ft rankings 2009

Guys there is a proper thread for this in the b-schools forum here :
103-t75116

Vent your fury there

I think its fine to talk about the international school in here, the other forum is mostly related to US Schools.

In terms of CEIBS, its probably the best school in Shanghai, Tsinghua in Beijing, is probably the main competitor to CEIBS within China. CEIBS is reasonably international, but don't forget that the overall pay in the rankings is boosted by PPP. However, in terms of overall package, if you decide to remain in Shanghai after graduation, you should not expect an American salary. The main thing to consider when looking at overall packages is ratio of income vs spending if you were to maintain a simlar lifestyle.

If everyone went for salaries, then Japan would be the place to go at the moment due to the strong Yen.

Could you explain why you think that? Do you also think that it's reasonable to see Kellogg out of TOP 20???

I don't know about Kellog .. but I have few colleagues from chicago business school and have found them pretty ordinary .. in fact my colleagues from local business school have done much better in the organization. Anyway its totally my personal view.

thanks,
Abhay Singh

And you take a few data and characterize the whole population from these few points?

I'm not here complaining that you made this statement about the schools I'm attending, I know phenomenal people from several schools and I know several ordinary people in many schools - perhaps I'm included in this last category. Well, once I heard from the admissions office Director from the hardest school to get into in the US that they like Ordinary People doing extraordinary things .

I guess that your situations is the same as someone traveling to a place, having a few bad situations with local people and later generalize the whole country because of a few bad moments with those locals, believe me I hear that all the time.

You should talk to people who made exchange quarters (because they've seen 2 different schools). I really like talking to these people to see the differences in approach, people, life style etc...

As I told you its totally my personal view ... Dont get upset ...

thnks,

I have my doubts about IE. I seriously doubt that the school is honestly reporting results (or in the case of the FT ranking, its alumni). Look at the BW 2008 rankings where IE is ranked #2 in Europe:
https://bwnt.businessweek.com/interactiv ... intl_2008/

Does something odd strike you? When you look at the post-MBA pay, they claim that on average students make $149,500 straight out of their MBAs!!! That figure must be wrong (compare that to LBS' $129K and INSEAD's $121K - and these are the top schools in Europe). Many IE grads end up working in Spain, and the pay level there is most likely below the European average. I know a friend who just graduated from IE in Dec 2008, he says that there were so many students who couldn't even find a job after graduation (yes I know the economy is bad). It is just extremely bizarre that IE consistently ranks high in all rankings, despite the fact that it's not even the #1 school in Spain (which is IESE). It is sad to see that a business school lacks such integrity, when it's goal is to educate tomorrow's leaders.

To your final thought that LBS is way overrated - maybe it should be IE that is way overrated??? Also, your point of high salaries of LBS alumni being fragile, wouldn't that be the case for all alumni of all bschools at the moment?

tmino - could this be a case of PPP adjustment of salaries as used by FT working against LBS INSEAD and in favour of IE. I know for a fact that this inflates ISB salaries a LOT (helping it attain top 20 rankings for the last couple of years).

Probably not. If you look at IESE and ESADE ($114K and $95K post-MBA pay respectively) which are both Spanish schools too, their average post-MBA salaries are much lower. If you look at the footnotes to post-MBA pay, it says:
"Median salary only; does not include signing bonus, stock options, or other compensation. Based on respondents to student survey; does not represent entire graduating class."
There's no mentioning of any PPP adjustment. Most likely case of this high figure: "Based on respondents to student survey; does not represent entire graduating class." => Maybe only a few of IE's graduates participated (the ones who somehow landed nice jobs), or there were a few clowns who either didn't understand that bonuses and stock options should be excluded or they were simply making up crazy figures which in the end skewed the average. Worse is even that BW didn't bother to check these figures.

Oh well... those rankings, I shouldn't get so upset, but it does bug me when data that is so obviously wrong is published...

I attended one of IEs session in Singapore. Apart from snacks nothing else was impressive. He spent too much time on the ranking of the school. They could get only one full time MBA alumni to talk rest all were either distant or part time program student.

One more thing that stands out is the very low representation of Asians(around 10-15 percent) and school looks to improve on that so it might easier for Asians to get in.

I asked the presenter about job employment post MBA and instead talking about the career services of IE , he tried convincing me of leadership qualities I have at the end of program. Well I dont want to be a leader without salary. When I pushed further , he said the School is known for entrepreneur ship.

He played a video of orientation evening of current batch where they were asking each of them reason for chosing IE. I guess you can see the video on their web site.

thnks,

That is some interesting infor on IE, thanks.

What I meant about LBS alums' salaries being fragile was that the school has a great number of alumni working in London in the financial sector. Those guys can get laid off any time now, and many have already been. Yes, the salaries and jobs of all MBA gradudates are fragile right now, but presumably those of London bankers are the most fragile. Maybe I am wrong, I actually do not have LBS' placement stats in front of me. It is also probable that graduates from less prestigious schools are the first to go.

Hi guys,

I’ve been working with top business schools for 7 years now. I think this whole thing about rankings is not as important as you may think. Their methodology is everything but scientific and they must serve only as a guide to see what schools have the minimum requirements to be a global player or not.

A senior professor from a top business school once told me something very interesting about it: that what really makes a school top or not is the queues of students and professors to get in. A school that has that can be considered a top local school or a top global school. I partially agree with his observation, especially when he adds that what differentiate a school from another are the principles under which the school chooses its students and professors from these queues.

As one of the very few schools founded by entrepreneurs in the top 50 schools, IE is definitely a school that apply its principles to the selection of students and professors and this is perceived when you meet to IE’s alumni or professors around the world.

Overall, IE’s alumni are not only worried about “average” top salaries in “average” top positions. This is too small or simplistic for us. I know this may sound too mystic or even too commercial, but IE’s alumni are definitely questioning people, that are humble and low profile, trained to spot responsible business opportunities that may change society to the better.

Newton

In regards to salary variances from one ranking to the next - if it is foul play, blame the school or blame the alumni - but probably not fair to blame them both.

My understanding is that many of these rankings make the actual data available to other schools to check for consistency.

IE is definitely known for entrepreneurship, so if one school were to be skewed abnormally high, a few highly successful entrepreneurs coupled with low response rate could potentially do the trick.

As a graduate from the University of Alabama, I remember the average starting salary of undergrads in the business school doubling from one year to the next - a football player who graduated from the b school got drafted and went pro making millions. Obviously median would need more than one person to be affected, but one team with a million dollar project could certainly impact things.

also, being an entrepreneur means your salary is a little more of a grey area than receiving a corporate pay stub. For example, one might think - my new company made 200,000 USD profit last year so I'll report that as my salary (even though I'm reinvesting most of it to keep the business growing). Not saying that's right, I'm just thinking out lout as to the nature of the results...

also, found this in the methodology (https://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 00244.html)

I don't know where the $145 K comes from (although I do believe that the FT says that it's "weighted", whatever that means). The "average salary" that IE reports on its own placement statistics is 58,500 euros, which would only be around $78,000 US right now.

imba.ie.edu/pdf/placement_report.PDF

I did some research and the below logic and premise both are wrong
IE grads will do jobs in Spain ->so should be getting paid less-> so should not have been ranked in the top -> so the school should have been lying....
IE's class profile shows that its extremely diverse (this is fact not an assumption), more than 80% are not from spain. They are getting and doing jobs all over the world. Like others said they are very focused on entrepreneurship but with simple google search you can also find that in each job fair they get more than 100 firms on campus (this is just one time event and excludes the regular all through year visits by firms)

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