
4 U Texas (McCombs) 669
5 U Rochester (Simon) 667
6 Notre Dame (Mendoza) 667
7 Georgetown (McDonough) 665
8 Purdue (Krannert) 661
9 Wash U 654
10 U Maryland (Smith) 651</p>
<pre><code>BY TOTAL COMPENSATION
</code></pre>
<p>1 Harvard $186,174
2 Stanford $183,231
3 Columbia $169,194
4 U Pennsylvania (Wharton) $167,607
5 Dartmouth (Tuck) $161,000
6 UC Berkeley (Haas) $150,307
7 Northwestern (Kellogg) $150,242
8 U Chicago $149,290
9 MIT (Sloan) $148,081
10 NYU (Stern) $145,245
11 U Virginia (Darden) $142,269
12 U Michigan (Ross) $138,813
13 Cornell (Johnson) $137,340
14 Duke (Fuqua) $136,888
15 Yale $135,150
16 UCLA (Anderson) $127,715
17 USC (Marshall) $126,159
18 U North Carolina (Kenan-Flagler) $126,000
19 Carnegie Mellon (Tepper) $124,436 </p>
<p>1 Boston College (Carroll) $125,290
2 U Texas (McCombs) $123,385
3 Emory (Goizueta) $121,564
4 Vanderbilt (Owen) $120,945
5 Georgetown (McDonough) $120,357
6 U Rochester (Simon) $117,738
7 Ohio State (Fisher) $116,688
8 Babson (Olin) $116,461
9 Wash U $113,203
10 Indiana U (Kelly) $111,514 </p>
<pre><code>BY GRADS INTO FIN'L SERVICES
</code></pre>
<p>1 NYU (Stern) 64%
2 Columbia 55%
3 U Chicago 51%
4 Yale 46%
5 U Pennsylvania (Wharton) 44%
6 Cornell (Johnson) 44%
7 U Virginia (Darden) 41%
8 Harvard 41%
9 Carnegie Mellon (Tepper) 37%
10 Stanford 35%
11 Dartmouth (Tuck) 34%
12 MIT (Sloan) 31%
13 U North Carolina (Kenan-Flagler) 29%
14 Duke (Fuqua) 26%
15 USC (Marshall) 26%
16 UCLA (Anderson) 24%
17 UC Berkeley (Haas) 22%
18 U Michigan (Ross) 21%
19 Northwestern (Kellogg) 19%</p>
<p>1 U Rochester (Simon) 50%
2 Wake Forest (Babcock) 48%
3 U Buffalo/SUNY 47%
4 Georgetown (McDonough) 42%
5 Vanderbilt (Owen) 40%
6 Boston College (Carroll) 37%
7 U Maryland (Smith) 32%
8 Emory (Goizueta) 29%
9 Ohio State (Fisher) 28%
10 U Miami 28%</p>
<p>Some more from the WSJ data base:</p>
<pre><code>BY TUITION COST
</code></pre>
<p>1 Stanford $45,921
2 U Michigan (Ross) $44,800
3 MIT (Sloan) $44,566
4 U Chicago $44,500
5 Northwestern (Kellogg) $43,935
6 Columbia $43,436
7 Dartmouth (Tuck) $42,990
8 Cornell (Johnson) $42,700
9 U Virginia (Darden) $42,000
10 Yale $42,000
11 U Pennsylvania (Wharton) $41,950
12 Carnegie Mellon (Tepper) $41,900
13 Harvard $41,900
14 Duke (Fuqua) $41,670
15 USC (Marshall) $38,016
16 UC Berkeley (Haas) $37,950
17 U North Carolina (Kenan-Flagler) $36,749
18 UCLA (Anderson) $36,082
19 NYU (Stern) $33,800 </p>
<p>1 Wash U $37,900
2 Vanderbilt (Owen) $37,834
3 Emory (Goizueta) $37,200
4 U Rochester (Simon) $36,840
5 Georgetown (McDonough) $36,744
6 Thunderbird $36,630
7 Notre Dame (Mendoza) $35,905
8 SMU (Cox) $35,530
9 Babson (Olin) $35,110
10 U Denver (Daniels) $34,920 </p>
<pre><code>BY SIZE OF FULL-TIME ENROLLMENT
</code></pre>
<p>1 Harvard 1900
2 U Pennsylvania (Wharton) 1594
3 Northwestern (Kellogg) 1310
4 Columbia 1242
5 U Chicago 1118
6 U Michigan (Ross) 874
7 Duke (Fuqua) 836
8 NYU (Stern) 814
9 MIT (Sloan) 781
10 Stanford 764
11 UCLA (Anderson) 686
12 U Virginia (Darden) 648
13 U North Carolina (Kenan-Flagler) 562
14 Cornell (Johnson) 554
15 UC Berkeley (Haas) 505
16 Dartmouth (Tuck) 490
17 USC (Marshall) 440
18 Yale 425
19 Carnegie Mellon (Tepper) 302</p>
<p>1 Thunderbird 534
2 U Texas (McCombs) 510
3 Georgetown (McDonough) 478
4 Indiana U (Kelly) 401
5 Babson (Olin) 377
6 Vanderbilt (Owen) 349
7 Emory (Goizueta) 342
8 Notre Dame (Mendoza) 321
9 U Denver (Daniels) 308
