| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| hercules |
Posted - 03/29/2004 : 14:35:40
Enough of a bad thing already. I keep finding more business school rankings. Most of them have atrocious methodlogies and they give different rankings to differentiate themselves. They also increase the cost of an MBA by making the schools submit materials to all of them.
I say we turn the tables on these rankers. They don't mind poking and prodding the schools but I wonder how they'd like it if they were ranked.
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| 15 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| kaushalasp |
Posted - 07/27/2010 : 06:12:27
This is a pretty cool thread! |
| S.U.D.I.O. |
Posted - 03/01/2009 : 14:09:45
Well, I may have figured out something wrong with the rankings. Human error. Amber said to sell editions of the rankings guide and Louis interpreted that to mean subscriptions.
Louis also mentioned Stanford was ranked 11 in 2000 and apparently missed the time stamp from early 2004. Still, I doubt there were 10 schools better than Stanford 9 years ago or 29 years ago.
Hopefully he will have another brainfart soon and completely drop HBS or Wharton completely from the rankings and that will make it easier for me to get in.
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| Louis |
Posted - 09/12/2008 : 10:19:13
quote:
Originally posted by budlightgal
quote:
Originally posted by lavelle
Hercules, you really need to do some research. I'm the editor who is responsible for b-school rankings at BusinessWeek. The last time we ranked full time MBA programs in 2004, we had more than 10,000 replies to our student survey. Since our methodology also incorporates two previous student surveys (3 in all) our ranking that year was based on nearly 32,000 replies going back to 2000--hardly "a few students...at one moment in time." I'll also point out that the student survey counts for only 45% of the final ranking. Another 45% comes from a recruiter survey, and the remaining 10% is from our intellectual capital rating--an analysis of every article published by every faculty member at every school in about 20 academic journals. All this information, by the way, is readily available in the magazine and online.
quote:
Originally posted by hercules
Business Week: Base their rankings too much off what a few students think at one moment of time. Ranked Stanford #11 a few years ago. At least they are profitable at making the rankings look important and shifting the schools all around every two years. Thier book is a best seller.
WSJ: Pathetic. They don't even understand their own rankings and never ran a sanity check on them. Look at how low Stanford is ranked. They probably don't make money off the rankings and just make the rest of their organization look stupid.
US News: They act as if they have quantified the process and made it scientific. The writers did not do well/ would not do well on the GMAT with this flawed logic.
Financial Times: I'm not interested in European schools. No comment. Anyone else?
Business 2.0: Johnny come lately. Their rankings and explanations add nothing but confusion to what is already avaivailable. They appear to have a 100 year plan to become good and popular.
Jungle: See Business 2.0
Louis Lavelle
Associate Editor
BusinessWeek
Louis,
If your ranking incorporates the past 2, how come a school can hardly move for a while and then suddenly jump or fall tremendously?
I'd also love to know how Stanford ended up outside the top 10.
Someone I forget who said it best when they said rankings have to jump around to sell editions. You have tenured faculty and students who stick around for a few years. How can schools change so much in such short periods of time?
If the answer is that there is very little difference between them, then why rank them if it's for some reason other than profit?
Amber
Amber, what schools "jump or fall tremendously"???The last time we did the fulltime mba ranking in 2006 the top 30 schools were virtually identical to the top 30 from 2004 (only one, Michigan State, was not in the 2004 top 30). Only four schools out of the 30 moved more than 3 spots. Since 1988, when we first launched the ranking, the top 3 slots have been shared by 7 schools, and three of those got in exactly one time each--so basically 4 schools in the top three since the very beginning. Northwestern has NEVER been out of the top 3. You make it sound like there's a complete shake-up every two years. There's not. You're flat out wrong.
How did Stanford end up outside the top 10? It didn't. It was ranked No. 6 in 2006, No. 4 in 2004, and No. 4 in 2002. In fact the ONLY time it landed outside the top 10 since 1988 was in 2000, when it was ranked at No. 11.
I'm going to let all of you in a little secret. RANKINGS DON'T SELL SQUAT. BusinessWeek's worldwide circulation is pretty close to a million copies, of which maybe 30,000 or so are newstand sales. If anybody is picking up the magazine from a newstand because the rankings are on the cover (once every TWO years) they're not making anyone rich. And I really don't think anyone SUBSCRIBES to the magazine for the rankings, not when they're all available online for FREE.
