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MBA JOURNAL: B-SCHOOL UPDATE MBA Journal: A Feeling of Uncertainty "As flight MU552 enters the final hours of its journey, I wonder what my impressions will be a year from now when I approach graduation"
Future Bodes Well for MBA Hiring MBAs should be heartened by the findings of a new report, which predicts that hiring in the finance and consulting sector should return to pre-recession levels beginning in 2012.
German Central Bank President to Join Booth Faculty Axel Weber, the outgoing president of the German central bank, Deutsche Bundesbank, will soon be teaching MBA classes at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business (Booth Full-Time MBA Profile), the school announced today.
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B-SCHOOL FORUMS
Visit BW Online's interactive forums for wide-ranging discussions about management education. Search through over 1,359,000 posts for topics that interest you. Join in today! Here are a few samples of recent messages:
Getting into Business Schools — African Eager To Join A Top MBA
From: thiouney To: All
Hi all,
I want to join a good MBA program but I'm wondering wether some aspects of my profile could hinder my chances:
My profile:
I'm 38, undergraduate studies in Africa, Senegal( french speaking country), major=law, graduate studies in France. Toefl IBT: 111/120 GMAT 680( Q40 V 42, percentile 86%, Q 58%, V 95%) Graduate studies: Master in Law, master in business,unfinished PHD in law Both the senegalse and the french system do not use GPA, so it's quite difficult to give a honest assesment of my GPA.
8 years work experience in retail banking in the fourth french banking group,7 years as a branch manager. I've managed 4 branches in those 7 years: last branch==> 15 employees , 8500 clients, dêposits 185millionâ,¬, loans 170millionâ,¬ . I wanted to apply to an Mba last year, but my companhy then proposed me to switch to our corporate division and follow a training path. I'm currenly a large and midlle sized companies risk analyst. I'm not confident in the prospects to say the least. With hindsight, I think it was a mistake to accept that offer.
For me, the main issues of my application are: - the fact that I've never lived or worked in an environment in which english is used. And I seldom use english in my current job. - my age(39 when I start the mba): i'm often advised to apply to an EmBA, but I'm interested in an MBA. Also, I've repeated 2 classes because of endemic strikes in public high schools and colleges in Senegal, so let's say I'm 37... - my quant score: do you think it's too low? I was wondering whether instead of retaking the GMAT, I could follow some specific courses...
Thanks in advance for you insight! thiouney
From: peterLost To: thiouney
I wouldn't worry about stuff such as gmat.
the big (BIG) issue here is... how are you going to explain that you need an MBA with 38 years old and to share a class with "kids"?
From: thiouney To: peterLost
Thanks for your answer.
Well,
If I compare my profile to that of a french, I would say the issue is caused by specific events, and choices:
Classes retaken due to strikes in public schools in Senegal(1988 and 1993): 2 years lost
Master in law in Senegal(to be completed in 2 years mainly because of a lack of professors): 1 year lost( I preferred an offer to go to france to complete a master in law the following year)
Phd in microfinance: 3 years
Id est 6 (not so useful) years that could explain why my age is a (BIG) issue. Things would be completely different if I were 32.. But I can understand why my explanations wouldn't be taken into account by admission teams. But in my carrer, I'm reasoning more in terms of STEPS than in terms of age: I need an MBA because after gaining a significant experience in banking, I feel the deeper knowledge and skills provided by the MBA would be a boost when I go back to my country to work in the banking industry.
And BTW, why wouldn't I worry about the GMAT? thiouney
From: WJLDENVER To: thiouney
Based on your background I would apply to a variety of international MBA programs if I was you instead of a US business school.
From: Scolee To: WJLDENVER
You may be fine without necessarily explaining why you need an MBA at 40 yrs. I have similar background like yours (i.e. also African), 36 years old, almost 37 at matriculation in the fall. Yet, I have admissions to 3 of the top 10 US MBA programs with full ride for 2 of them and 50% scholarship for the 3rd. I am using my personal experience as the basis to encourage you and not to place too much premium on what the people in this forum will tell you about age, background, blah blah blah. In summary, it is worth trying---follow you gut feeling and put forward compelling essays. Good luck!
