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US News MBA Rankings 2022 - Panel discussion of MBA experts discussing rankings outcomes, key highlights, & emerging trends
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Host: Charles (GMATNinja), GMAT Club Verbal Expert.
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Hello, I'm Charles from GMAT Ninja, GMAT Club's resident verbal expert here today not to talk about the GMAT but we're talking through the latest UC News MBA rankings release. I'm here with four of my very favourite admissions consultants, we have Susan Cera from Stratus Admissions, Neil Chong from Veritas Prep, Harold Simansky from mbaMission, and the legendary Maria Wich-Vila from Applicantlab.com.
So i'm gonna start the video with some really really simple question about their impressions of the rankings release as most of you have probably done some of our live events before but if you have any questions pop it into the comments i'll do my best to get to as many of these as we can we've got 45 minutes so pop those questions in early increases the odds to be able to get to them.
What's your first impression of this year's rankings? What changes caught your eye? Let's start with you Susan.
Susan Stratus Admissions: So first impression: no meaningful changes in my mind, kind of same players are all in there. Two things though were that Stanford's acceptance rate went up to in my mind significantly. I typically tell people six out of 100 people get into Stanford and this year it was nine out of 100 so I don't know if their application volume was down leading into the pandemic that may be what drove it, and the other thing that I noticed is that on average I think all the average GMAT scores are down and I suspect that's because there are a lot of internationals who are known for bringing in high GMAT scores that didn't end up sitting in seats this past fall.
Harold mbaMission: I have to be honest with you but just a big yawn here. I didn't see anything particularly meaningful. I think at the end of the day the limitations of rankings are really shown in terms of do they capture present data? are any interesting schools bubbling up? and the answer is probably not, so for me it was just another tool of many that I help with there I have clients use when they think about the schools they want to apply to
Neil Veritas Prep: Yeah, I mean really no movement, no change, minimal movement within the top 20 but we still see the ties, Harvard number five. I'll touch upon USC marshall beat me being an alarm, it moving from 17 to 16 and UCLA Anderson going from 16 to 18 that did surprise me because historically UCLA has always been ahead of USC Marshall in the rankings so we're pleased with that, but what's really stood out there is that the employment rate at marshall, and I think this is what kind of what drove the numbers there, is 91.3% three months after graduation while UCLA was at 78% so considering the fact that UCLA Anderson really is known for its excellent career centre. I'm sure they're a little bit disappointed and surprised as to what happened there and then you know USC Marshall does have a new dean in place, they came over from Wharton in July of 2020 so it appears like he's making a big impact there but that's all I had.
Maria ApplicantLab: Yeah, I mean nothing that hasn't already been said. I like that Carnegie Mellon is starting to get some of the accolades I think it's deserved. I think that's been an underrated programme for quite some time but yeah some of the other ones you know. Neil i'm glad that you disclose that you're a USC alum because I was about to jump on the fact that I had UCLA behind USC to me is that as an angela Lena living in LA is like you know I don't necessarily agree with that but the numbers came out the way they came. I think that US News and all of these rankings need to drive clicks and so the more controversial the better; otherwise, we wouldn't have anything to talk about and no one would be asking any questions so I think that in terms of rankings we always need to think about the motivations of who the people are publishing the rankings and especially US News because they do charge I believe for you to be able to access a lot of it so just keep that in mind
Charles: One thing that is raising a little bit on the forum is that Harvard ended up in number five this year. Can you put that into context a little bit? Does that mean that Harvard's slipping in some way is that some commentary on the quality of the programme or do you see that as noise?
Neil Veritas Prep: I would not be concerned with US News ranking Harvard number five. We all know it's a great programme, so I wouldn't be concerned
Susan Stratus Admissions: Yeah I would, instead of focussing the overall ranking, look at they're still getting 4.9 from their peers and they're still being ranked very highly by recruiters. As I suspected, it was driven down by the number of HBS alumni who were not employed at the, you know, three months out of that graduation because they're trying to do something entrepreneurial. And that comes back and bite you a little bit in the rankings for better or worse. I don't think it is any slight on Harvard in the education that you get there.
Maria ApplicantLab: Yeah, I think I want to tread carefully on these because I, I went to Harvard. And so people like, Oh, of course, she's gonna say that you know, but I think legitimately, I would say that one of the things that I see just working with clients who get into all of these programmes. I don't get a lot of people emailing me and saying, Oh, I got into Harvard, but it's ranked fifth. So should I go to this other programme, aside from Stanford, Harvard doesn't really lose people to other schools for the most part. I feel like if I were in charge of rankings, that's something that I would weigh pretty heavily is where do people want to go. So I don't think it's noise. I think it's, you know, if they didn't make it controversial, we wouldn't be talking about it.
Charles: Salary and Bonus figures went up at every school! The average increase was 4%. How would you explain this considering we have seen a very volatile job market in the last year?
Susan Stratus Admissions: My thought is that a lot of people have offers coming out of the summer internships in 2019 and no one's going to change, you're not going to take that away or change the amount that was granted. I don't know exactly the percentages, but plenty of people already had secure jobs before March 1 or March 15, wherever we want to call it that the pandemic shut things down. And I think the salary numbers and the employment numbers show the value of this degree, that you're still going to get a job with an MBA, or maybe your degree in French literature from undergrad is going to leave you out looking for a job for a little bit longer, but a business degree holds its value, regardless of what's going on in the economy worldwide.
Harold mbaMission: Susan already touched on it, which is this idea here of some of these numbers of deceiving, in the sense of folks are going to go off and do something entrepreneurial. Then the reality is that you're going to see obviously salary numbers fall way down. You're also going to see the length of time where you get a job go way down. And I think there's a real tension here, the sense of Okay, what do you really do with these numbers? I just want to highlight one school, and which I think actually is going to be surprising to people, probably the school that does best when it with regard to Career Services is the University of Washington Foster. If you look closely at the number, you see, wow, 95% of their applicants are employed, really right away. And that's something for people to keep in mind. Just as a think about maybe some international students as they think about landing here. But you know what, I get to get a job, I have to get a job fast, and I need a job but a brand name and a place like foster does that very effect.
Maria ApplicantLab: Adding on to Harold's point, I think one of the things that people often overlook when they're looking at programmes is geography. Right, Foster's in Seattle, so is Amazon, so is Microsoft. When you actually go to school, in a city where these companies are, you can do side projects with them, it's a lot easier to develop those relationships. And so I think that's a big thing that people often don't think about sometimes like, they're like, Oh, I want to work on Wall Street. So let me go to school in the middle, and we'll try to get close to New York. Some people try to start entrepreneurial ventures, but I also think that at certain schools, I think maybe some students are more willing to hold out for that good job e.g. Harvard's numbers were pretty low, but I wonder if part of it is the Harvard Graduate saying, like, you know, what the economy right now is in the trash can. I'm just going to wait six months and I'm not going to just, you know, go and be that could be a part of it, too.
Neil Veritas Prep: Yeah, and from my perspective, I mean, MBA graduates will continue to be in demand. Building on Harold's point, I was working with a client from foster and you know what, what really struck him was that the fact that they were very customer focused, very customer-oriented in terms of their applicants and outreach to them and engagement with the community and all that. So I guess what I really recommend to all the applicants seeking to apply to MBA programmes is you know, make sure it's a good fit, look at the programmes, do your due diligence research, and you know that they're all going to be a great programme, but you got to find the right programme for yourself, right.
Charles: Want to run a little bit more with Harold's point about some schools do just a fantastic job of placing students even if they're a little bit lower in the rankings. And I'd love to talk a little bit more about some of the undervalued programmes that are doing amazing things, particularly in terms of Career Services. So Susan, is there any particular programmes that you think are underappreciated but you think is doing an amazing job at lending opportunities for their students but we're not talking about them, because they're not Harvard?