Even if rankings did make a bundle for the magazine, since when is that a sin? Last I checked, that's pretty much the whole purpose of an MBA--to learn how to make a profit for your company. It's a little hypocritical to accuse BW for harboring some awful profit motive when pretty much everyone reading this is doing the exact same thing.
You guys really need to come up with better arguments against the rankings, because the ones you've come up with so far are laughable. Do your homework. Get your facts straight. And come back when you have something that makes sense. I won't hold my breath.
Louis Lavelle, Associate Editor, BusinessWeek |
| JayHawk4Life |
Posted - 03/04/2008 : 18:24:00
I give Louis credit for showing up and defending his rankings, but his words ring hollow and I agree with Amber. |
| budlightgal |
Posted - 01/18/2008 : 07:13:01
quote:
Originally posted by lavelle
Hercules, you really need to do some research. I'm the editor who is responsible for b-school rankings at BusinessWeek. The last time we ranked full time MBA programs in 2004, we had more than 10,000 replies to our student survey. Since our methodology also incorporates two previous student surveys (3 in all) our ranking that year was based on nearly 32,000 replies going back to 2000--hardly "a few students...at one moment in time." I'll also point out that the student survey counts for only 45% of the final ranking. Another 45% comes from a recruiter survey, and the remaining 10% is from our intellectual capital rating--an analysis of every article published by every faculty member at every school in about 20 academic journals. All this information, by the way, is readily available in the magazine and online.
quote:
Originally posted by hercules
Business Week: Base their rankings too much off what a few students think at one moment of time. Ranked Stanford #11 a few years ago. At least they are profitable at making the rankings look important and shifting the schools all around every two years. Thier book is a best seller.
WSJ: Pathetic. They don't even understand their own rankings and never ran a sanity check on them. Look at how low Stanford is ranked. They probably don't make money off the rankings and just make the rest of their organization look stupid.
US News: They act as if they have quantified the process and made it scientific. The writers did not do well/ would not do well on the GMAT with this flawed logic.
Financial Times: I'm not interested in European schools. No comment. Anyone else?
Business 2.0: Johnny come lately. Their rankings and explanations add nothing but confusion to what is already avaivailable. They appear to have a 100 year plan to become good and popular.
Jungle: See Business 2.0
Louis Lavelle
Associate Editor
BusinessWeek
Louis,
If your ranking incorporates the past 2, how come a school can hardly move for a while and then suddenly jump or fall tremendously?
I'd also love to know how Stanford ended up outside the top 10.
Someone I forget who said it best when they said rankings have to jump around to sell editions. You have tenured faculty and students who stick around for a few years. How can schools change so much in such short periods of time?
If the answer is that there is very little difference between them, then why rank them if it's for some reason other than profit?
Amber |
| shomalik |
Posted - 07/22/2007 : 18:20:24
quote:
Originally posted by lavelle
Hercules, you really need to do some research. I'm the editor who is responsible for b-school rankings at BusinessWeek. The last time we ranked full time MBA programs in 2004, we had more than 10,000 replies to our student survey. Since our methodology also incorporates two previous student surveys (3 in all) our ranking that year was based on nearly 32,000 replies going back to 2000--hardly "a few students...at one moment in time." I'll also point out that the student survey counts for only 45% of the final ranking. Another 45% comes from a recruiter survey, and the remaining 10% is from our intellectual capital rating--an analysis of every article published by every faculty member at every school in about 20 academic journals. All this information, by the way, is readily available in the magazine and online.
quote:
Originally posted by hercules
Business Week: Base their rankings too much off what a few students think at one moment of time. Ranked Stanford #11 a few years ago. At least they are profitable at making the rankings look important and shifting the schools all around every two years. Thier book is a best seller.
WSJ: Pathetic. They don't even understand their own rankings and never ran a sanity check on them. Look at how low Stanford is ranked. They probably don't make money off the rankings and just make the rest of their organization look stupid.
US News: They act as if they have quantified the process and made it scientific. The writers did not do well/ would not do well on the GMAT with this flawed logic.
Financial Times: I'm not interested in European schools. No comment. Anyone else?
Business 2.0: Johnny come lately. Their rankings and explanations add nothing but confusion to what is already avaivailable. They appear to have a 100 year plan to become good and popular.
Jungle: See Business 2.0
Louis Lavelle
Associate Editor
BusinessWeek
Hi Louis, when will you guys join the 21st century and provide rankings for the Asian MBAs?