Getting into Business Schools — Undergrad Business School Rankings
From: FrancescaBW To: All
Hi,
The rankings have been revealed. You can find out how your undergraduate business school did at this URL - http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/rankings/
What do you think of the rankings? Did we get it right or wrong? Tell us why.
Thanks, Francesca
From: mossy695 To: FrancescaBW
Wharton @ #4 lol
From: sacred To: FrancescaBW
* Emory, Notre Dame, and Virgina above Wharton!? Are you serious? Would YOU send YOUR kids to any of those schools over Wharton? * Villanova at 7 is a complete joke. * University of Richmond at 12 is absolute insanity. * Haas all the way down at 13? Really? * Stern all the way down at 15!? * USC at 34 is a travesty. It's top 10 by every other ranking.
You guys want to know why traffic to your forums has dropped something like 500 percent over the last 2 years? THIS IS WHY. Each time you release one of these ridiculously manipulative and extraordinarily suspicious rankings (i.e., selling ad space to schools in exchange for a high ranking and hiding it behind amorphous and clearly manipulated surveys all in an effort to save the sinking ship that is your magazine) you further corrode whatever little good will is left in your brand and people continue to leave.
Am I really supposed to think that BYU has a better business school than Haas or Stern? REALLY?
From: peterLost To: All
I'm international, I give my word guys that it's the first time in my life I heard around 15 of the top 20 schools listed. Mi no comprendo my friends.
From: llavellebw To: sacred
@Sacred: First, I'll point out the obvious...you don't have a shred of evidence for anything in your post. You don't have access to our forum traffic data, and I won't even dignify the "ad sales in exchange for high rankings" allegation by responding to it.
But you are entitled (encouraged actually) to share your opinion. As with any ranking, there will always be some individuals who disagree with the findings, but most of them are making a flawed analysis of the rankings, that goes a little something like this: School X ranked highly in the U.S. News ranking, but it's ranked poorly by Bloomberg Businessweek; the Bloomberg Businessweek ranking must be wrong. You're making the same mistake.
The U.S. News ranking sends out surveys to deans and senior faculty at business schools and asks them to rank hundreds of business programs, most of which they know nothing about. It measures reputation and opinion, and not even truly informed opinion. Our ranking is based on actual facts. Hundreds of thousands of student survey responses over a three year period. Hundreds of recruiter responses over a three year period. A huge database of alumni of undergrad programs who enrolled in top MBA programs. The median starting salaries for the most recent graduating class. SAT scores, student/faculty ratios. Average class size. The percentage of business students with internships. The hours students spend on classwork each week.
Facts, not opinions.
The fact that the results of the Bloomberg Businessweek ranking and the U.S. News ranking differ should surprise no one--they're based on two completely different methodologies. If you were to do a ranking of car manufacturers based on complaints lodged by owners within one year of purchase it would probably be markedly different from one based on the resale value after 20 years on the road, and no one would be surprised. So what's so surprising about two completely different undergrad b-school rankings coming to two completely different conclusions about some of the schools on the list?
Louis Lavelle Associate Editor Bloomberg Businessweek
From: sacred To: llavellebw
What's so surprising is that you would have me believe that Villanova is a better business school than Stern or Haas.
When you get results that don't reflect reality is means that your "ranking" is clearly measuring the wrong things. People automatically take 'ranking' to assume "the best" and in the context of business schools "the best" will almost universally mean, "Highest Paying + Most Options". So if School X will get you the widest variety of offers and the highest salary potential, on average, then it is the best. Additionally, "the best" would be taken to mean "Most Desirable + Most Qualified Student Body", which would be a reflection of the former conception of "best". So if School X has an average enrolled student with a 4.2 GPA and a 2200 SAT score and School Y has an average enrolled student with a 3.5 GPA and a 1850 SAT score then it would be "The Best". This is the knee jerk reaction of your audience, but clearly your rankings don't reflect this conception of "best".
