BW Undergrad Bschool Ranking, Indicator of MBA Job Market?

Sure, Darden is a decent grad school, but the whole idea of "ranking" doesn't make any sense to me. As someone who's worked in finance for almost 4 years now, and 2.5 yrs on Wall St, if I were to list where we (and other cos) recruited undergrads, the Ivies, Stanford, MIT and NYU are pretty much it. I met exactly one uVa undergrad on Wall St, and never even heard of anyone from Notre Dame.

I just think it's silly and kind of misleading for BW to do this type of ranking. The fact of the matter is, if you want to do business, Wharton's really the place. And if that's not an option, you're SO much better off doing a "liberal arts" degree at a top program. It's unfortunate if really competitive high school kids buy into BW's ranking hype.

You seem to have a ridiculous infatuation with Wharton and Wall Street. Your East Coast bias is worse than ESPN. The world does not revolve around Wall St and people DO go to business school to do things besides trading or I-banking on Wall St. It is also seems evident that the people working on Wall St have done a marvelous job generating a profit. As someone who has worked in finance for four years at a Chicago based firm that is actually generating profits we have done well with our hires from Michigan, Notre Dame, Miami, Northwestern and Indiana.

Is it OK if I put this line into my signature?
This is classic.

It's fine to express your opinions. But don't insult another school where fellow GClub members attended as undergrad or currently applying for MBA. This isn't BW forum.

+1. And this is from a Wharton WL and a Red Sox fan.

UGH. Remember--the original post was about BW's UNDERGRAD business school ranking. My only point is that, in my very humble opinion (and in response to the first poster's question as to whether we should put any stock into the ranking), this ranking is ridiculous (as the first poster noted, who actually read the rankings).

My point was that I think it is disingenuous of BW to post Undergrad business school "rankings." They're trying to drum up publicity, but it is a very poor metric for high school seniors who are beginning to evaluate the best routes for a career in business or finance. They're comparing apples and bowling balls.

My apologies for insulting undergrad business majors at UVa and Notre Dame!

I imagine UVa's knocking off Wharton has a lot to do with the Finance blowup. Wharton's competitive advantage vs. UVa has always been that its sent more people to Wall Street (though, I might add UVa has a very strong presence in the bulge bracket and especially in Private Equity). UVa sends its graduates into a lot of high flight jobs in Business straight out of undergrad (marketing, finance, consulting, tech consulting, etc.). With Wharton's best competitive advantage being reduced dramatically over the last 2 years, UVa's strengths start to outshine Wharton.

This doesn't mean that Wharton isn't going to retake #1, just that in the current climate, UVa's advantages come through more.

(You could compare the competitive advantage of Kellogg and Wharton in a similar light at the MBA level. In the current economic climate, I'd say the value proposition of Kellogg shines best. In a financial boom, Wharton's value proposition shines best. They're both schools on par with one another - but you might choose one over another depending on the environment and your own personal goals)

I still do not think you understand the rankings. They are "Business School" rankings, not "Finance School Rankings" or "Feeders to Wall St Job Rankings" The rankings can provide students with an overall perspective on the schools...some may be great at finance like Wharton and others may lack in finance but be great for accounting. Like MBA programs not every school is #1 in each specialty, but the rankings and the information provided about each business school can shed some light into the stregths, weakness, size, etc of the school.

Regardless I feel bad for any high school senior going into college with the mindset of what ungrad school they need to go to so they can have the best career in business or finance. They should have the mindset that these are going to the be the best 4 or 5 or maybe even 6 years of my life and think about the booze, the broads and the bullshit. (Harry Caray quote)

That is my $0.02. Happy Friday.

What's kind of funny - the picture for UM (Ross) is a group of current MBAs.

24, I understand the rankings. I just don't agree with them. Call me an East Coast Elite ESPN snob, but I don't care if it's finance, accounting or emerging market microfinance, Wharton Undergrad is still going to beat the snot out of UVa or Notre Dame.

Since everyone disagrees with me, I'll make you a deal: show me a high school senior who turned down either, let's say, Wharton Undergrad, Columbia or Stanford to go to Notre Dame's undergrad business school, and I'll pay for your MBA.

This ranking discussion is as ridiculous as the HBS/Univ of Phoenix discussions on BW!

WHAT?

hehe, this guy at my high school turned down harvard to go to unc, because harvard didn't give him schollie.

this guy went there, and I'm pretty sure all those schools above would take him after his recent fame:

https://tinyurl.com/bu9bla

Not so sure about Booth or Kellogg though.

First, I never used the words “elite” or “snob” you referred to yourself as that. I only called you biased because the tone of your post was basically "Only Wharton => Wall St," which is a bold and false claim.

Now I will concede that you are obviously more intelligent than I am since you went to Penn and probably make 4x more than me since you have a sweet Wall Street gig, but I do think you are a little delusional. I think maybe 0.001% of high school seniors weigh their college options based on which school will get them the Wall Street job. On the other hand I would say most have no idea what they want to do and do not even know what an Investment Banker or Trader does.

There are also a million other factors that come in to play such as…

-Maybe you are an athlete and it would be infinite times better to play D-I Football as a Wolverine or a Domer than as Penn Quaker.
-Maybe you are not lucky enough to be an elitist trust fund baby and need to worry about going to an in-state school because that is all you can afford.
-Maybe you want to go to school in a college town instead of Philly
-Or maybe you picked where to go cause when you were a senior in high school you went on a school visit, got drunk at a frat house, met hot college girls and realized this is where you would have the time of your life.

Either way I feel bad for 17 year old that is worried about the track to becoming a Wall Street banker when selecting schools because they obviously had a deprived childhood and college experience and do not know the definition of FUN. The rankings are clearly geared toward the alums since it is the alums that get all riled up over them when there school falls from the top.

The arrogance of your offer to pay for my MBA education is just the sign that you might have a diploma from Penn, but unfortunately your expensive education skipped over the section on social skills or tact. Anyways I am going to take my mediocre non-Ivy, public college education to the bar. The best part about Chicago girls is they don’t care about Wall Street or Wharton.