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| lavelle |
Posted - 08/03/2006 : 09:38:22
Hercules, you really need to do some research. I'm the editor who is responsible for b-school rankings at BusinessWeek. The last time we ranked full time MBA programs in 2004, we had more than 10,000 replies to our student survey. Since our methodology also incorporates two previous student surveys (3 in all) our ranking that year was based on nearly 32,000 replies going back to 2000--hardly "a few students...at one moment in time." I'll also point out that the student survey counts for only 45% of the final ranking. Another 45% comes from a recruiter survey, and the remaining 10% is from our intellectual capital rating--an analysis of every article published by every faculty member at every school in about 20 academic journals. All this information, by the way, is readily available in the magazine and online.
quote:
Originally posted by hercules
Business Week: Base their rankings too much off what a few students think at one moment of time. Ranked Stanford #11 a few years ago. At least they are profitable at making the rankings look important and shifting the schools all around every two years. Thier book is a best seller.
WSJ: Pathetic. They don't even understand their own rankings and never ran a sanity check on them. Look at how low Stanford is ranked. They probably don't make money off the rankings and just make the rest of their organization look stupid.
US News: They act as if they have quantified the process and made it scientific. The writers did not do well/ would not do well on the GMAT with this flawed logic.
Financial Times: I'm not interested in European schools. No comment. Anyone else?
Business 2.0: Johnny come lately. Their rankings and explanations add nothing but confusion to what is already avaivailable. They appear to have a 100 year plan to become good and popular.
Jungle: See Business 2.0
Louis Lavelle
Associate Editor
BusinessWeek |
| hercules |
Posted - 06/19/2005 : 10:50:03
I hadn't been here in quite a long time. One of my buddies told me to check out this thread. Over 7,000. Damn! Wish I had a royalty agreement 
Hope it helped raise some consciousness. |
| IHateCats |
Posted - 11/16/2004 : 14:50:29
quote:
Originally posted by ahua
Perhaps the fact that over 1,000 people have now read this will be of some consolation. 
If 1,000 people was consolation, the fact it's near 3,500 should be completed therapy.  |
| hercules |
Posted - 06/20/2004 : 19:44:06
Yes I do feel good people have read this. 
Y82benji said it very well but yes I do beleive a ranking should be done by the individual. If Kellogg is a good school for you don't worry that it is not Ivy League. If a school is currently ranked 6 or 11 don't dismiss it because its not top 5 or 10.
Remember how much info these rankers ask for and think how much that costs the school. What a f'd up system where the rankers make $$ adn the schools and students pay the $$ to gather the info.  |
| y82benji |
Posted - 06/17/2004 : 01:59:17
There are certain factors like history, "name," and finances that inevitably influence rankings of schools. Sure no one can deny Harvard is one of the ten best schools in the United States, but how do you decide that they are #1 or #2? There are too many factors to consider to ever produce a completely accurate ranking. That doesn't mean that these rankings are completely erroneous or that the best ranking is my personal evaluation. That would be quite a leap to take. How well the individual and the school fit each other better determines their success than anything else, and the rankings can't measure that. They can only measure test scores and statistics (which can always be twisted to show what you want to show).
The best way to find which school is best is to gather together as much information as possible. That includes rankings, the opinions of major employers in that specific field of the graduates from a particular school, and an understanding of the teaching/learning process in the program and whether or not that is the process you want. As for "sure way"... all the top schools are going to offer some strong programs - in the end the "X" factor is the student, not the school. |
| kcarthic |
Posted - 06/16/2004 : 23:09:27
Is there a sure way of telling which school fits best for every field say Finance/banking,non-profit org,etc.
And you people believe rankings by WSJ/FT/USnews aren't accurate.
So you mean that simply evaluating yourselves is the best way. |
| y82benji |
Posted - 06/08/2004 : 12:10:09
quote:
Originally posted by Posc
There are plenty of articles railing rankings but people still soil their pants when Harvard and Stanford aren't ranked 1 and 2. 
I definitely agree. But I bet it is because there is so much money tied into those schools. Those donors need the rankings to feel like they're getting something for their money. |
| Posc |
Posted - 06/07/2004 : 21:24:06
There are plenty of articles railing rankings but people still soil their pants when Harvard and Stanford aren't ranked 1 and 2.
Support terrorists. Vote Bush out of office. |
| y82benji |
Posted - 06/04/2004 : 11:03:35
That's a really awesome post - might be an interesting article idea for a major competitor of theirs (the journals you mentioned) in the news journal market that doesn't publish business school rankings. Sell your idea! |
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