Susan Stratus Admissions: Yeah, interestingly, I had a conversation with a woman a couple of days ago who wants to go into entrepreneurship. And she was throwing out Stanford and Berkeley Haas because she wants to do something meaningful. And as she's talking, I'm thinking she should be really looking at Babson College. No, Babson never falls in the conversation of top 25 overall, but once again, this year, it's a top school for entrepreneurship, if that's where you want to go, Babson could be the school for you. So think about the industry, the function, whether you want to be working for yourself or for a big established company after you graduate and let that inform your decision making.
Neil Veritas Prep: Yeah, for me, I'll look at it from a macro perspective, it's more about, your engagement with admission, your engagement with potentially the Career Centre, again, finding out what companies recruit on campus, how well do they do in terms of preparing MBA candidates for the next step in their career? So again, really just reading out that information and doing your due diligence as you apply for these different programmes.
Maria ApplicantLab: Yeah, I think Babson is perennially under-appreciated. They have a programme that actually gives visas to foreign students who want to start companies, I don't remember the specifics, but I know as a few as of a few years ago, it was like this unique visa programme to help you stay in the states if you want to start a company. I think again, geography plays a much bigger role than people often like to think about and I think another on top of reaching out to career services as Neil said, I think also recently reached out to the student clubs. Because I think the students, especially the second year students, don't have a whole lot to lose. And so they're going to be really honest with you about like, yeah, you know what, none of us you know, only two of us got jobs in private equity this year it was a bloodbath.
Harold mbaMission: I happen to love Cornell for a couple of different reasons. First of all, if you want a job in investment banking, they've done a wonderful history of getting people investment banking jobs. They have a specific track for it. they ship it down to New York City to meet with folks on the street. It's really when someone says they want to go into investment, investment banking, certainly Cornell should be, you know, near the top of your list. Also Cornell just built this huge campus in New York City on Roosevelt Island, a billion dollar campus to house Cornell Tech. Real strong ties. Obviously, again, very strong entrepreneurial community in New York City. Plus, if you're an MBA in Ithaca, there are weekends you can spend a Cornell Tech there are weeks you can spend at Cornell Tech. There's a semester you can spend at Cornell Tech. So Cornell, you want to be an entrepreneur, you want to be an investment banker, and of course, the consulting shops are always there. I think it should be considered by basically everybody. I really consider it a top 10 School in my mind.
Charles: Booth usually ranks at par with Wharton in many rankings, so why the trifecta Harvard-Stanford-Wharton?
Maria ApplicantLab: I think when we look at how the US News rankings are created, I believe the peer opinion is about 25%. So that's they ask other Dean's of other business schools. What do you think of this programme, which I think is problematic in general, because Dean's are usually lifelong academics, or they're essentially quasi-retired business people, And so as academics, what do they value? They value things like publishing, they value things like research, And so I have no doubt that Chicago Booth is super strong in research. Right. I mean, you know, although is famous going back 40-50 years for their economics, you know, in Latin America, there was a huge influence of the Chicago us thinking school of economics in Latin American economics. So I just think that the reason that booth does very well, not the only reason, but one of the reasons is that peer deans respect them, but I wonder if a lot of that is based on sort of the intellectual rigour of the publishing that their staff their faculty is doing, and perhaps not so much on other things. I would also point out that I think that the acceptance rate at Booth is pretty surprisingly kind of high. I think it's in the upper 20s. And so I do think that I'm a selectivity viewpoint. I just think that people tend to get into it more frequently than they get into perhaps some of the other programmes and so that that the mystique eliteness of the gatekeepers from the other programmes, I think it still holds because if you know a lot of people who got you know, 10 people who got into booth but only two who got into Stanford, you're going to think that Stanford's a bit higher no matter what.
Charles: Susan, your thoughts on lower-ranked business schools providing scholarships versus some of the higher-ranked schools?
Susan Stratus Admissions: So, you know, typically, we don't see a lot of scholarship money going to people coming from those M7 schools, certainly not Harvard, Stanford, and Wharton, although we did have a couple of clients this year, who got money at Wharton, in one very generous, which was turned down to go to HBS. In any case, in the lower-ranked schools, there are definitely place people definitely more money to be had. And I often say look at the profiles of these schools. And some of that data isn't in the US News. So you may need to go to the specific school profiles for their first-year classes right now. But look at you know, do they have a lower percentage of women so if you're a woman and you want to be going to a top 25 school, I might look at echoing Harold's love for Cornell Cornell's first-year classes only about 30% women in it this year. Every single woman we've worked with at Stratus Admissions got into Cornell, seven out of eight of them got a scholarship. There's money for women at Cornell this year. Similarly, also probably for Carnegie Mellon, which Maria mentioned, is a great school, they were lower on the percentage of women. So if you're a woman and you're listening, look for those schools that have lower percentage of women in their peer schools. If you are international, look for schools that in this year's numbers in US News are going to be a bit off due to the fact that a lot of internationals were able to get here but if you look at historical class averages of internationals, there might be a place for you at a school that doesn't have as many international students a couple that come to mind are Texas, Kelly, and Notre Dame; I think are typically very low on internationals and may have some willingness to bring in internationals to increase the diversity of their class. So those would be some things that I'd be looking for look for money.
Harold mbaMission: I think pretty frequently people are not thinking about scholarships as they think about school selection. So this idea here of Okay, I would never go to a school that isn't an M7school, you know, frequently said my client you meet you'd never go to a top 20 School for free. Yeah. And the reality is that once you think about it that way, we are holding those two letters. One is you've been accepted to maybe M7 school. The other is you've been accepted to a school that's earning with a full scholarship. Then suddenly I think people's minds start to change.
Neil Veritas Prep: I'll just build on Harold's point. I mean, you, obviously everybody's personal situation is different, but looking into the economics of your unique situation, if you're offered a decent amount of money, then you could you should probably take that into consideration as you evaluate your school options. So don't just throw out the fact that it's not necessarily an M7 school, if it's a rank 10. And you could do just as well down the road from a career perspective, then consider that scholarship and keep that in mind.
Maria ApplicantLab: I'm just going to add to Harold's point super quick that people might not think about scholarships when they're applying. But they definitely think about them once they get in, and they see the sticker price. And they realise, oh no, I didn't get a scholarship. But that ends up in school. You mean, I really have to take out $150,000 that Yes, you do. So I think that's a good thing to also point out to people at the beginning, like, are you really comfortable if you get into these schools, and you have to take out a loan that in some cases could buy you a house? Are you really comfortable with that?
Charles: What's the value of 1 year MBA courses for more experienced candidates say those who have 10+ years of experience? How do you think about value in that case? Because when you have this proliferation of one-year programmes, a lot of which didn't exist 10-20 years ago, lowers the cost? And how might an applicant think about that, as well as they're trying to make a decision about where to apply?
Susan Stratus Admissions: I can jump in on that. And one thing that we often talk to our clients about in terms of finding the right fit schools for them is what are their career goals? Are they trying to change their career? Are they trying to pivot? Are they going to need an internship and make that move, or perhaps if they're 30+, maybe they're just trying to re-tool, so they can accelerate the career that they're already in, in which case, there may be a one-year full time and return back to where you were working. Maybe a part-time programme works, or maybe an executive MBA programme works. And again, the economics are different. In some instances, it connects to executive MBAs are going part-time. And they're getting tuition reimbursement from their company that can be meaningful and have an impact on that ROI. There are a couple of great one year programmes for mid-career executives. And it's important that it's not you just have 10 years of experience, you have to be at a certain level to be considered by schools like MIT Sloan fellows or Stanford MSS programme or the LBS Sloan fellows. So your age is not the only factor. It's kind of where you are and what you've done. Cornell has a great one year programme. If you already have a Master's degree, or CFA/CPA, or maybe some of the Six Sigma designations will help you to get into these programs.
