Best place to learn about the relative merits f top schools?

Question

Are there books or websites avaliable that do a good job of objectively letting you know the strengths and weaknesses of each school relative to each other?

Not so much the general 'this school is good at finance, etc' or general stuff like class size, location and cost.... but detailed information about departments are strong, what are weak, who the teaching approach curriculum would be suited for (and who it might not be suited for), what core skills it tries to instill in its graduates, and so on (I'm sure I'm missing plenty of major points of comparison too... please don't hesitate to fill me in on other things I should consider).

Thanks!

2012dreams · Answer

as far as a i know, there are no books that dig that deep. "mba gameplan" does a good job of highlighting unique characteristics of each school and giving a high level overview of what they seek in candidates, but the answers you're looking for are where your personal due diligence and research come in. it is on you to dig deeply into the curriculum, program offerings, strengths and weaknesses, faculty, culture, etc of each school and see which programs will benefit you. you may also find it helpful to initiate contact with a student at each school you are interested in and get their take on the subject. you have to put in the effort...

sadbuttrue · Answer

I realize its on me, not trying to get out of doing the legwork... I just don't really know where to start. I can't imagine that a school is going to advertise its own 'weaknesses' (and have yet to see that done), and comparing strengths can be difficult because the schools I'm going to be comparing are all going to be relatively strong at nearly everything... When you say 'dig deep' into their curriculum... what do you mean? Going onto the required courselist, checking out some class syllabi (may have invented a word there), etc? I figured that checking out each program's website probably is only going to give you a superficial idea what they're looking for and what they offer (and don't offer). From the little I've seen, I see things like "Haas values creativity" (well...uh... duh?) and the like on websites. And then I could look at things like USNews and other rankings, but again... those rankings often tell only a tiny fraction of the story. I did my undergrad at Berkeley and its something of a tradition there to tear apart all of the various ranking systems because of the millions of flaws they have (which, strangely, always seem to hurt Berkeley's rank... of course, we don't generally argue with the ones Berkeley does well in... strange how that works

). Anyway, I don't want to sound like I'm just popping off excuses, just trying to figure out what avenues are worth looking into and which ones arent.

sapphireka · Answer

My suggestion here is to use the business week and US news rankings, coupled with an idea of your 'applicant strength' (i.e. GPA , GMAT, work experience and extracurriculars) to choose a range of schools to investigate. You will either decide on Ultra-elite, elite etc (see this forum for lists: business-school-reviews-125/).

Then decide on your concentration and look specifically for schools who are well regarded in this area. If you are looking at a general management education then some schools are better than others, but for example, I already have a masters in finance so I was looking for somewhere with a flexible curriculum.

Once you have it down to a few, try to attend info sessions and talk to current students to get an idea of where you might 'fit' the best.

Good luck!

sadbuttrue · Answer

Can i order back issues from usnews/businessweek etc to get the full rankings (and the reasoning behind said rankings)?

of the concentrations I've heard, places specializing in entrepeneurship and management consulting/project management seem the most interesting. But thanks for the guidance. Any other tips?

go2bizSkool · Answer

internet research here and on other forums should help (ex wall st oasis, businessweek forum, and even college confidential if you are desperate and don't mind 16 year old wanna be i-bankers). there are many threads discussing the merits of the various schools, ex:

"4th best business school"
https://talk.collegeconfidential.com/bus ... chool.html

"best school for banking"
https://forums.businessweek.com/n/pfx/fo ... &tid=82834

"which school for accounting"
https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/w ... accounting

go2bizSkool · Answer

im currently reading the 4th best business school thread. its quite funny and also provides lots of opinions and analysis on the top school merits. check it out

yangsta8 · Answer

You can also check the Economist rankings. https://www.economist.com/business-education/whichmba/

ezekiel2517 · Answer

Great stuff. Have you come across any thread about the top schools for consulting?

Best place to learn about the relative merits f top schools?

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