So, while no one will argue that your ranking is different than US News - what you've failed to do is distinguish WHAT it is your ranking because the rankings that you have offered us do NOT quantify: Most Desirable, Best Students, Best Income, or Best Opportunity. So, what is it that the BW rankings do tell us? WHAT, exactly, is Villanova better at than Stern, Haas, etc.
From: llavellebw To: sacred
The Bloomberg Businessweek ranking identifies "the best" according to the criteria I spelled out earlier, which includes a lot of the things you mentioned (pay, SAT scores). You seem to think that only rankings that measure a single variable, such as pay or SAT scores, are valid. I say they're simple...too simple, in fact. They measure a single facet of the b-school experience--career services for example--when in fact programs are far more complex than that.
For a lot of undergrads (those headed for careers in marketing or nonprofits or entrepreneurship, for example) knowing which school got the highest pay for finance majors is meaningless. Knowing which school consistently turns out satisfied students, which schools produce the kinds of grads that recruiters rate highly as employees, which schools produce the kinds of grads that top MBA programs want to recruit....these are far more important.
Media outlets are frequently accused of bias, but sometimes it's readers who bring their own biases to the table, then they get upset when we don't pander to them. My advice: leave your own biases about what is, and isn't, a ranking at the door, and focus on the information in front of you. Who knows, you may learn something you didn't know before.
From: bobdar To: llavellebw
I have to agree with the perception that BW rankings are off. But who knows, maybe BW is accurate and everyone else is wildly off?
A few comments:
1. It would be interesting to measure what students (current undergrads or future undergrads) would pick given a list of undergrand b-schools if they could assume they'd get admission anywhere. Is there a survey of pre-undergrad and undergrad preferences, and what does it look like? Maybe measuring student perceptions of their own school relative to other schools would yield interesting information.
2. Your methodology indicates a weighting as follows: 30% for student survey, 20% for recruiter survey, 10% for salary info, 10% for feeder school measure, and 30% for academic quality. To me the feeder school measure is very important - which schools tend to feed undergrads to the top 35 MBA programs? To the top 10 MBA programs? What would be really great is if you had a dynamic ranking that allows users to adjust the weights based on their own preferences to determine their own rank based on BW's raw data. This would be a unique offering that other rankings don't have. If you had this, I would try raising the feeder school measure to 50-70% to see what happens to the ranking.
Edit: I just realized you have something like this already (interactive table).
From: sacred To: llavellebw
You still didn't answer my question:
I find it interesting that in the diatribe of which you accuse me of bias, you assert your own biases regarding what is, or isn't, overly simplistic but then fail to take my offer to describe what "Best" means in your ranking of the "best" undergraduate programs so as to flush out your biases. What is the BW survey telling us when School X is ranked 1 and school Y is ranked 20? That it's "Better"? In what way? The onus is on you to explain the actual meaning of your "rankings".
Furthermore, and this has been a constant criticism of BW that you have outright ignored: there is no escaping the bias in the surveys that you so heavily lean on in your data. Yes, the survey data you have is factual in so much as you have it and it exists, but it is not statistically significant.
From: LouisBW To: All
@bobdar...your idea for a dynamic ranking--one that allows readers to change the weights instead of just resort the table on a single datapoint--is a terrific one. We're looking into it now.
@sacred...I did explain the "meaning" of our rankings. When School X is ranked 1 and School Y is ranked 20 we're saying that School X is better according to our methodology. Period.
In your hypothetical ranking (pay, for example), your "best" is the school with the highest pay, right? Well, with our ranking, "best" is the school that fares the best using the criteria we laid out in our methodology--all the combined factors.
I'd be curious to know what everyone else thinks: is information on pay the ONLY thing you want from a ranking? Am I the only one who views that as one-dimensional? Is there absolutely no value in surveying thousands of students and hundreds of recruiters? Please let us know.
As for our survey data, sacred, you can assert that it's "not statistically significant" all you want, but it doesn't make it true. I'd be curious to know on what basis you're saying that since you've never actually seen the raw survey data, the standard deviations or anything else.