Neil Veritas Prep: When I have discussions with clients, what I do is I tell them to reverse engineer your life, reverse engineer your career, five years, 10 years down the road, envision where you want to be and think about the programmes that you're considering. And is it the one year programme is that the end is a part-time programme, what programme is going to be the best fit for you to achieve your career goals to get to where you want to be? Five years, 10 years down the road?
Charles: How do you see people use rankings anyway? Do your clients value rankings beyond just the list? Trying to understand the usefulness of these heuristics beyond the magazine cover value.
Harold mbaMission: Yeah, we're talking about the fact that maybe the rankings are more valuable in terms of the schools you've never heard of. It's very easy when we have clients come to us. Yes, I know you want to play Harvard, Harvard, Stanford, and Wharton, and booth and MIT, it's like, that's easy. We encourage you, by all means, really shoot for the stars. at the same point, then pause and think to yourself, okay, again, later in scholarships, maybe layering in, we're a business school send a lot of their graduates, then suddenly, you can look at the rankings and start seeing schools like Olin, Washington in St. Louis, wonderful school for entrepreneurs. Oh, and in Nashville, Vanderbilt, great place if you want to go into pharma. And I think if you use the ranking somewhat, in some ways, strategically layering on a couple of other things like scholarships, like the place where you want to be, I think they're a very useful tool.
Maria ApplicantLab: Yeah, I think the one good thing about the rankings is that they aggregate a lot of data for you. So you don't have to go hunting. What's the average GMAT score? So from that perspective, I think it's useful. I also think it could be useful in terms of trying to get a sense of your, of your own candidacy against some of them. So for example, when I work with international students, sometimes some of them have never heard of a Booth, for example, right? Or, you know, they've heard of Yale, but they've never heard of Booth. And so when I say to them something like, Yeah, well, technically, it's a, quote- unquote, a better school in the rankings. They're like, Well, what do you mean, I've never heard of it. And so I think that that's a point that's already been made, but especially for people who are not from the United States who might not know, the ins and outs of, of culture and our different schools, I think it can be very useful.
Neil Veritas Prep: Yeah. So from my perspective, I mean, it, I think it'll probably it provides really a good starting point. Again, if you're not necessarily familiar with all the different MBA programmes, that are going to be some programmes in there, some schools that you're unfamiliar with, it will allow you to, you know, research those further. But as I advise clients, you know, think about think again, about the fit. Look into the culture of that particular school, and whether or not you're going to feel comfortable with, again, think about career services. And then you know, if you have a chance, visit the schools, the programmes in person, engage with the call with the communities speak with current students, admissions, alarms, etc. So that again, as you figure out what schools you want to apply to, you'll really have a good sense and feel of which programmes are going to be that good fit for you.
Charles: What does it mean when a school slips in the ranking? e.g - Notre Dame and WashU for 2021
Susan Stratus Admissions: Frankly, one year is just a hiccup. You know, it's one year where, you know, the pandemic may have hit Notre Dame, I didn't dig down into their placement numbers and percentages at graduation and three months out, but I can hit you pretty hard. You know, I would say that this past year, you know, the Dean's evaluation of other schools did not change dramatically. Nor did the recruiter's assessments of these schools, that's 40% of these numbers. So the drop is when you look at the raw numbers, and I didn't see them this year, but added out of 100, you get down to 20 through 30. And they're all one or two points apart. And I see Maria going like this, it's tiny. It's, it's, it's, as Harold said, a yawn. It's really not really very meaningful. Notre Dame is Notre Dame and has been Notre Dame for hundreds of years. And it will continue to produce great leaders in business and other roles moving forward.
Maria Applicant Lab: I think if you're if you're entering this process, the way all of us would encourage you to which is thinking first about what do I want, and which programme is going to get that for me. If you live in a certain part of the country, for example. And if you want a certain type of education, Notre Dame is going to be a great choice for you regardless of where it is in the rankings. So if you enter the process, I wouldn't start with the rankings necessarily, because I think that leads people astray. But if you're actually doing that research in that intersection upfront, Notre Dame might be the number one school for you regardless of whether or not one year it's, you know, fifth 15th, or whatever, like those, fluctuations don't really matter. For example, I often tell people in terms of, if you want to go work one day at a Netflix or add, you know, at Fox or Disney, guess what the number one school for you is probably UCLA and number two is probably USC if you have zero entertainment, background experience, right? Because when you come to LA, you will be able to network with the studios, you'll be able to take internships with them, you'll be able to do so that that's, you know, it's the same thing with UCLA versus USC. Like I don't think that that fluctuation should really matter if you're entering this process with your end goals in mind.
Charles: About MBA Specialization rankings, do we see a trend of certain electives or specialisations performing better than others? And I guess maybe the embedded question there is, how seriously should you take those rankings by specialisation? How useful Do you find those as your guiding clients?
Harold mbaMission: Yeah, I actually like rankings by specialisation, if only to get people really understand that the traditional stereotype of what schools are and what they do is actually probably a little bit off. So is booth just a finance school? No, it has a great entrepreneurship community. Is MIT just a tech school, though? I have to tell you, they do a lot of Organisational Behaviour and a lot of leadership development. And I think you can go through every school and suddenly there are a few aha moments, including something like, I want to just shout out to it, which is the University of Wisconsin, again, people don't think about it much. They don't hear about it much. The reality is you want to go into brand management, that's a great place to be.
Neil Veritas Prep: Yeah, I am definitely something as applicants are looking into the different programmes that you definitely want to take a look at, from the perspective of what they're known for, and then industries and all that. So from that perspective, yes, have it somewhat top of mine. But again, I think overall fit of the programme. But yeah, that's something that you really should look into them.
Charles: We have a question here about how to compare European business schools to US ones?
Susan Stratus Admissions: So the one thing to consider with the European programmes, as many of them are one year, and if you want to end up in Europe, you might want to go to a European school. So if you're a European or you're from Asia, and you want to end up in Europe, coming to the US is probably not your best bet. INSEAD might be a great choice, IESE, LBS any of these schools that are going to put your feet on the ground, you know, just as Maria was saying, you want to go to media and entertainment, get yourself in LA, you want to be on Wall Street, even being in Ithaca is going to help you there. If you want to be in Europe, go to school in Europe, you'll be finished faster, take on less debt. There are great opportunities, there are wonderful schools there. But again, look at what their specialisations are, what their job placement is, you know, if you want to be doing something in kind of social entrepreneurs or social entrepreneurship, Oxford Said is a great programme if you want to be in technology LBS, finance lbs consulting INSEAD. I think as you know, Neil talked about the end goal and reverse engineering. So the end goal is not just your industry, but also your geography.
Charles: Considering you can get into almost any top company e.g.MBB from any top 15 school, is it a 'waste' to go into MBB if you get into Harvard, Stanford or Wharton?
Maria Applicant Lab: Yeah, I think that people seem to think sometimes that is a linear thing. Like if I go to the top school, I can easily get into an MBB firm and I don't think that's really true. I think the best way to get a job at an MBB is to practice case interviews as much as you possibly can and blow them out of the water when you get that interview. And then it doesn't really matter if you're at a number one school or number 15, I think, you know, yeah, they might have more spots in some of the offices. And also, I think, for example, if you're UT Austin, you're more likely to get a job in the Houston Office of McKinsey versus the New York office. So there are some variations that are in but if getting into that company, is what matters most to you, it's more about to come down a lot more to your performance in those very gruelling and difficult interviews, as opposed to like school number seven is, you know, viewed as less, number five or something.
Susan Stratus Admissions: One thing, an interesting anecdote that I've observed this year is up until this admission cycle, I've always been telling my clients and now I'm realising that I'm wrong, and I admit that I am wrong that to get it, you know, get even the interview at MBB, you need a GMAT of 730 or for more so take the GMAT instead of the GRE. But I've got some anecdotal evidence this year from a handful of former clients who are all going to MBB, none of whom have a 730 plus GMAT. And I've got five different people who either have internships with guaranteed return offers, or full time offers at all three of these companies. And they're not in a top 10 School from these US News rankings. Lots of different things, LGBTQ identified people who speak a second language that's not Mandarin or Spanish, all these things are being taken into account in the value you could add, add a company like, you know, at one of the MBA firms.
