BusinessWeek's 'Rank' Ranking
I'm Officially Pissed! Now they went and did it. BusinessWeek's allegedly "groundbreaking" survey of the top business schools got me so ticked off that I decided to write some commentary on it. To compound that error in judgment, I then decided to conduct my own survey of the top business schools, figuring that if an international media conglomerate could get away with a sloppy and meaningless poll so could I.
My Take on the BW Survey
Writers love it when media organizations make fools of themselves. It gives us something to write about and puts food in our bellies.
And the more absurd the error, the better the deal for us. BusinessWeek’s ranking of two years ago bought me a new car. This year’s offering is certain to pay off my mortgage. I picture book deals, endorsement contracts and speaking engagements at every B-school in the country.
Why am I so happy? Mostly because BW ranked Stanford the nation’s eleventh best business school. It’s among the most absurd things I’ve ever seen in print. (I’ve heard worse fiction, but not even a fool would commit it to paper.)
At the risk of sounding arrogant, I actually know which business school is the best in the country and, yes, it's located in Palo Alto.
Why is Stanford the best? It’s simple: opportunity. I’ve seen it time and again. It doesn’t matter whether you come into class as the most promising young investment banker at Goldman or as the accounts receivable clerk for the Bosley Hair Clinic, when you leave Stanford’s MBA program the corporate world will treat you like God Almighty.
Not that you deserve it. Frankly, no 27-year-old should be given the kind of clout that Stanford graduates (and the grads of other elite business schools) get. But there’s a kind of aura about students who make their way into the best business schools that recruiters fall for every time—mostly because they’re naïve, non-management track people who didn’t go to B-school themselves and, therefore, don’t know any better. (Ouch!)
Recruiters believe that anyone who makes it into one of the elite schools must be some kind of visionary, and that’s especially true if the candidate aced the GMAT. Don’t believe me? Ask the guy who came into my GMAT class two years ago with a 490, left with a 700 and is now at Wharton.
But I digress.
The best business schools are not those that do well in arbitrarily broad surveys of recruiters but rather those that open the doors to the best firms. Sound elitist? Maybe it is. But most students at the top business schools know the difference between working for Circuit City and working for McKinsey. And while that distinction might not matter to BusinessWeek, it matters to them.
That’s why schools such as Stanford, Harvard, Wharton, Kellogg and Columbia are the best business schools in the country, regardless of what some dumb survey might say. They manufacture the most “aura,” they open the most doors and they create the most opportunities.
So why is Stanford better than Harvard or Wharton? Just a personal preference I guess. The campus is beautiful and the atmosphere is refreshingly non-competitive. There are no class rankings and no real grades. Students spend a couple years passing the hookah around and then get paid Two Big Ones for offering their naïve opinions to ignorant business owners. If that doesn’t deserve a Number One ranking, I don’t know what does.
So to all of you applicants navigating your way through the MBA admissions process, try to keep the rankings in perspective. They don’t mean what you think they mean.
That said, I can’t wait for BW’s next survey to be released. One more dumb story and I’ll get that place I’ve had my eye on in the Bahamas. Come on Chico State!
The MBA
Applicant
Top-10 Business Schools Survey!
(Our Take on the Top Programs)
Methodology
I polled a couple dozen of my B-school friends, asking them for their thoroughly biased opinions. If they didn’t have an opinion on a specific school I asked them to make one up.
To ensure the accuracy of our data I tabulated it while sober. I then enlisted the services of a couple of my best GMAT students to make sure I had done the math correctly.
I don’t know any MBA recruiters, so I kind of had to leave their opinions out of our survey. (Sorry.) To make up for it, though, I created a new measurement of excellence called the “Intellectual Capital Score.” (Translation: Fudge Factor.) It’s an arbitrary criterion that I (like BusinessWeek) added simply to keep elite schools from falling out of the rankings entirely, thereby making the survey look even more ridiculous than it already does. (Take that BW!)
MBA Rankings | |
|---|---|
| 1. Stanford | New application essay question just released: "How much do you hate BusinessWeek?" |
| 2. Harvard | New Harvard essay question being contemplated: “When you become the CEO of the McGraw-Hill Company, will you fire the editorial staff at BW on your first or your second day of employment?” (Limit: 2 words) |
| 3. Wharton | Would have ranked higher, but BW chose it as Number 1 again! |
| 4. Kellogg | Every student I have ever sent to Evanston has spent his entire first semester raving about it to me via e-mail. Must be something good going on there. |
| 5. Columbia | Less raving, but better jobs. I have more undeserving friends making $150K out of Columbia than out of any other program. |
| 6. Chicago | Pros: Perhaps the best academic program in the country. Cons: Full of dorky academic types. |
| 7. UCLA | Best climate and colleagues. More importantly, students finally got parking! |
| 8. Duke | Got my sympathy vote because an as-yet-unacknowledged printing error listed the school at Number 5 when it should have said Number 15. |
| 9. MIT | Makes Chicago look like Hef's place. Must drive to HBS to party. |
| 10. Berkeley | Burned-out 60’s acidheads on campus are actually investment bankers still hoping to make a comeback with Drexel. |
MBA Rankings Links
MBA Ranking Survey Basics
What's the methodology behind the ranking systems? It's different for every publisher and it changes from year to year. As part of the evaluation process, however, most publishers survey students, recent grads and recruiters.
Don't the changing criteria harm the credibility of the ranking systems? It does for me. It's a way of saying, "Our methodology sucked last year (and every year before). We think we got it right this time, though."
If my school is ranked higher than another, does that mean it carries more clout in the corporate world? Definitely not. Reputation is what matters in elite MBA circles, not ranking.
Which ranking is the most 'accurate?'
Stop looking for meaning in the MBA surveys.
They're media products, not scientific studies.
What's the greatest ranking discrepancy among top programs? Yale. U.S. News has the school at 11 and BW has it at 24. BW is wrong. The Yale program is terrific.
Who did you take to win the World Cup? Brazil. What can I say?
Should I apply to schools based exclusively on their rankings?
Sort of. You should apply to the best schools you're qualified for. That's closely,
though not perfectly, correlated with rankings.
Which schools have improved most over the last five years? In my personal opinion, MIT and Hass have moved up the most.