EIU Rankings

Guys

Here is their methodology if you are interested:

https://mba.eiu.com/site_info.asp?info_n ... ank_method

Very interesting to see IESE on this list. I think its the only school on this list that has a minimum work exp requirement and asks its applicants to be conversant in Spanish.

Hee! Maybe I'll see more posts about Fisher now!

I have to say though, for some reason OSU tends to rank high on all of the "screwy" lists.

Thomal Caleel (Wharton admissions guy), mentioned that it is purely because of these types of flawed rankings that Wharton avoids rankings altogether. His logic was that 'increase in salary' is a statistic that depends on the original salaries of the incoming class. Now because of the 'already' successful applicants that make the grade at the UE schools, the 'increase in salary' will always remain low. Why is the immediate 'increase in salary' such a huge ranking factor (20% of the overall ranking) anyway ?

They also use a factor called 'student quality' - built of two components : work experience and GMAT score. The funny part is, MGSM (an Australian school), focuses solely on very experienced professionals (min 5 years experience) and does not require a GMAT. Because of this, statistically, MGSM has the third highest 'student quality'. Not requiring a GMAT doesn't seem to bring down the student quality at all. They are having a laugh ...

I agree with you somewhat but there are also other ways of looking at things other than just pure numbers. Using Ohio State for example. The average graduating salary is $77k. It's extremly possible to live in Ohio, make $35K, get accepted to their MBA program and graduate and make $75k(base salary). In New York you'd probably make closer to $60k going in and come out making a little under $100k(again base). In both cases you would be making a $40k increase, however that $40k would go alot further(or farther, man I hate the gmat) in Ohio. A quick look at a cost of living calculator reveals that you would have to make $173k in NY just to maintain the current standard of living. So in terms of NY dollars the Ohio State grad is going from $80k to $173k while the Columbia grad is going from $60k to $100k.

I also think the data is extremely skewed because of sectors like investment banking. If you wanted to work in operations management and live in the midwest you would have a hard time justifying the higher tuition and cost of living in New York. MIT might look promising but definitely not Columbia.

While I agree the rankings seem a bit skewed I just think everyone has to realize everyone doesnt want to work in investment banking on Wall St. and it seems that's what the major rankins focus on.

I think they got the #1 spot right , but otherwise, yea, these rankings are pretty whacked.

Well said !

It's either MC or IB and the value of brand is over rated

What made you conclude that the major rankings focus in investment banking on Wall St.? Please expand a little bit.

Thanks. L.

That's the never ending discussion about rankings.

Once I stated here that the FT ranking is skewed towards banking. My conclusion is because all the big Finance Powerhouses are on Top of that ranking.

BW for instance has a more "custy" view as the students dictate a significant part of the ranking from what I've read and heard.

There is no perfect ranking, and I use only to have an idea where the schools are, though I think that the EIU ranking is very weird. IESE is a very good school, but I have never met a person which would trade a place at Wharton (21st) for IESE (3rd).

A couple of years ago the Vlerick Leuven shool was among Top 10 or so, while MIT was in 30.

Once again, I do not think that neither IESE nor Vlerick Leuven are bad schools, but the MBA from Wharton and MIT are much well regarded than their European peers.

The Economist ranking favors the UK and European's schools in general, even though Insead is badly ranked IMO.

I hinted at this in my earlier post, but I ranking "makes sense" if it actually reflects what most people would actually do if given a choice between schools. If I were admitted to every school on the planet, I'd probably go to Stanford. Others might say Harvard. It "makes sense" that these schools would be ranked at the top. So, if I look at a ranking and see a whole bunch of schools ranked in a way that makes no sense at all, I discount the entire ranking.

I don't really care about the ranking methodology, but there are some things that shouldn't matter when judging whether a ranking "makes sense".

1. Throw out your personal biases. If you really really want to work in Alabama, and really really want want to go to school in the state because of personal reasons, you should still understand that the business school at Alabama (not picking on any school in particular) is no Harvard. And it's not Michigan, NYU or Kellogg either. Certainly, there are people who favor certain places, but leave those out of the rankings. People can look at a set of rankings, then apply their own personal biases when making their decisions; there's no reason to include such biases in the ranking.

2. Salary should be only a minor consideration. There are just too many variances with regards to salary. Industry & region are obviously huge factors, but again, a lot of these preferences are personal. A poster above stated that he/she would be happy in Cleveland at a far lower salary than in NY. Well, from a cost of living perspective that might make sense, but there's a damn good reason why cost of living is so different. You couldn't pay some people (a lot of people) enough to live in Cleveland. I would much rather make 100k and live in San Francisco than make twice as much to live in Cleveland. Ahh, the horror! I'll argue my quality of life will be better in SF because of the great weather, accessibility to world class restaurants, proximity to Napa Valley, etc.; while someone else will argue that it's self-evident that a better quality of life can be had in Cleveland (I just don't see how that could be possible in Cleveland ) But, that's my personal preference.