Harold mbaMission: I also think you have to be very careful. The reality is that McKinsey is going to go to INSEAD, and they're going to take 50. They recruit everywhere, but they're gonna go to Boston University and take only one. So the reality is, is you really have to not just look at where McKinsey is recruiting, but you also have to understand how many people from that class are actually going to that particular school. And it's not, you know, as Maria said, it's not linear. The reality is, is that you can go to some of these schools that are 7 to 12. And the reality is, is you will have a very good shot equal to any of the other schools.
Charles: Kellogg did a crazy move last year (reconsidered all previously rejected candidates in R3, dropped GMAT requirement, extended deadlines, etc) and surprisingly they did not gain any ground - what do you think about that? Were they in a bad shape to start potentially?
Susan Stratus Admissions: If you look at the percentages, the things that are being measured in it in the rankings don't include what happened from April 1 last year when Kellogg said, No tests are needed, or that might have helped them in increasing their GMAT score, because they're able to look at a more diverse set of people and not have any downside risk of having to get lower their GMAT score overall, but you know, their acceptance rate is like, worth 1.25% of the overall assessment. So them having a huge denominator didn't move the needle at all. What will be interesting to see is two years from now, when the people who came in without a test score, who were perhaps assessed differently in the application process, how they perform when getting jobs on the way out, and then I'm hopeful that Kellogg did a great assessment of those individuals and the two years they spend at Kellogg are going to prepare them well to have the same success as all other Kellogg graduates when they graduate in 2023.
Harold mbaMission: Yeah, I just want to touch on one small point here, which is the question being test-optional. I move started to see it more. We've we're starting to see it at many of the top schools. The reality is, that's really a double-edged sword. And people have to understand that if you are a 26, coming out of undergrad, never having taken a quantitative course, you want to be able to take that you really want to take that GMAT and prove something and just show what your kind of quantitative abilities are. At the same point, if you're a math major, I've never met a dumb math major. Okay, at that point, you can say, you know, for me, I'm simply not taking the GMAT. So I think you have to really know yourself as a candidate and where your weak points are, and actually GMAT or GRE can be very helpful as far as your candidacy goes.
Maria Applicant Lab: I really like to quip that test-optional, doesn't mean brain optional. So you still have to be able to demonstrate that you'll be able to handle the academic rigour and in fact, for many people, the standardised test can be a gift If they haven't had an opportunity in the past.
Charles: How do you think international students performed this year, how successful they were in the past round amid pandemic, visa restrictions, politics, etc?
Neil Veritas Prep: Yeah, I mean, if you think about the pandemic, and how that impacted everybody, I mean, you think about some schools implementing deferrals and things like that, whether it was tapper or Harvard. But yeah, I mean, in terms of the applicant base and submissions, I would think they would have been not somewhat down as a result of the uncertainty of the pandemic. But then again I would also think about looking at the percentages of international as, as previously discussed, for the different programmes. And as you apply how that's going to impact, I guess, your status and your application. But yeah, overall, again, pandemic impacted things. But again, as we move out of it, I think might look more about the specifics of the programmes and what they're looking at in terms of the International makeup.
Harold mbaMission: Yeah, I have to be honest with you this is a very tough year for international students. You know, I personally had three, three of my clients who I was very surprised sort of where they got in where they didn't get in. And I think, to speak to Susan's point, as an international student, you have to sort of run with daylight, you have to spend a lot more time thinking about what schools will be receptive to me as an international student, and there are schools out there, I had great success again with Olin - Washington, a client of mine who got a full scholarship to Northeastern University, which many people have never heard of, but does a great job in terms of money, as well as getting people great jobs. So I think you'd have to look in that direction. Because the reality is these other, you know, the very top schools, it's really tough for internationals.
Susan Stratus Admissions: Can I just add one thing to what Harold said? I think it was especially tough for internationals this year, because many of the internationals who were accepted last year, and we were expecting to start in 2020, they were able to get deferrals, and they went back in and was like, Well, I have this spot at work. But I'm going to try again at Harvard and Stanford, or I know, I'm going to Darden, but I really wanted to go somewhere better. So I'm going to, you know, apply again. So I think you had people who applied two years in a row, and we're just trying to up that admit they had from 2020 start when they got deferred for a year. And that made it a little bit harder, perhaps for those who were trying for the first time because they didn't have that feedback that we applicants had be able to improve their applications.
Charles: All right, we are running out of time here. So I'm just gonna run through real quick one last time and give all four of you one chance to just say, what is the one thing you'd like people to take away as far as how to use the rankings? How to think about the 2021 rankings? I'm going to start with Maria and this one.
Maria ApplicantLab: Well, I actually during the course of this conversation, I actually, Neil, I'm going to actually steal a phrase that you use, I'm going to reverse engineer, what it is that you're looking for, right? Like, really be serious with yourself, like, do I have to go to Stanford to become an entrepreneur? No, you don't. Right? If that really is what you want to do with your life. There are a lot of schools that can get you there. So be really, I don't want to use the word mature, but be introspective and be really serious, like what do I really need, and then use the ranking sort of as a rough guide, especially the speciality rankings, which as we've discussed, I think are more a little bit more interesting and useful. But there are a lot of different ways to get to where you go and don't let the rankings blind you or divert you off a cliff. When you there are other paths that you could follow.
Neil Veritas Prep: Yeah, thanks, Maria. I again, just use the rankings as a guide. But again, think about the different programmes, do a deep dive, really have those conversations, and engage with admissions early and often. whether it's the online events, whether it's in-person events, go on the on-campus tours, go visit a class sit in on a class, but then again, most importantly, speak with current students, speak with alums, and figure out does their experience kind of like match the experience that you're seeking from the programme? And if so, then that might be a good programme for you to apply to.
Harold mbaMission: Yeah, I'm going to be a little snide here on the sense of make sure that it passes the smell test, you know, quite honestly, the reality is, is nobody's thrown out of Harvard, except just doesn't exist. Or maybe it does. I've just never seen it. So I think you have to recognise the latest rankings are just one data set. They are certainly imperfect. Maybe they allow you to look at a couple of other schools you didn't think about? But the reality is, is that once you start pulling all different information together, like Neil said, like Maria said, like Susan said, once you really start pulling all this information together, the reality is is your own personal rankings are going to change quite a bit from the US News and World Report rankings.
Susan Stratus Admissions: Yeah, just everyone has great things to say again, think about what career you want. Back into what you need to learn in Business School, look at those specialisations. Look at the career reports. And with money's important, drill down to those further down on the list. I'm talking like 10 to 30, or even below that, if money is important. So create your own top 10 list. Don't just drive from what someone else is doing there. dig into that methodology. And that's not really what's important to you. I don't think for the most part.
Charles: Outstanding, thank you so much. Thank you, everybody, especially the live audience asking questions, given comments, always hugely appreciate that. Thank you so much for joining us. If you haven't already subscribed please hit that subscribe button. Again for my favourite admissions consultants Neil Chong from Veritas Prep, Harold Simansky from MBAMission, Maria Wich-Villa from ApplicantLab, and Susan Cera from Stratus Admissions everybody books up fast, it's March you want to get on these guys roster for round one round to start talking to him now. Thanks, everybody for joining us. And again, hit that subscribe button. Thank you all
*This is an auto-generated transcript so please ignore any grammatical errors you saw although we have reviewed the transcript and eliminated as many errors as possible.
Panelists:
- Maria Wich Vila: Harvard MBA (Class of 2005), Founder of ApplicantLab Admissions Consulting.
