2010 Businessweek Rankings

BusinessWeek said its response rate for the 2010 MBA survey was 55%, with 9,827 of 17,941 graduates responding, while its response rate on the corporate recruiter survey was 42%, with 215 of 514 companies responding. One trick that BusinessWeek applies to its methodology is to count the 2010 graduate survey for just half of the MBA customer satisfaction weight. It also tosses in the previous two surveys to MBA grads from 2008 and 2006, weighted equally at 25% each, which tends to prevent wild swings in the rankings.

Let’s look a the ranking from another, relevant perspective: a financial one.

Students are paying more than ever for a graduate business degree. Yet, to use the schools you reference, at SMU (Cox), they’re paying $17,000 LESS than they would by attending Dartmouth’s Tuck. Sure, these grads are earning less on the back end, but those with jobs do enjoy a similar salary jump as their counterparts at Tuck:
SMU pre-mba salary average: $50,000… post MBA $81,000 (up 62%)
Tuck pre-mba salary average: $64,400… post MBA $105,000 (63% rise)

While the recruiters may pay less for a graduate of SMU, they obviously find value in Texas — solid MBAs who don’t request as hefty a paycheck as their counterparts at other schools. Perhaps these recruiters are shopping where they can get the most bang for their buck… and that’s an important thing to show any boss in this economy!

Finally, let’s follow the argument that any MBA student should be in a program for the education they’ll receive and the experience they’ll have, rather than a hoped-for job at the other end. In that sense, satisfaction over two years is terribly important. It will have a lot to do with student services, quality of teaching, access to faculty, course materials… Remember that at larger schools, some of the prized faculty never step foot in an MBA class — indeed, some don’t want to! — preferring to work instead with seasoned executives, or perhaps on their next book. In those cases, it might be the rising stars (not always polished faculty) in front of the MBAs… that will impact your day-to-day experience… and if you’re paying more than $100,000 a year for the opportunity to study somewhere, you’re going to want it to be good from start to finish!
In short, don’t underestimate the value of what these graduates have to say: they may be earning varied salaries, but they are all choosing from a relatively similar menu of MBA courses at their respective schools. Anyone who is after a solid MBA degree first, and a job second (no matter how long it may take to find it), may want to tune in before they sign any loan agreements!

All the best,
Mica

While I agree that the BW Rankings, with no context, appear, well, insane, I do think they have a value when you understand the methodology. Since the rankings are not divided up into "tiers" by either salary or GMAT or some other general categories, they are forced to rank programs against each other that do not have a lot in common. Maybe it would make sense to break them up first.

Who runs a better business... McDonalds or the local deli down the street? Well, I don't know if I can answer that question. I guess I could look at the balance sheet, but that only tells me so much. I could ask the employees how happy they are, but that is clearly flawed. BW appears to value the opinion of the students and recruiters more than anything else, which are clearly relative to their expectations going in.

I've gone to four colleges... some of them well-known... and my best experience was at a local community college, based off the professors, value, and convenience. Would I say that the community college should be ranked higher than the more well-known college? Kind of, yes. What I'm trying to say is that it seems to make more sense to me to disagree with the methodology than to disagree with the actual rankings... they are what they are.

I don't know a thing about CMU, but I do know calling it a "third tier toilet" reeks of arrogance and ignorance.

He was actually talking about SMU, but it's the same thing. That kind of arrogance is shockingly common among the law community; it was one of the things that made me rethink going to law school back in the day. (Along with meaningless cutoffs. Top 5 Ivy? Pointless cutoff with ambiguous meaning, though I feel fairly confident he's a Penn or Columbia alumnus)

Lets move on past bashing SMU and keep this thread clean of profanity from now on.