I think it's important to distinguish between schools as far as accessibility to jobs and regions. For example, we know that for major MBA destinations, IB and MC are generally the most selective. Now, do a lot of students from a particular school avoid these destinations because they choose to (I think Stanford might be like this), or is it because students at the school are not competitive for such roles (most schools outside the elites). That's an important distinction. The actual percentages and the salaries that they generate is less important. I think about location in the same way. Salaries will be naturally higher in NY, SF, LA, etc and lower to much lower elsewhere. The key question is, do students at a particular school avoid NY and SF (the two biggest destinations for MBAs if I recall) because they choose to, or because they simply aren't competitive.

3. Rankings need to stop trying to rank student quality and faculty quality. I like to look at the average GPA and GMAT as much as the next person, but some rankings are just silly in the ways that they try to quantify student and faculty quality. As far as I'm concerned, the only real way to judge faculty is to sit down in their classes and see if they deliver. Forget publication volume and stuff like that. Even prior education doesn't really matter. For a student, it's all about how good the professor is in the classroom, and how available they are outside of class. As far a student quality, I think GPA is only useful in relation to the prior school. Taking GPA separately from prior academic institution makes no sense to me. I think a B average from Princeton is as impressive or more so than a #1 ranking at a small, non-competitive school. Simply put, the person at Princeton already beat out pretty much everyone else in the country (more or less) to get in. So, some b-schools pile up students from blue chip schools. That's impressive. Certainly, not all people get a chance to go to such schools, so a very high GPA from another competitive school is impressive as well, but you can't just look at GPA separately from where it was earned. It just makes no sense.

I guess when it comes down to it, I just like to ask the question, would the average person really attend School A (ranked higher) over School B. If that's more or less true for the schools I am familiar with, the ranking has some value to me. If not, it goes out with the rest of the garbage.

pelihu, where do you find the time to post like that? I thought Darden was considered one of the hardest programs out there. I have no time and I'm only taking 3 classes, LOL.

I'm kicking back this week. We're in the middle of exams.

I actually don't find the course load to be too bad here. It was a shock the first few weeks, but I felt pretty comfortable by the 3rd week. I think most people were about the same, though it's clear that someone with poor quantitative skills and/or reading abilities could fall behind. The real challenge is keeping up with all the activities and recruiting. I'm sure it's similar elsewhere, but we have 6-8 recruiters on campus virtually every day M-Th; and 2-3 CEOs giving talks per week. I'm meeting with IBs, and some have been on campus 3 times already (Merrill will be back for their 4th visit next week). Multiply that by ~10 bulge bracket, a bunch of middle market firms, some more specialty and regional, and I'm definitely averaging 2-3 recruiting events a day. I guess that's better than not getting invited for closed events, but it's hard work.

So, I don't know if things are tougher here at Darden then elsewhere. I know we have that reputation, and recruiters seem to like it, but it seems like people at other schools are just as busy with classes and events. In fact, I haven't heard from any 1st years regardless of school who aren't totally busy. However, I can tell you that several alums from a variety of visiting firms have told me that they played golf every day during the second year. An unlimited annual pass is under $1k for a nice nearby course, and there are at least 5 country clubs that I know of within 10 miles of campus. I now know why people last year told me Darden had a country-club feel.

I think the thing that is being missed by this forum and most of the national rankings is that they are actually for a select few. I understand Pelihu's point about wanting to reflect what most people would actually do and given the choice they would probably select more of the elite schools. But the fact is most of the people do not even APPLY to the elite schools.

If you take a look at the GMAC website you'll see the the average GMAT score is about 550. Where do you think all of these people are going to school? GMAT volume is well over 200,000. The number of people going to top 25 programs is propably close to 10% of the total number of applicants.

Why have rankings that fight between 25 top schools when you'll probably get a great job from all of them and ingnore the 800+ programs listed where the GMAC shows most people are clearly going to.

Part-time enrollment is up and online enrollment is quickly gaining ground. Full-time MBA programs are a luxury and for the few elite. I think it's great that there are so many talented people on this forum sharing ideals and helping each other out along this journey but this forum does NOT represent the average b-school applicant.

Car and Driver could put out rankings for the best sedans and have Maserati's, BMW's, Benz's etc. with the lowest value being over $100k. I'm sure that rankings would reflect the vehicles most people would get if they DID have the money. But quite frankly most people don't have the money and they dont have 650+ GMAT score so where do they turn to with help deciding between a Honda Accord or a Chevrolet Malibu.