- Harold Simansky: MBA Sloan MBA (Class of 1999), Extensive experience of working in Financial services sector. Founded a series of companies. Currently working as a Sr. Admission Consultant with mbaMission
- Neil Chong: USC Marshall MBA. Currently working as a Head Consultant for Veritas Prep
- Susan Cera: Fuqua MBA, Worked as Admissions Director at Fuqua for nearly 9 years. Currently working as a Senior MBA Admissions Counselor at Stratus Admissions.
Host: Charles (GMATNinja), GMAT Club Verbal Expert.
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Hello, I'm Charles from GMAT Ninja, GMAT Club's resident verbal expert here today not to talk about the GMAT but we're talking through the latest UC News MBA rankings release. I'm here with four of my very favourite admissions consultants, we have Susan Cera from Stratus Admissions, Neil Chong from Veritas Prep, Harold Simansky from mbaMission, and the legendary Maria Wich-Vila from Applicantlab.com.
So i'm gonna start the video with some really really simple question about their impressions of the rankings release as most of you have probably done some of our live events before but if you have any questions pop it into the comments i'll do my best to get to as many of these as we can we've got 45 minutes so pop those questions in early increases the odds to be able to get to them.
What's your first impression of this year's rankings? What changes caught your eye? Let's start with you Susan.
Susan Stratus Admissions: So first impression: no meaningful changes in my mind, kind of same players are all in there. Two things though were that Stanford's acceptance rate went up to in my mind significantly. I typically tell people six out of 100 people get into Stanford and this year it was nine out of 100 so I don't know if their application volume was down leading into the pandemic that may be what drove it, and the other thing that I noticed is that on average I think all the average GMAT scores are down and I suspect that's because there are a lot of internationals who are known for bringing in high GMAT scores that didn't end up sitting in seats this past fall.
Harold mbaMission: I have to be honest with you but just a big yawn here. I didn't see anything particularly meaningful. I think at the end of the day the limitations of rankings are really shown in terms of do they capture present data? are any interesting schools bubbling up? and the answer is probably not, so for me it was just another tool of many that I help with there I have clients use when they think about the schools they want to apply to
Neil Veritas Prep: Yeah, I mean really no movement, no change, minimal movement within the top 20 but we still see the ties, Harvard number five. I'll touch upon USC marshall beat me being an alarm, it moving from 17 to 16 and UCLA Anderson going from 16 to 18 that did surprise me because historically UCLA has always been ahead of USC Marshall in the rankings so we're pleased with that, but what's really stood out there is that the employment rate at marshall, and I think this is what kind of what drove the numbers there, is 91.3% three months after graduation while UCLA was at 78% so considering the fact that UCLA Anderson really is known for its excellent career centre. I'm sure they're a little bit disappointed and surprised as to what happened there and then you know USC Marshall does have a new dean in place, they came over from Wharton in July of 2020 so it appears like he's making a big impact there but that's all I had.
Maria ApplicantLab: Yeah, I mean nothing that hasn't already been said. I like that Carnegie Mellon is starting to get some of the accolades I think it's deserved. I think that's been an underrated programme for quite some time but yeah some of the other ones you know. Neil i'm glad that you disclose that you're a USC alum because I was about to jump on the fact that I had UCLA behind USC to me is that as an angela Lena living in LA is like you know I don't necessarily agree with that but the numbers came out the way they came. I think that US News and all of these rankings need to drive clicks and so the more controversial the better; otherwise, we wouldn't have anything to talk about and no one would be asking any questions so I think that in terms of rankings we always need to think about the motivations of who the people are publishing the rankings and especially US News because they do charge I believe for you to be able to access a lot of it so just keep that in mind
Charles: One thing that is raising a little bit on the forum is that Harvard ended up in number five this year. Can you put that into context a little bit? Does that mean that Harvard's slipping in some way is that some commentary on the quality of the programme or do you see that as noise?
Neil Veritas Prep: I would not be concerned with US News ranking Harvard number five. We all know it's a great programme, so I wouldn't be concerned
Susan Stratus Admissions: Yeah I would, instead of focussing the overall ranking, look at they're still getting 4.9 from their peers and they're still being ranked very highly by recruiters. As I suspected, it was driven down by the number of HBS alumni who were not employed at the, you know, three months out of that graduation because they're trying to do something entrepreneurial. And that comes back and bite you a little bit in the rankings for better or worse. I don't think it is any slight on Harvard in the education that you get there.
Maria ApplicantLab: Yeah, I think I want to tread carefully on these because I, I went to Harvard. And so people like, Oh, of course, she's gonna say that you know, but I think legitimately, I would say that one of the things that I see just working with clients who get into all of these programmes. I don't get a lot of people emailing me and saying, Oh, I got into Harvard, but it's ranked fifth. So should I go to this other programme, aside from Stanford, Harvard doesn't really lose people to other schools for the most part. I feel like if I were in charge of rankings, that's something that I would weigh pretty heavily is where do people want to go. So I don't think it's noise. I think it's, you know, if they didn't make it controversial, we wouldn't be talking about it.
Charles: Salary and Bonus figures went up at every school! The average increase was 4%. How would you explain this considering we have seen a very volatile job market in the last year?
Susan Stratus Admissions: My thought is that a lot of people have offers coming out of the summer internships in 2019 and no one's going to change, you're not going to take that away or change the amount that was granted. I don't know exactly the percentages, but plenty of people already had secure jobs before March 1 or March 15, wherever we want to call it that the pandemic shut things down. And I think the salary numbers and the employment numbers show the value of this degree, that you're still going to get a job with an MBA, or maybe your degree in French literature from undergrad is going to leave you out looking for a job for a little bit longer, but a business degree holds its value, regardless of what's going on in the economy worldwide.
Harold mbaMission: Susan already touched on it, which is this idea here of some of these numbers of deceiving, in the sense of folks are going to go off and do something entrepreneurial. Then the reality is that you're going to see obviously salary numbers fall way down. You're also going to see the length of time where you get a job go way down. And I think there's a real tension here, the sense of Okay, what do you really do with these numbers? I just want to highlight one school, and which I think actually is going to be surprising to people, probably the school that does best when it with regard to Career Services is the University of Washington Foster. If you look closely at the number, you see, wow, 95% of their applicants are employed, really right away. And that's something for people to keep in mind. Just as a think about maybe some international students as they think about landing here. But you know what, I get to get a job, I have to get a job fast, and I need a job but a brand name and a place like foster does that very effect.
Maria ApplicantLab: Adding on to Harold's point, I think one of the things that people often overlook when they're looking at programmes is geography. Right, Foster's in Seattle, so is Amazon, so is Microsoft. When you actually go to school, in a city where these companies are, you can do side projects with them, it's a lot easier to develop those relationships. And so I think that's a big thing that people often don't think about sometimes like, they're like, Oh, I want to work on Wall Street. So let me go to school in the middle, and we'll try to get close to New York. Some people try to start entrepreneurial ventures, but I also think that at certain schools, I think maybe some students are more willing to hold out for that good job e.g. Harvard's numbers were pretty low, but I wonder if part of it is the Harvard Graduate saying, like, you know, what the economy right now is in the trash can. I'm just going to wait six months and I'm not going to just, you know, go and be that could be a part of it, too.
Neil Veritas Prep: Yeah, and from my perspective, I mean, MBA graduates will continue to be in demand. Building on Harold's point, I was working with a client from foster and you know what, what really struck him was that the fact that they were very customer focused, very customer-oriented in terms of their applicants and outreach to them and engagement with the community and all that. So I guess what I really recommend to all the applicants seeking to apply to MBA programmes is you know, make sure it's a good fit, look at the programmes, do your due diligence research, and you know that they're all going to be a great programme, but you got to find the right programme for yourself, right.
Charles: Want to run a little bit more with Harold's point about some schools do just a fantastic job of placing students even if they're a little bit lower in the rankings. And I'd love to talk a little bit more about some of the undervalued programmes that are doing amazing things, particularly in terms of Career Services. So Susan, is there any particular programmes that you think are underappreciated but you think is doing an amazing job at lending opportunities for their students but we're not talking about them, because they're not Harvard?
