Wowza - did some egos get dented here or what!
Tell me, and I've brought this point up quite often in my posts here, is the whole point of an MBA to get a job with McK or Google?
And I find it slightly ridiculous to insinuate that a program that one has never heard of cannot be a quality one. It's like saying a small liberal arts college you've never heard of can't give you as good, if not better, an undergraduate education as the Ivy League - which is certainly not true.
As far as the question of salary increases is concerned, it does look like the weighted salary numbers are adjusted for cost-of-living. But that's the only reasonable way to compare salaries when international schools are thrown into the mix and doing so ensures that the weakening dollar is NOT a factor in these comparisons.
Would schools in the developing world show a greater salary increase than ones in the developed world? Maybe, but that shouldn't be an outlier because most MBA's from such school would stay on to work in the same economy. So a 150% increase in salary for someone who finished an MBA in India or China and decided to stay on and work in India or China, is indeed impressive.
I haven't spent time looking at the numbers more closely, but I suspect the "top" US Schools lose out significantly on the following:
Women board: 1%
International faculty: 4%
International student: 4% I think a lot of the European schools have more than half their classes feature international students?
International board: 2%
International mobility: 6%
International experience: 2%
Language: 2% Is there any school that has a second language requirement - The Wharton Lauder program notwithstanding? IMHO, the most interesting criterion in the ranking is the 'Aims Achieved' - Tuck is #1, Sloan #2, Stanford #3 and that sounds pretty plausible to me.
And very interesting posts, Paul.