10 U Buffalo/SUNY 276</p>
<pre><code>BY GPA
</code></pre>
<p>1 Stanford 3.61
2 UCLA (Anderson) 3.55
3 UC Berkeley (Haas) 3.52
4 MIT (Sloan) 3.50
5 U Chicago 3.50
6 U Pennsylvania (Wharton) 3.50
7 Yale 3.46
8 Dartmouth (Tuck) 3.40
9 Columbia 3.40
10 Carnegie Mellon (Tepper) 3.40
11 Northwestern (Kellogg) 3.40
12 Duke (Fuqua) 3.40
13 NYU (Stern) 3.40
14 Cornell (Johnson) 3.33
15 U Michigan (Ross) 3.30
16 U North Carolina (Kenan-Flagler) 3.27
17 U Virginia (Darden) 3.27
18 USC (Marshall) 3.24
19 Harvard na</p>
<p>1 Brigham Young (Marriott) 3.54
2 U Rochester (Simon) 3.46
3 Ohio State (Fisher) 3.44
4 Texas A&M (Mays) 3.44
5 U Florida (Warrington) 3.40
6 Boston College (Carroll) 3.39
7 U Texas (McCombs) 3.38
8 Wash U 3.37
9 LSU (Ourso) 3.35
10 U Maryland (Smith) 3.35</p>
<p>And here's an interesting ratio that shows the total compensation received by a graduate divided by his/her tuition cost. If one is interested in the payoff of going to b-school and how this compares across various schools, this ratio has some value. It is interesting that many of the regional schools do pretty well on this measure.</p>
<p>1 Harvard 4.44
2 NYU (Stern) 4.30
3 U Pennsylvania (Wharton) 4.00
4 Stanford 3.99
5 UC Berkeley (Haas) 3.96
6 Columbia 3.90
7 Dartmouth (Tuck) 3.75
8 UCLA (Anderson) 3.54
9 U North Carolina (Kenan-Flagler) 3.43
10 Northwestern (Kellogg) 3.42
11 U Virginia (Darden) 3.39
12 U Chicago 3.35
13 MIT (Sloan) 3.32
14 USC (Marshall) 3.32
15 Duke (Fuqua) 3.29
16 Yale 3.22
17 Cornell (Johnson) 3.22
18 U Michigan (Ross) 3.10
19 Carnegie Mellon (Tepper) 2.97</p>
<p>1 William & Mary (Mason) 6.75
2 Brigham Young (Marriott) 6.27
3 Texas A&M (Mays) 5.48
4 U Buffalo/SUNY 5.41
5 LSU (Ourso) 5.29
6 Michigan State (Broad) 4.12
7 U Maryland (Smith) 4.07
8 Boston College (Carroll) 3.97
9 U Texas (McCombs) 3.89
10 Penn State (Smeal) 3.69
11 U Florida (Warrington) 3.63
12 Ohio State (Fisher) 3.38
13 Indiana U (Kelly) 3.34
14 Babson (Olin) 3.32
15 Georgetown (McDonough) 3.28
16 Emory (Goizueta) 3.27
17 Wake Forest (Babcock) 3.27
18 Purdue (Krannert) 3.25
19 Vanderbilt (Owen) 3.20
20 U Rochester (Simon) 3.20
21 Notre Dame (Mendoza) 3.06
22 Wash U 2.99
23 SMU (Cox) 2.96
24 Thunderbird 2.88
25 U Miami 2.24
26 U Denver (Daniels) 2.12</p>
<p>I also measured the Student Selectivity using a formula similar to what USNWR uses for its measurement (50%-GMAT, 40%-GPA, 10%-Acceptance Rate). The obvious hole here is that the GPAs across schools are not standardized, but I thought that this was better than not including anything at all related to how a student did in undergrad. Here are the Selectivity Rankings according to the 50-40-10 formula and they are standardized and thus comparable across National and Regional b-schools:</p>
<p>1 Stanford 10
2 UC Berkeley (Haas) 9.37
3 U Pennsylvania (Wharton) 9.35
4 Columbia 9.24
5 MIT (Sloan) 9.2
6 Dartmouth (Tuck) 9.18
7 UCLA (Anderson) 9.16
8 Yale 9.15
9 NYU (Stern) 9.12
10 Northwestern (Kellogg) 9.05
11 U Chicago 8.98 (est)
12 Carnegie Mellon (Tepper) 8.95
13 U Michigan (Ross) 8.88
14 Duke (Fuqua) 8.81 (est)
15 Cornell (Johnson) 8.68
16 USC (Marshall) 8.62
17 U Virginia (Darden) 8.57
18 U North Carolina (Kenan-Flagler) 8.44
Harvard (not ranked due data not available) </p>
<p>1 Emory (Goizueta) 8.74
1 U Rochester (Simon) 8.74
3 Ohio State (Fisher) 8.69
4 U Florida (Warrington) 8.66
5 U Texas (McCombs) 8.65