Sacred you seem like a decent enough person, but I think you're making the same mistake a lot of people do. You disagree with the rankings conclusions, so you think you have to drop an atom bomb on the rankings themselves. You don't. You can disagree all you want. It doesn't make the ranking methodology wrong or invalid--any more than disagreeing with "4" makes "2+2=4" invalid. It just doesn't.
Louis Lavelle Associate Editor Bloomberg Businessweek
From: manggg To: LouisBW
@LouisBW
My suggestion would be to adjust your methodology whenever you do see something really off (i.e. the SMU #12 MBA ranking). Also, if I remember, the survey to students were things like how satisfied were you with the program. I would make it more career focused, things like did it prepare you for your job, did you get the job/function/industry you wanted, and weigh that against the competitiveness of the job they're looking for, because the reality is, it's easier to get what you want if you're aiming low. However, I do appreciate that BW at least follows their methodology and doesn't just arbitrarily readjust the rankings based on their opinion or general consensus.
Lastly, I've read some schools don't fare that well b/c they don't submit all the requested info to BW; I would make sure to disclose that information as that would affect a school's ranking.
@sacred
If you're just worried about post graduation salary, then just use that. I'm pretty sure BW has an interactive table you can use to sort the schools by that criteria, or at least it does for MBA programs. If you like USnews' rankings more, than go with that for your decision. But to me, USN is just confirmation bias; it's the equivalent of the college football poll after the first week of the season after all the top teams just beat up a cupcake team.
From: ryanahughes To: LouisBW
I agree that the rankings appear to be off. I understand the methodology, but the results feel way off base. Perhaps it is my own perception that causes this, but I agree that Wharton and Haas should be ranked higher.
Maybe the methodology puts too much emphasis on "student satisfaction" and not enough on the quality of those students surveyed. It could be that the majority of those students who attend the BYU's of the US do not expect much from their respected programs. In return, when surveyed, they're expectations in their program are "vastly exceeded."
Not sure of the reasoning, but I agree with the others that Emory is not a better program than Wharton. And yes, USC out of the top 10 is a joke...
From: kaBOOM To: LouisBW
Louis, thanks for asking for feedback. First of all, I really appreciate all of the work you guys have done to put together the school profiles. I do think, like others have said, that the weighting given to the student satisfaction surveys is where the problem comes in. Like ryanahughes said, if one's expectations aren't that high of a program before starting, and then that person's expectations are exceeded, that person is going to rate satisfaction with the school high. Whereas, say someone is starting at say Yale SOM thinking that the school is a golden ticket to a job at the top VC firms, and then he ends up with an investment banking job (which is still great by most standards), he's gonna be a little bitter. I'm guessing this explains SMU being ranked twelfth in the MBA rankings. I mean, by any measure except for the school exceeding student expectations, the school doesn't really seem to belong anywhere near the top schools (low average GMAT, relatively low salary, etc.). Just as in the credit rating agency debacle, if a model doesn't pass the "does this seem right" test, it usually means that there is at least one dysfunctional piece in the model. In the credit rating agency model it was the inability to input a negative number into the home price appreciation field. In this case, it could be the weighting given to student satisfaction (which, again, is relative to the student's expectations, so I'm not sure how fair this data point is to begin with, but at least a lighter weighting would mitigate the interference). I know this isn't brain surgery, and sometimes it seems like we take the rankings a little too seriously, but the rankings always evoke a "seriously? really?" from me. I mean, where would you go if you had the option--Yale or SMU? Stern is 18th but has one of the highest numbers of people going into investment banking and trading? Has even one person from SMU ever gotten into investment banking or trading? Anyway, just my thoughts-thanks for listening.
Business Schools — EPart-Time MBA Programs â?" Chicago Booth — Weekend vs Evening
From: skechers To: All
I live and work in the Chicagoland area and considering applying to part-time MBA program at Chicago Booth. But I am having a tough time deciding if I should apply for the Evening MBA option or the Weekend MBA option. I know that once admitted to Chicago Booth, you have the flexibility to attend classes in the evening, weekend and even on weekdays with FT students. But ideally I would like to choose one option upfront and stick with it through graduation. So I would like to hear from the community about the pros and cons of attending the Evening MBA option vs the Weekend MBA option.
