Battle of the rankings

Although it is wise to pay heed to rankings when picking an MBA programme, remember that ranking criteria vary widely, writes Brutus Lo

Is a school's ranking critical to your MBA decision? If so, which ranking should you rely on? While no one bases an MBA decision solely on ranking, it does matter. It represents visibility and recognition. Like a consumer brand, highly-ranked programmes give graduates confidence and prestige in the marketplace, especially when MBA degrees have become commodities.

BusinessWeek (BW), the Wall Street Journal/Harris Interactive (WSJ), US News & World Report (USNews) and the Financial Times (FT) all rank MBA programmes. Interestingly, some rankings differ significantly.

Only five US MBA programmes - Wharton, Harvard Business School, Columbia, Chicago and Kellogg - rank in the Top 10 in all four reports. While MIT Sloan and Stanford are within three Top 10s, the WSJ ranks them 22nd and 30th respectively. The discrepancy lies in their evaluation methodologies.

From whom do they solicit opinions? What are their criteria? Whose opinions carry the greatest weight?

BW's 2002 report used responses from over 11,000 class-of-2002 students and over 200 corporate recruiters. However, their opinions only account for half the satisfaction rating, while feedback from almost 18,000 1998 and 2000 alumni accounts for the other half. Meanwhile, the FT looks to alumni who graduated three years ago. Neither USNews or the WSJ get a word from students or alumni, other than salary data.

The FT ranking focuses on purchasing power in the marketplace, diversity of experience and research qualities. Removing non-US programmes from the FT list, nine out of ten US schools feature on both the FT and BW's Top 10 lists.

Both evaluate students' and graduates' salaries and examine faculties' intellectual prowess in terms of publications. The FT accepts 40 international journals and publications and BW 18, while the WSJ and USNews ignore such details.

The WSJ's ranking system is, in many ways, unique, relying on corporate recruiters' feedback. BW and USNews also talk to recruiters, but their input carries various weightings. The WSJ looks at two components: "mass appeal" and "perceptions". The number of recruiters at a school gives an indication of mass appeal. Recruiters are also asked to base evaluations on 26 attributes. There are obviously surprises - such as the MIT and Stanford rankings.

Why bother about rankings, as long as schools are in the Top 10 or 20?

I also care about data points published by various reports, which give a picture of the schools you are interested in. It is like putting a puzzle together. I would be interested to know the salary difference "before" and "after" finishing an MBA programme and look at how corporate recruiters rank the schools, because they are your potential employers.

Acknowledgement Brutus Lo is the MD of Kaplan Educational Center (HK) Ltd, an affiliate of Kaplan, Inc. which helped hundreds of Hong Kong students to further their studies in the US and all over the world over the last 12 years. He worked in Silicon Valley and earned his MBA from the Kellogg (Northwestern)-HKUST programme. Email: brutus.lo@kaplanhongkong.com.hk Website: www.kaplanhongkong.com.hk

Taken from Career Times 2003/10/10