Susan Stratus Admissions: Yeah, interestingly, I had a conversation with a woman a couple of days ago who wants to go into entrepreneurship. And she was throwing out Stanford and Berkeley Haas because she wants to do something meaningful. And as she's talking, I'm thinking she should be really looking at Babson College. No, Babson never falls in the conversation of top 25 overall, but once again, this year, it's a top school for entrepreneurship, if that's where you want to go, Babson could be the school for you. So think about the industry, the function, whether you want to be working for yourself or for a big established company after you graduate and let that inform your decision making.
Neil Veritas Prep: Yeah, for me, I'll look at it from a macro perspective, it's more about, your engagement with admission, your engagement with potentially the Career Centre, again, finding out what companies recruit on campus, how well do they do in terms of preparing MBA candidates for the next step in their career? So again, really just reading out that information and doing your due diligence as you apply for these different programmes.
Maria ApplicantLab: Yeah, I think Babson is perennially under-appreciated. They have a programme that actually gives visas to foreign students who want to start companies, I don't remember the specifics, but I know as a few as of a few years ago, it was like this unique visa programme to help you stay in the states if you want to start a company. I think again, geography plays a much bigger role than people often like to think about and I think another on top of reaching out to career services as Neil said, I think also recently reached out to the student clubs. Because I think the students, especially the second year students, don't have a whole lot to lose. And so they're going to be really honest with you about like, yeah, you know what, none of us you know, only two of us got jobs in private equity this year it was a bloodbath.
Harold mbaMission: I happen to love Cornell for a couple of different reasons. First of all, if you want a job in investment banking, they've done a wonderful history of getting people investment banking jobs. They have a specific track for it. they ship it down to New York City to meet with folks on the street. It's really when someone says they want to go into investment, investment banking, certainly Cornell should be, you know, near the top of your list. Also Cornell just built this huge campus in New York City on Roosevelt Island, a billion dollar campus to house Cornell Tech. Real strong ties. Obviously, again, very strong entrepreneurial community in New York City. Plus, if you're an MBA in Ithaca, there are weekends you can spend a Cornell Tech there are weeks you can spend at Cornell Tech. There's a semester you can spend at Cornell Tech. So Cornell, you want to be an entrepreneur, you want to be an investment banker, and of course, the consulting shops are always there. I think it should be considered by basically everybody. I really consider it a top 10 School in my mind.
Charles: Booth usually ranks at par with Wharton in many rankings, so why the trifecta Harvard-Stanford-Wharton?
Maria ApplicantLab: I think when we look at how the US News rankings are created, I believe the peer opinion is about 25%. So that's they ask other Dean's of other business schools. What do you think of this programme, which I think is problematic in general, because Dean's are usually lifelong academics, or they're essentially quasi-retired business people, And so as academics, what do they value? They value things like publishing, they value things like research, And so I have no doubt that Chicago Booth is super strong in research. Right. I mean, you know, although is famous going back 40-50 years for their economics, you know, in Latin America, there was a huge influence of the Chicago us thinking school of economics in Latin American economics. So I just think that the reason that booth does very well, not the only reason, but one of the reasons is that peer deans respect them, but I wonder if a lot of that is based on sort of the intellectual rigour of the publishing that their staff their faculty is doing, and perhaps not so much on other things. I would also point out that I think that the acceptance rate at Booth is pretty surprisingly kind of high. I think it's in the upper 20s. And so I do think that I'm a selectivity viewpoint. I just think that people tend to get into it more frequently than they get into perhaps some of the other programmes and so that that the mystique eliteness of the gatekeepers from the other programmes, I think it still holds because if you know a lot of people who got you know, 10 people who got into booth but only two who got into Stanford, you're going to think that Stanford's a bit higher no matter what.
Charles: Susan, your thoughts on lower-ranked business schools providing scholarships versus some of the higher-ranked schools?
Susan Stratus Admissions: So, you know, typically, we don't see a lot of scholarship money going to people coming from those M7 schools, certainly not Harvard, Stanford, and Wharton, although we did have a couple of clients this year, who got money at Wharton, in one very generous, which was turned down to go to HBS. In any case, in the lower-ranked schools, there are definitely place people definitely more money to be had. And I often say look at the profiles of these schools. And some of that data isn't in the US News. So you may need to go to the specific school profiles for their first-year classes right now. But look at you know, do they have a lower percentage of women so if you're a woman and you want to be going to a top 25 school, I might look at echoing Harold's love for Cornell Cornell's first-year classes only about 30% women in it this year. Every single woman we've worked with at Stratus Admissions got into Cornell, seven out of eight of them got a scholarship. There's money for women at Cornell this year. Similarly, also probably for Carnegie Mellon, which Maria mentioned, is a great school, they were lower on the percentage of women. So if you're a woman and you're listening, look for those schools that have lower percentage of women in their peer schools. If you are international, look for schools that in this year's numbers in US News are going to be a bit off due to the fact that a lot of internationals were able to get here but if you look at historical class averages of internationals, there might be a place for you at a school that doesn't have as many international students a couple that come to mind are Texas, Kelly, and Notre Dame; I think are typically very low on internationals and may have some willingness to bring in internationals to increase the diversity of their class. So those would be some things that I'd be looking for look for money.
Harold mbaMission: I think pretty frequently people are not thinking about scholarships as they think about school selection. So this idea here of Okay, I would never go to a school that isn't an M7school, you know, frequently said my client you meet you'd never go to a top 20 School for free. Yeah. And the reality is that once you think about it that way, we are holding those two letters. One is you've been accepted to maybe M7 school. The other is you've been accepted to a school that's earning with a full scholarship. Then suddenly I think people's minds start to change.
Neil Veritas Prep: I'll just build on Harold's point. I mean, you, obviously everybody's personal situation is different, but looking into the economics of your unique situation, if you're offered a decent amount of money, then you could you should probably take that into consideration as you evaluate your school options. So don't just throw out the fact that it's not necessarily an M7 school, if it's a rank 10. And you could do just as well down the road from a career perspective, then consider that scholarship and keep that in mind.
Maria ApplicantLab: I'm just going to add to Harold's point super quick that people might not think about scholarships when they're applying. But they definitely think about them once they get in, and they see the sticker price. And they realise, oh no, I didn't get a scholarship. But that ends up in school. You mean, I really have to take out $150,000 that Yes, you do. So I think that's a good thing to also point out to people at the beginning, like, are you really comfortable if you get into these schools, and you have to take out a loan that in some cases could buy you a house? Are you really comfortable with that?
Charles: What's the value of 1 year MBA courses for more experienced candidates say those who have 10+ years of experience? How do you think about value in that case? Because when you have this proliferation of one-year programmes, a lot of which didn't exist 10-20 years ago, lowers the cost? And how might an applicant think about that, as well as they're trying to make a decision about where to apply?
Susan Stratus Admissions: I can jump in on that. And one thing that we often talk to our clients about in terms of finding the right fit schools for them is what are their career goals? Are they trying to change their career? Are they trying to pivot? Are they going to need an internship and make that move, or perhaps if they're 30+, maybe they're just trying to re-tool, so they can accelerate the career that they're already in, in which case, there may be a one-year full time and return back to where you were working. Maybe a part-time programme works, or maybe an executive MBA programme works. And again, the economics are different. In some instances, it connects to executive MBAs are going part-time. And they're getting tuition reimbursement from their company that can be meaningful and have an impact on that ROI. There are a couple of great one year programmes for mid-career executives. And it's important that it's not you just have 10 years of experience, you have to be at a certain level to be considered by schools like MIT Sloan fellows or Stanford MSS programme or the LBS Sloan fellows. So your age is not the only factor. It's kind of where you are and what you've done. Cornell has a great one year programme. If you already have a Master's degree, or CFA/CPA, or maybe some of the Six Sigma designations will help you to get into these programs.
