MBA Rankings

Since executive MBA rankings are such an important issue, we have written this article.
For the past four years there have been many discussions, both privately and in open forums, with students, faculty, alumni, board members, and colleagues from other institutions about the limitations of the MBA rankings.

There is a very strong consensus among all of the parties consulted that the ranking methodologies in MBA are severely flawed. Some people who agree with that also ask, "But if the rankings help us, who cares if they are flawed or give only a limited view of the school?" But you can't have it both ways. You either endorse a defective, inconsistent practice, or we speak out, offer better alternatives for information, and work with the media to enable them to report with more useful, objective data.

By their very nature, rankings tend to present incomplete information. There is already very little accounting for results based on sample size or response rate, and by generalizing definitions of data points, they can present very misleading results both for prospective students and recruiters. For instance, if you were to look at average salaries upon graduation, that figure may represent an average across many job types and many geographic regions. There’s a wide range of salaries, hence the average salary figure could be – and very often is – extremely misleading.

Last, but not the least, given the increasing number of requests to survey students and alumni, there is a growing concern about compromising their privacy when providing e-mail lists and other contact information.

Sources of Data for Rankings in MBA:

We aim to provide prospective and current students, alumni, recruiters, and the media with better information. One of the important factors defining "better" information is consistency and completeness. This is why we and many other schools like us are working with the Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC) to develop a database that will allow for comparative analysis, which would include standardized, audited data. We hope that more of these types of productive discussions will result in the reporting of accurate and comparative data in the future.

We don’t intend to cast a chill over the rights of our students or our alumni to criticize us either. We look for constructive evaluation and openly report it in our student and alumni surveys. There are many other opportunities for students and alumni to share their experiences – as well as for potential applicants to ask questions of specific interest. Discussion boards, like our own Student-2-Student discussion board, are open and not filtered. These resources are extremely beneficial in enabling applicants make the right decision regarding where they would most like to study and which school will help them achieve their professional goals.

We feel, institutions should stop making decisions based on how they will impact their ranking – and we all know the games that can be played that compromise a school's genuine mission. Institutions ought to measure success not just from rankings, but by the accomplishments of their students, faculty, staff, and alumni.