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27 Feb 2017, 14:45
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Yeah different rankings show a different picture. FT rankings has seen a massive drop for McGill leaving it no spot in the top 100 but then again every Canadian business school has experienced similar trend. I've researched about the relative standing of the universities and from what I've observed, Rotman comes out at the top in most of the reviews, surveys etc. (especially for Finance as it is in Toronto). Now, expenses are also relatively higher for Rotman so that obviously has its role to play in calculating ROI. Notwithstanding all this, McGill still stays a target school for these firms like you mentioned. A downward trend, however, for me presents somewhat of a concern for the future. I'd love to know more about it though as Im only collecting information as much as I can to reach a solid conclusion.
28 Feb 2017, 13:58
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TheMastermind
That was worrying to me at first too, but I looked into it a while ago and found that I don't like the FT ranking methodology. For starters, there's quite a bit of volatility in the FT with Queens coming in and out of the top 100, Western is between 87 and 97, and McGill went 84,100,85 then NR this year. I find it hard to believe that a business school can move 20ish spots in a year.
More importantly though, the FT places 20% weight on strictly academic research related criteria - 10% is the school's academic research rank, 5% is the number of PhDs who graduate from the business school, and 5% is the % of profs who have PhDs. This is the main reason why Rotman does so much better than the other Canadian schools - it ranks #3 in the world research output (in FT), and has many PhD graduates who place well in academic positions. I don't get this criteria though... sure it's nice to have teachers who are publishing in top academic journals, and there is probably some benefit to that (though I have definitely had classes in UG with good researchers who were terrible teachers), but at the end of the day I care most about the actual MBA student outcomes and the rest is ancillary (especially how many PhDs the b-school produces).
I estimated the rankings without the academic portion, and the implied rankings look much more like the Bloomberg BusinessWeek rankings, where Rotman is basically right with all the other Canadian schools. In the FT, Rotman has a slightly higher salary, but it does poorly for "placement" (the alumni ranking for the help they got from their school's career centre), and it actually comes in lowest (100/100) for the value for money category (FT gives each of these criteria only a 3% weight somehow).
Nevertheless, please don't take this as criticism of Rotman! It's a great school, I know people who went there, loved it, and got great jobs after. There's a ton of good reasons to go there! I just think it's silly to put it on this pedestal above the other top Canadian MBAs, when the actual MBA outcomes aren't that different, and it's just because the school produces good PhDs and its profs publish a lot... but that's just my opinion.
28 Feb 2017, 14:19
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backbacon
FT rankings are very complex. I guess that explains why there is such volatility in the annual rankings every year. They take into account career progression too which I believe is a good criteria so that also affects the rankings. Much of my research, apart from rankings, is based on a multitude of articles, surveys, forum opinion and only a few reviews from people working in Canada as well. Ultimately, that's the impression that I got from Rotman i.e., it's a better school compared to UBC, McGill. Again, costs do play their role, especially when Montreal is relatively cheaper. QS rankings also have a favorable enough opinion of McGill. As I said, about these different surveys, forum opinions, I have not come across more than a couple negative reviews about Rotman that is really low compared with Desautels. Probably the Toronto location is something that lets people believe that Rotman must be way better, especially to people who don't have direct contact with the location. I asked an admission expert here and he said that they place Rotman and Schulich above the rest for Canada.
Your location says it's Canada. Are you a Canadian? if that's so, you may have a lot more to add to this. Eager to listen here!
28 Feb 2017, 14:57
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\sqrt{}
I am Canadian, feel free to ask me any questions (or you can pm me if it's more specific).
I do agree career progression is a good metric to have.
In terms of reputation it definitely varies depending on industry and firm. But yes you're right, my sense is that Rotman's reputation is very strong, and increasing (I don't think it used to be quite as high as it is today). Also, Western has a universally excellent reputation (above Rotman according to some people at least), especially in Finance and Consulting. McGill and Queens also have great reputations as overall schools, and as business schools. McGill for a long time was probably considered the gold standard overall university in Canada (Mcgill alumni would, pretentiously and to the chagrin of others, joke that it is "the Harvard of the North"). Things have equalized a little recently though with other schools catching up and in terms of overall university (not just b-school), it would probably be between McGill, UoT, and UBC for top school in Canada now I think (Queens and Waterloo are excellent for engineering/Maths).
My sense is that recruiters may have preferences here or there, but the large majority will not hold it against you at all if you go to say - Rotman, Western, McGill, Queens, and probably Schulich and UBC as well. The bigger difference might be the connections that schools have in terms of alumni being concentrated in certain firms.
Also for what it's worth, I'd say Western is pretty universally considered to have the best I-banking and consulting network in Canada (in terms of how much alumni help eachother out).
TheMastermind
I am Canadian, feel free to ask me any questions (or you can pm me if it's more specific).
I do agree career progression is a good metric to have.
In terms of reputation it definitely varies depending on industry and firm. But yes you're right, my sense is that Rotman's reputation is very strong, and increasing (I don't think it used to be quite as high as it is today). Also, Western has a universally excellent reputation (above Rotman according to some people at least), especially in Finance and Consulting. McGill and Queens also have great reputations as overall schools, and as business schools. McGill for a long time was probably considered the gold standard overall university in Canada (Mcgill alumni would, pretentiously and to the chagrin of others, joke that it is "the Harvard of the North"). Things have equalized a little recently though with other schools catching up and in terms of overall university (not just b-school), it would probably be between McGill, UoT, and UBC for top school in Canada now I think (Queens and Waterloo are excellent for engineering/Maths).
My sense is that recruiters may have preferences here or there, but the large majority will not hold it against you at all if you go to say - Rotman, Western, McGill, Queens, and probably Schulich and UBC as well. The bigger difference might be the connections that schools have in terms of alumni being concentrated in certain firms.
Also for what it's worth, I'd say Western is pretty universally considered to have the best I-banking and consulting network in Canada (in terms of how much alumni help eachother out).
. 
. I could make a decision until March 7th originally but asked to extend the deadline to March 21st to go back to my home country to sign for my loan before accepting (I work abroad). They accepted to extend the deadline but now it appears as if the offer expired. I wrote to them and hope they can fix this as I really want to get in to Desautels. I'm sure it's just a computer mistake. 