Great post. I was just thinking about this the other day....how there are probably hundreds or thousands of colleges around the US that offer MBA programs, and hundreds of thousands of students pursuing an MBA each year at those colleges. We are here talking about 25-30 colleges which like you said represent maybe 10% of the total applicant pool. Looking at it this way we make such a big deal about #3 vs #15 when in reality all of them are pretty "elite" in this new light.

That was a great post, gixxer1000! You are totally correct in pointing out that the vast majority of MBA applicants/students are not going to the top 20 schools. Probably, because most MBA applicants are simply looking to get a better job in the area where they currently reside.

Since I know that Mr. ishcabibble would never, ever even consider moving to NYC, Chicago or LA (although he likes to visit those places), and both of our families are in this region, and I'm pretty happy where we live, OSU is a fine school for me since they have very strong connections to the Central Ohio area (plus, since the Mr. works there, I get a discount on tuition ).

Of course, I sometimes daydream about going to a school like Kellogg and then moving to NYC or Chicago to get an exciting job at a top-notch marketing firm, but, well, that's just not where I am in my life. Actually, though, my dream job would be at a company where I would occasionally get to travel to those places!

Now, if I was single... (just kidding!)

That reminds me... I have a house in Warrenton, VA - next time I'm out there maybe we can meet up? I'll be at the house in the Bahamas for Thanksgiving, but maybe sometime in December if you are around...

I guess I'm confused then. If someone is limited to a particular city or region, why would rankings matter to them? Most the schools outside the top 15 and virtually all outside the top 25 are regional in nature, so wouldn't ranking schools outside the top 25 be more or less meaningless? What's the point in knowing how OSU compares to Nebraska or UC Davis (just throwing out some examples) if there's zero possibility that people would consider moving around the country to attend one school over the other?

Also, the examples from the two earlier posts don't make sense. It is just absolutely false that top 25 schools only draw 10% of the applications. A) Higher ranked schools are larger in size, ranging from 900 at Harvard to 250 at Tuck, with an average size of about 450 or something like that (unfortunately, I don't have the stats at hand right now). Schools ranked outside the top 25 are much smaller, averaging maybe 125 students. B) Higher ranked schools have much lower acceptance rates, which means more applications for each spot. Again, looking at Harvard as the example, with their acceptance rate of 13% or whatever it is, and yield of 90%, they are getting something like 7000+ applications to admit their class of 900. Schools in the top 15 probably average 4-5000 applications. Schools outside the top 25, with higher admit rates and lower yields, are probably getting well less than 500 (probably more like 2-300) applications to fill 125 spaces.

So, just based on these really rough numbers, I'd estimate that schools in the top 15 draw 30-35% of all applications, and schools in the top 25 40%+ of all applications. It's definitely not 10% or anything like that. Someone that's prepping for consulting case interviews could throw together some better estimates.

The assertion that "everyone at a top 25 is going to get a great job" is not true, and without a definition of 'great job' it's also misleading. Last week, a top 3 consulting firm here on campus had a presentation and drew 150+ students. A fortune 20 company recruiting for their management training rotational program drew just 20 students. Are both of these 'great jobs'? In one sense, yes, but they aren't the same. Certainly, there's a big difference across ranking clusters in the jobs that people have access to.

Car and Driver, Chevy Malibu...hmm...did you seriously give this example any thought? I'd bet my lunch money that Car and Driver has published 6 reviews of the BMW 3-Series, 5 reviews of the Porsche 911, and 3 reviews of various other BMWs, Lexus' & Mercedes' for each Chevy Malibu review. It's not because everyone can afford (or needs) those cars, it's because people are interested in learning about the best that's out there. Heck, I'd be willing to bet my milk money that Car and Driver has published more articles on the average model from Ferrari than the average mid-size car.

As far as rankings go, I definitely understand that there are lots of people out there not attending top 15 or top 25 schools. I also understand that rankings don't mean as much to such people. As ischabibble pointed out, it doesn't really matter if she knows how OSU is ranked in comparison to other schools around the country. The only important thing for her that it's a great school in the region. The problem is, everyone defines their personal region differently. Do you need to stay in a city, close to an airport, in a metro area, in a state, in a tri-state area? People can apply their own personal biases to a given set of rankings, the rankings shouldn't attempt to account for them.

So, the way I see it, rankings only matter if people would actually compare the schools involved in the ranking. Someone might find useful information if they're trying to decide between Kellogg & Duke, or whatever. But what's the point of producing comprehensive rankings of two schools that people will absolutely not consider as alternatives in real life? I can see how some kind of comprehensive regional ranking would make a lot of sense. Does OSU create better job opportunities than Case Western, Ohio U (sorry, I can't think of any others)? That's valuable information to know. OSU is more than just a regional school, so that's not a great example. But someone explain how ranking some truly regional schools against other regional schools in some other region is useful at all. I just don't get it.