The Weekend class profile has a higher average GMAT scores and work experience than the Evening program. That leads me to infer that the Weekend program is more selective and it can be so because it draws its crowd from all over the country. That makes for a more dynamic and diverse class and better classroom dialogue. On the other hand, the Weekend students miss out on all the networking events that happen during the week that the Evening students can be a part of. What other things can you think of?
From: sumarora To: skechers
Skechers - you are pretty much spot on. Only other thing i'd add to the favor of weekend program (which may even offset the networking advantage you've called out here) is that the weekend class has the perception of exuding more rigor and enthusiasm; primarily a factor of 2 things; One - because the weekend students are travelling, spending $$ and time away from family etc, they are more committed to the program & class discussions etc. Two - weekend students are less tired than their evening counterparts, who are attending classes after a full day at work, or amidst hectic work schedules. Both of these factors then boil down to the perception that weekend class profile is more dynamic in interaction, engagement, therefore, boosting the overall quality of the discussions in class. Now ofcourse, i dont have any empircal facts to back this up, but this seemed to be the general consensus and the output of my personal research across all three categories of current and past students. Good Luck!
From: JinShil2 To: skechers
I have friends in both weekend and weekday sections.
What I hear is that people in the weekend sections tend to miss out in lot of networking and social opportunities mainly because they catch a flight out after classes. Many of the activities happen on Saturday nights.
If you live in Chicago, then that wouldn't be a problem.
From: texasex24 To: JinShil2
Wouldn't evening students have an advantage in networking because of all the companies that come there on weeknights? Do a lot of companies really come on Saturday nights?
Also, do you happen to know if a weekend student can take any elective he/she wants, or are there only certain electives that are offered on weekends?
From: JinShil2 To: texasex24
Wouldn't evening students have an advantage in networking because of all the companies that come there on weeknights? Do a lot of companies really come on Saturday nights?
Although some recruiting events do happen during weeknights, most happen during the weekday. Most of the recruiting events happen at the main FT campus building (Harper Center). Plus, if you go to school on weeknights, that means you can't attend the recruiting event on that night anyhow.
The part-timers get different colored badges than full timers and part-timers are excluded from internship recruiting.
The Gleacher center is nice. But the food is kinda pricey in my opinion.
From: skechers To: JinShil2
From what I am hearing here is how you make the best of both worlds: -Attend the Weekend classes and hence be in a more stimulating class -Keep your weeknights open to be able to attend the various networking events
Agreed?
From: e92 To: JinShil2
do a lot of part-timers take full-time load, quit their job and attend daytime recruiting events which i assume are presentations/networking sessions?
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When the headline begins with "tuition" the word "up" can't be far behind. But this time the story has a twist. As Alison Damast reports, tuition is indeed going up, but at many schools it's only business students who are feeling the pain. Ninety-two public research universities have such "differential tuition" schemes, including 18 that have introduced the practice in the last three years, and more are joining their ranks. In February, the University of Virginia's McIntire School of Commerce announced it was doing so in the fall. Even two MBA programs in Nevada may be joining the fun. If the board of regents gives its okay, MBA tuition will increase by 40 percent, or $100 per credit hour.
For the schools, differential tuition is a way to balance budgets thrown out of whack by declining state aid, surging enrollment, and higher operating costs. And there is a certain logic to asking business students, who have higher earning potential than those in some other disciplines, to bear the brunt of the tuition hikes. Even so, at a time when the return on a b-school investment is tenuous at best, adding to their financial burden seems unduly harsh. There has to be a better way.
Louis Lavelle Business Schools Editor Bloomberg Businessweek
UCLA Anderson: Admissions Q&A MBA Admissions Director Mae Jennifer Shores explains what UCLA's Anderson school has to offer and what it takes to get in
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