<p>ldmom06, I never said they should be dismissed. I do not think that. I do think one should recognize their weakness, just like one should recognize the weakness of any other ranking system. </p>
<p>FWIW, my problems with recruiter opinions are manyfold. Unlike what some believe, I understand the recruiter position is a high turnover one at most companies, and one often given to fairly recent grads from a particular school. They are only one small part of the system that brings in new blood, and I do not believe a recruiter's future depends on identifying the "best" out of a particular class. And, how would one do so in the short interviews recruiters do anyway? Selecting talent is much more complicated than that. So, what one is left with is the opinion of one group of individuals with questionable relevance to the product the school puts out: talent. </p>
<p>Regarding the rankings, I neither agree nor disagree. I don't find any of them objectionable. I find them quirky and entertaining, but not a basis for any kind of decision making.</p>
<p>Newmassdad, I'm flattered that recruiters have a reputation for being young and recent grads (going on 50 myself, with almost 20 years experience in recruiting.) I don't know that anything that I or my colleagues has to say about a particular B-school is earth-shattering.... the top 1 or 2 students at virtually every accredited program are usually fantastic and obviously superior to a large chunk of their class.</p>
<p>The problem is the depth in the class.... you can go down pretty deep at U Chicago and Wharton and still find grads who have very strong analytical and quantitative skills (since the bar is high on the quant portion of the GMAT to even get a second look as an applicant) whereas in some less competitive schools, kids in the middle of the pack can be very, very weak quantitatively. Ditto for verbal skills-- I get cover letters all the time from second year MBA students which would make you cry-- not talking typo's here, but just poorly written, run-on sentences about teamwork and collaborative decision-making.</p>
<p>So recruiters don't have much new to say about B-schools, but we sure like to hire at schools which do a thorough screening of their students on the way in, and actually teach them something while they're there. The academic rigor of different programs varies dramatically, so recruiters don't conduct short interviews to figure out who the stars are, we screen quickly to get the losers out of the candidate pool before the hiring managers step in.
I see kids all the time who have A's on their transcript in Accounting or Corporate Finance but who can't explain in a simple answer why (in their own opinion) a recent accounting-related story from the front page of every major newspaper is newsworthy. You don't need to be a technical expert on the back-dating of options to be able to explain (during an accounting-related job interview, no less!) why the SEC, Joe Q. Public, and various other federal regulators find the story interesting.</p>
<p>Many more college graduates end up working in the business world than in academia. For those students, which is more meaningful - how professors view colleges, or how recruiters and businesses view colleges?</p>
<p>It's been many (many) years since I found myself a prospective accounting graduate across the table from a recruiter. Only 6 of us in that graduating class managed to snag public accounting jobs and yes, we were the grads with highest gpas, strongest faculty recommendations and who were accepted by our peers as most qualified. The remaining graduates ended up in private accounting or with the IRS. So something happened in that process that revealed the stronger candidates and, as blossom mentions, uncovered the weaklings....and it got us past that first interview with the recruiter and into the corporate offices in front of a partner.</p>
<p>Again, the issue here is if we believe the recruiter has something valuable to say about the quality of a business school and the MBA programs offered there. Compared to something like the CPA PR professor's ranking, I would say definitely. Compared to the 'feel good' factors of US News, also yes imho.</p>
<p>But the fact that every school that made the top 19 on the National list are considered heavyweights on virtually every other ranking suggests that the WSJ is not really breaking new ground with this new ranking. I just think the pecking order got a few knickers knotted up that's all.</p>
<p>Gotta say - I go with the recruiters on this one in general. I mean, if people want to pick about the jobs at the extreme ends, fine, but <em>that</em> particular method of "ranking" is highly volitile and has little value in general. On the other hand, having the WSJ conduct a survey of the folks that, say, recruit graduates of MBA programs seems, to me, a valuable ranking of usefulness of degree program. What I read from this is a ranking of...who will actually work hard and put their degree to use rather than who will work hard to make their degree name useful. Oops - did that slip out? As a Duke person no less? For shame...</p>
<p>I'm sure candidates don't fall into just two camps, one arrogant (elite school snobs) & the other "gee, you wanna talk to me?!" (2nd tier rubes wearing short sleeves and polyseter ties). And good, solid business experience accompanied by an MBA from a lesser school is likely to trump a prestigious school grad who is totally greeen anyway. </p>
<p>Hiring managers will never see candidates who don't make it past the recruters, so how can you not think the recruiters' opinions are essential? Hiring managers are only seeing the top candidaes. The recruiters see tons & can really assess a school's depth, as blossom states.</p>