6 Brigham Young (Marriott) 8.59
7 Texas A&M (Mays) 8.56
8 U Maryland (Smith) 8.49
9 Purdue (Krannert) 8.48
10 Penn State (Smeal) 8.47
11 Wash U 8.46
12 Boston College (Carroll) 8.45
13 Notre Dame (Mendoza) 8.4
14 Georgetown (McDonough) 8.39
15 Indiana U (Kelly) 8.38
16 Michigan State (Broad) 8.35
17 Vanderbilt (Owen) 8.26
18 Wake Forest (Babcock) 8.22
19 SMU (Cox) 8.19
20 LSU (Ourso) 8.1
21 U Buffalo/SUNY 7.97
22 Thunderbird 7.95
23 Babson (Olin) 7.92
24 U Denver (Daniels) 7.85
25 U Miami 7.75
W & M (Mason) not ranked due to data not available</p>
<p>Hawkette's stats pretty much back my statement above; there is almost no difference between the top 15 or so MBA programs.</p>
<p>alexandre,
I would agree and maybe even expand a bit beyond that. All of the national schools belong and some of the ones in the regional category as well (eg, on the numbers, Emory pretty clearly belongs in any grouping of top schools). </p>
<p>The cr</p>
<p>Hawkette, did you adjust for cost of living and industries joined in your compensation ranking? Is a Kellogg or Chicago or Ross student paid less that a Wharton, Columbia or Tuck or for the same position at the same company and location? </p>
<p>The selectivity difference between #2 Haas and #14 Duke is almost negligible. </p>
<p>I repeat, there is virtually know difference between the top dozen MBA programs, all of which can be labled "creme de la creme".</p>
<p>At any rate, we all know statistics only reveal a small part of the total picture. The quality of a program or university is mostly intangible and intrisict. No statistic can hope to measure the true worth of any institution, academic or otherwise.</p>
<p>^ So true, California and New York has a much higher cost of living than North Carolina and Illinois.</p>
<p>I just used the data that the WSJ provided so if they included a COL adjustment in how they reported their numbers, then so did I. I agree about this being a relevant factor in terms of geography. But a lot of the graduates from all of these schools go to high cost markets like NY and CA so I'm not sure if you can really account for this.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I just used the data that the WSJ provided so if they included a COL adjustment in how they reported their numbers, then so did I. I agree about this being a relevant factor in terms of geography. But a lot of the graduates from all of these schools go to high cost markets like NY and CA so I'm not sure if you can really account for this.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Maybe not perfectly but you can definitely make some adjustments to compensation levels.</p>
<p>As you'll see, roughly 32% of Kellogg grads go into the high cost of living locations of NE and West Coast whereas 37% and 16% go into relatively lower cost of living areas -- the Midwest and international, respectively. Not to mention that compensation for marketing (Kellogg's strength)functions is widely known to be lower than that of finance (although quality of life is much better). These factors kind of skew Kellogg's compensation averages to the left (although its other strength as a core school for top-tier consulting firms does help to balance it out somewhat).<br>
The same goes for Chicago GSB -- though because it is more of a finance school, it will place higher on Wall St (which will pull the average income higher).