Neil Veritas Prep: When I have discussions with clients, what I do is I tell them to reverse engineer your life, reverse engineer your career, five years, 10 years down the road, envision where you want to be and think about the programmes that you're considering. And is it the one year programme is that the end is a part-time programme, what programme is going to be the best fit for you to achieve your career goals to get to where you want to be? Five years, 10 years down the road?
Charles: How do you see people use rankings anyway? Do your clients value rankings beyond just the list? Trying to understand the usefulness of these heuristics beyond the magazine cover value.
Harold mbaMission: Yeah, we're talking about the fact that maybe the rankings are more valuable in terms of the schools you've never heard of. It's very easy when we have clients come to us. Yes, I know you want to play Harvard, Harvard, Stanford, and Wharton, and booth and MIT, it's like, that's easy. We encourage you, by all means, really shoot for the stars. at the same point, then pause and think to yourself, okay, again, later in scholarships, maybe layering in, we're a business school send a lot of their graduates, then suddenly, you can look at the rankings and start seeing schools like Olin, Washington in St. Louis, wonderful school for entrepreneurs. Oh, and in Nashville, Vanderbilt, great place if you want to go into pharma. And I think if you use the ranking somewhat, in some ways, strategically layering on a couple of other things like scholarships, like the place where you want to be, I think they're a very useful tool.
Maria ApplicantLab: Yeah, I think the one good thing about the rankings is that they aggregate a lot of data for you. So you don't have to go hunting. What's the average GMAT score? So from that perspective, I think it's useful. I also think it could be useful in terms of trying to get a sense of your, of your own candidacy against some of them. So for example, when I work with international students, sometimes some of them have never heard of a Booth, for example, right? Or, you know, they've heard of Yale, but they've never heard of Booth. And so when I say to them something like, Yeah, well, technically, it's a, quote- unquote, a better school in the rankings. They're like, Well, what do you mean, I've never heard of it. And so I think that that's a point that's already been made, but especially for people who are not from the United States who might not know, the ins and outs of, of culture and our different schools, I think it can be very useful.
Neil Veritas Prep: Yeah. So from my perspective, I mean, it, I think it'll probably it provides really a good starting point. Again, if you're not necessarily familiar with all the different MBA programmes, that are going to be some programmes in there, some schools that you're unfamiliar with, it will allow you to, you know, research those further. But as I advise clients, you know, think about think again, about the fit. Look into the culture of that particular school, and whether or not you're going to feel comfortable with, again, think about career services. And then you know, if you have a chance, visit the schools, the programmes in person, engage with the call with the communities speak with current students, admissions, alarms, etc. So that again, as you figure out what schools you want to apply to, you'll really have a good sense and feel of which programmes are going to be that good fit for you.
Charles: What does it mean when a school slips in the ranking? e.g - Notre Dame and WashU for 2021
Susan Stratus Admissions: Frankly, one year is just a hiccup. You know, it's one year where, you know, the pandemic may have hit Notre Dame, I didn't dig down into their placement numbers and percentages at graduation and three months out, but I can hit you pretty hard. You know, I would say that this past year, you know, the Dean's evaluation of other schools did not change dramatically. Nor did the recruiter's assessments of these schools, that's 40% of these numbers. So the drop is when you look at the raw numbers, and I didn't see them this year, but added out of 100, you get down to 20 through 30. And they're all one or two points apart. And I see Maria going like this, it's tiny. It's, it's, it's, as Harold said, a yawn. It's really not really very meaningful. Notre Dame is Notre Dame and has been Notre Dame for hundreds of years. And it will continue to produce great leaders in business and other roles moving forward.
Maria Applicant Lab: I think if you're if you're entering this process, the way all of us would encourage you to which is thinking first about what do I want, and which programme is going to get that for me. If you live in a certain part of the country, for example. And if you want a certain type of education, Notre Dame is going to be a great choice for you regardless of where it is in the rankings. So if you enter the process, I wouldn't start with the rankings necessarily, because I think that leads people astray. But if you're actually doing that research in that intersection upfront, Notre Dame might be the number one school for you regardless of whether or not one year it's, you know, fifth 15th, or whatever, like those, fluctuations don't really matter. For example, I often tell people in terms of, if you want to go work one day at a Netflix or add, you know, at Fox or Disney, guess what the number one school for you is probably UCLA and number two is probably USC if you have zero entertainment, background experience, right? Because when you come to LA, you will be able to network with the studios, you'll be able to take internships with them, you'll be able to do so that that's, you know, it's the same thing with UCLA versus USC. Like I don't think that that fluctuation should really matter if you're entering this process with your end goals in mind.
Charles: About MBA Specialization rankings, do we see a trend of certain electives or specialisations performing better than others? And I guess maybe the embedded question there is, how seriously should you take those rankings by specialisation? How useful Do you find those as your guiding clients?
Harold mbaMission: Yeah, I actually like rankings by specialisation, if only to get people really understand that the traditional stereotype of what schools are and what they do is actually probably a little bit off. So is booth just a finance school? No, it has a great entrepreneurship community. Is MIT just a tech school, though? I have to tell you, they do a lot of Organisational Behaviour and a lot of leadership development. And I think you can go through every school and suddenly there are a few aha moments, including something like, I want to just shout out to it, which is the University of Wisconsin, again, people don't think about it much. They don't hear about it much. The reality is you want to go into brand management, that's a great place to be.
Neil Veritas Prep: Yeah, I am definitely something as applicants are looking into the different programmes that you definitely want to take a look at, from the perspective of what they're known for, and then industries and all that. So from that perspective, yes, have it somewhat top of mine. But again, I think overall fit of the programme. But yeah, that's something that you really should look into them.
Charles: We have a question here about how to compare European business schools to US ones?
Susan Stratus Admissions: So the one thing to consider with the European programmes, as many of them are one year, and if you want to end up in Europe, you might want to go to a European school. So if you're a European or you're from Asia, and you want to end up in Europe, coming to the US is probably not your best bet. INSEAD might be a great choice, IESE, LBS any of these schools that are going to put your feet on the ground, you know, just as Maria was saying, you want to go to media and entertainment, get yourself in LA, you want to be on Wall Street, even being in Ithaca is going to help you there. If you want to be in Europe, go to school in Europe, you'll be finished faster, take on less debt. There are great opportunities, there are wonderful schools there. But again, look at what their specialisations are, what their job placement is, you know, if you want to be doing something in kind of social entrepreneurs or social entrepreneurship, Oxford Said is a great programme if you want to be in technology LBS, finance lbs consulting INSEAD. I think as you know, Neil talked about the end goal and reverse engineering. So the end goal is not just your industry, but also your geography.
Charles: Considering you can get into almost any top company e.g.MBB from any top 15 school, is it a 'waste' to go into MBB if you get into Harvard, Stanford or Wharton?
Maria Applicant Lab: Yeah, I think that people seem to think sometimes that is a linear thing. Like if I go to the top school, I can easily get into an MBB firm and I don't think that's really true. I think the best way to get a job at an MBB is to practice case interviews as much as you possibly can and blow them out of the water when you get that interview. And then it doesn't really matter if you're at a number one school or number 15, I think, you know, yeah, they might have more spots in some of the offices. And also, I think, for example, if you're UT Austin, you're more likely to get a job in the Houston Office of McKinsey versus the New York office. So there are some variations that are in but if getting into that company, is what matters most to you, it's more about to come down a lot more to your performance in those very gruelling and difficult interviews, as opposed to like school number seven is, you know, viewed as less, number five or something.