Another note, using GPAs and GMAT scores as factors in selectivity is pretty useless, IMO. It's not like AdComs at the top schools view student A with a 3.43/740 as much more competitive than student B with a 3.35/730 -- and that's even assuming they have very similar career progressions and personal experiences/backgrounds, which is never the case. Once you reach a threshold, the numbers don't matter.
One thing that creating rankings based on WSJ data misses is professional work experience and career progression. Take a look at the professional backgrounds (blue-chip firms/companies, accomplishments, etc.) of the student bodies as a whole at the top 5-10 schools or so and compare them against the student bodies as a whole at schools in the ~20 range and you'll see that there is a more definitive difference in that those at the "more prestigious" schools have generally gone through a more rigorous selection process by the companies/industries they've worked in.</p>
<p>calicartel,
I think you raise many good points and I referenced the weaknesses in the GPA number when I posted the number (I hate the top 10% number as well for the undergrad ranking for the same impossibility of comparing grades across greatly differing high schools). </p>
<p>As for your comment on work experience, I completely agree that this is the most vital part of the application and would dwarf the undergrad school and, to a lesser extent, the undergrad GPA. I might disagree with your view that the top 5-10 schools are that differentiated in terms of the quality of their students and their work experiences between undergrad and making application to b-school. In my experience, it is broader (15?, 20?, maybe even more?), but I'm quibbling. </p>
<p>One thing that surprised me, however, is how closely the GMAT scores were bunched for so many schools. I expected to see the top schools make more of a statement with this number, but the difference is relatively small pretty far down the GMAT ranking list. As Alexandre has noted, there is a great breadth of really outstanding schools with very high quality students.</p>
<p>
[quote]
One thing that surprised me, however, is how closely the GMAT scores were bunched for so many schools. I expected to see the top schools make more of a statement with this number, but the difference is relatively small pretty far down the GMAT ranking list. As Alexandre has noted, there is a great breadth of really outstanding schools with very high quality students.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>And that's where using GMAT scores and GPAs to compare the top X schools really is not necessarily the most accurate measure of the immediate post-MBA opportunities for those schools. IMO, to see the separation between (again), say, the top 5-10 schools versus the schools 15-20, one should check the placement of the schools in the ultra-selective companies and industries. Yes, I'm aware that this is an imperfect measure of school quality as not every MBA aspires to go into PE/VC but it still says something when Blackstone, DE Shaw, The Carlyle Group, and Citadel recruit at the Whartons and Chicago GSBs but don't even bother to show up at the Kenan-Flaglers or even Yale SOMs.<br>
Or to use a less extreme example, I'd be curious as to the placements of the same schools as less-elite-but-still-selective/prestigious-industry-companies like Google, Yahoo, Apple, Microsoft, P&G, Kraft, and GE... I don't have access to recruiting data for any school except my own but I would guess that those on the higher end of the "traditional" b-school rankings have a clear advantage for placement numbers.</p>
<p>
[quote]
at more prestigious schools? pls enumerate them
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Schools that have historically been in the top 5-10 -- and by prestigious, I mean well regarded among business recruiters across industries and continents, not the typical grandmother who relies on recognition of the name brand of the parent university. So the mainstays would include Chicago, Columbia, HBS, Kellogg, Sloan, Stanford, Tuck, and Wharton. Depending on the year, schools like Anderson, Fuqua, Haas, Ross, and Stern could rotate in or out.</p>
<p>Calicartel is right, although frankly the truth is regardless of USNEWS or BW ranks those 8 are pretty much known as the top 8 national schools.</p>
<p>I love it how Ross is left out of the equation. Very few recruiters would leave Ross out of any top 5, let alone top 10, ranking.</p>