Susan Stratus Admissions: One thing, an interesting anecdote that I've observed this year is up until this admission cycle, I've always been telling my clients and now I'm realising that I'm wrong, and I admit that I am wrong that to get it, you know, get even the interview at MBB, you need a GMAT of 730 or for more so take the GMAT instead of the GRE. But I've got some anecdotal evidence this year from a handful of former clients who are all going to MBB, none of whom have a 730 plus GMAT. And I've got five different people who either have internships with guaranteed return offers, or full time offers at all three of these companies. And they're not in a top 10 School from these US News rankings. Lots of different things, LGBTQ identified people who speak a second language that's not Mandarin or Spanish, all these things are being taken into account in the value you could add, add a company like, you know, at one of the MBA firms.
Harold mbaMission: I also think you have to be very careful. The reality is that McKinsey is going to go to INSEAD, and they're going to take 50. They recruit everywhere, but they're gonna go to Boston University and take only one. So the reality is, is you really have to not just look at where McKinsey is recruiting, but you also have to understand how many people from that class are actually going to that particular school. And it's not, you know, as Maria said, it's not linear. The reality is, is that you can go to some of these schools that are 7 to 12. And the reality is, is you will have a very good shot equal to any of the other schools.
Charles: Kellogg did a crazy move last year (reconsidered all previously rejected candidates in R3, dropped GMAT requirement, extended deadlines, etc) and surprisingly they did not gain any ground - what do you think about that? Were they in a bad shape to start potentially?
Susan Stratus Admissions: If you look at the percentages, the things that are being measured in it in the rankings don't include what happened from April 1 last year when Kellogg said, No tests are needed, or that might have helped them in increasing their GMAT score, because they're able to look at a more diverse set of people and not have any downside risk of having to get lower their GMAT score overall, but you know, their acceptance rate is like, worth 1.25% of the overall assessment. So them having a huge denominator didn't move the needle at all. What will be interesting to see is two years from now, when the people who came in without a test score, who were perhaps assessed differently in the application process, how they perform when getting jobs on the way out, and then I'm hopeful that Kellogg did a great assessment of those individuals and the two years they spend at Kellogg are going to prepare them well to have the same success as all other Kellogg graduates when they graduate in 2023.
Harold mbaMission: Yeah, I just want to touch on one small point here, which is the question being test-optional. I move started to see it more. We've we're starting to see it at many of the top schools. The reality is, that's really a double-edged sword. And people have to understand that if you are a 26, coming out of undergrad, never having taken a quantitative course, you want to be able to take that you really want to take that GMAT and prove something and just show what your kind of quantitative abilities are. At the same point, if you're a math major, I've never met a dumb math major. Okay, at that point, you can say, you know, for me, I'm simply not taking the GMAT. So I think you have to really know yourself as a candidate and where your weak points are, and actually GMAT or GRE can be very helpful as far as your candidacy goes.
Maria Applicant Lab: I really like to quip that test-optional, doesn't mean brain optional. So you still have to be able to demonstrate that you'll be able to handle the academic rigour and in fact, for many people, the standardised test can be a gift If they haven't had an opportunity in the past.
Charles: How do you think international students performed this year, how successful they were in the past round amid pandemic, visa restrictions, politics, etc?
Neil Veritas Prep: Yeah, I mean, if you think about the pandemic, and how that impacted everybody, I mean, you think about some schools implementing deferrals and things like that, whether it was tapper or Harvard. But yeah, I mean, in terms of the applicant base and submissions, I would think they would have been not somewhat down as a result of the uncertainty of the pandemic. But then again I would also think about looking at the percentages of international as, as previously discussed, for the different programmes. And as you apply how that's going to impact, I guess, your status and your application. But yeah, overall, again, pandemic impacted things. But again, as we move out of it, I think might look more about the specifics of the programmes and what they're looking at in terms of the International makeup.
Harold mbaMission: Yeah, I have to be honest with you this is a very tough year for international students. You know, I personally had three, three of my clients who I was very surprised sort of where they got in where they didn't get in. And I think, to speak to Susan's point, as an international student, you have to sort of run with daylight, you have to spend a lot more time thinking about what schools will be receptive to me as an international student, and there are schools out there, I had great success again with Olin - Washington, a client of mine who got a full scholarship to Northeastern University, which many people have never heard of, but does a great job in terms of money, as well as getting people great jobs. So I think you'd have to look in that direction. Because the reality is these other, you know, the very top schools, it's really tough for internationals.
Susan Stratus Admissions: Can I just add one thing to what Harold said? I think it was especially tough for internationals this year, because many of the internationals who were accepted last year, and we were expecting to start in 2020, they were able to get deferrals, and they went back in and was like, Well, I have this spot at work. But I'm going to try again at Harvard and Stanford, or I know, I'm going to Darden, but I really wanted to go somewhere better. So I'm going to, you know, apply again. So I think you had people who applied two years in a row, and we're just trying to up that admit they had from 2020 start when they got deferred for a year. And that made it a little bit harder, perhaps for those who were trying for the first time because they didn't have that feedback that we applicants had be able to improve their applications.
Charles: All right, we are running out of time here. So I'm just gonna run through real quick one last time and give all four of you one chance to just say, what is the one thing you'd like people to take away as far as how to use the rankings? How to think about the 2021 rankings? I'm going to start with Maria and this one.
Maria ApplicantLab: Well, I actually during the course of this conversation, I actually, Neil, I'm going to actually steal a phrase that you use, I'm going to reverse engineer, what it is that you're looking for, right? Like, really be serious with yourself, like, do I have to go to Stanford to become an entrepreneur? No, you don't. Right? If that really is what you want to do with your life. There are a lot of schools that can get you there. So be really, I don't want to use the word mature, but be introspective and be really serious, like what do I really need, and then use the ranking sort of as a rough guide, especially the speciality rankings, which as we've discussed, I think are more a little bit more interesting and useful. But there are a lot of different ways to get to where you go and don't let the rankings blind you or divert you off a cliff. When you there are other paths that you could follow.
Neil Veritas Prep: Yeah, thanks, Maria. I again, just use the rankings as a guide. But again, think about the different programmes, do a deep dive, really have those conversations, and engage with admissions early and often. whether it's the online events, whether it's in-person events, go on the on-campus tours, go visit a class sit in on a class, but then again, most importantly, speak with current students, speak with alums, and figure out does their experience kind of like match the experience that you're seeking from the programme? And if so, then that might be a good programme for you to apply to.
Harold mbaMission: Yeah, I'm going to be a little snide here on the sense of make sure that it passes the smell test, you know, quite honestly, the reality is, is nobody's thrown out of Harvard, except just doesn't exist. Or maybe it does. I've just never seen it. So I think you have to recognise the latest rankings are just one data set. They are certainly imperfect. Maybe they allow you to look at a couple of other schools you didn't think about? But the reality is, is that once you start pulling all different information together, like Neil said, like Maria said, like Susan said, once you really start pulling all this information together, the reality is is your own personal rankings are going to change quite a bit from the US News and World Report rankings.
Susan Stratus Admissions: Yeah, just everyone has great things to say again, think about what career you want. Back into what you need to learn in Business School, look at those specialisations. Look at the career reports. And with money's important, drill down to those further down on the list. I'm talking like 10 to 30, or even below that, if money is important. So create your own top 10 list. Don't just drive from what someone else is doing there. dig into that methodology. And that's not really what's important to you. I don't think for the most part.
Charles: Outstanding, thank you so much. Thank you, everybody, especially the live audience asking questions, given comments, always hugely appreciate that. Thank you so much for joining us. If you haven't already subscribed please hit that subscribe button. Again for my favourite admissions consultants Neil Chong from Veritas Prep, Harold Simansky from MBAMission, Maria Wich-Villa from ApplicantLab, and Susan Cera from Stratus Admissions everybody books up fast, it's March you want to get on these guys roster for round one round to start talking to him now. Thanks, everybody for joining us. And again, hit that subscribe button. Thank you all
*This is an auto-generated transcript so please ignore any grammatical errors you saw although we have reviewed the transcript and eliminated as many errors as possible.
Video Recording of the Session --> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPkbVgeOXI0
