Why Darden's ranking been slippling over the past 5 year?

Question

Hello,all.

Just curious about the ranking of Darden as an alumnus of UVa. Darden's overall ranking has suffered over the past 5 years. In the past, Darden was ranked amongst top 10 in the BW.
Definitely one of the top 3 general management schools.

Given that the ranking methodology employed by BW partly takes into account the so-called "intellectual capital", Darden's small size in terms of,say, # of academic papers published by professors can adversely affect its rankings??

I think that Darden professors are excellent teachers who mainly focus on the education of students, not only on their prestige in academic studies

Maybe the culprit could be the international diversity?? I know that FT highly places more emphasis on on this.

Appreciate for any inputs. thanks.

Maybe the culprit could be the international diversity?? I know that FT highly places more emphasis on on this. Appreciate for any inputs. thanks.

rash733 · Answer

a. its a school that grant all of the scholerships in r-1
so good applicant who needs scholership in r-2 would not apply
b. it stress to much the case studies in the end you cant teach yourself every thing
c. it look like a backup school for Hbs or Hbs wannabe and does not have any uniqe field of it own 
d. this year it had dubious attitude to internationals (ask the indian applicants)
e. it doesnt take risks with strong but unconventional applicants
f. the location isn't that great

admitted2009 · Answer

really? i thougt Darden is comparable to the top 10 schools. The school may need to focus more on advertising to improve its ranking.

Toubab · Answer

Disclaimer: I'm a Hoo as well, though I'm headed to Fuqua this year. Applied and accepted at Darden.

I'm one of those who believes rankings are essentially snake oil - the schools in each peer group are probably interchangeable as far as quality, though each has its individual strengths. I think it's pretty absurd to say Fuqua is, overall, a better school than Darden or NYU than Ross because of their respective rankings, though big differences (MIT > Yale) probably do say something.

One thing several students brought up at my Darden interview/tour thing was that the school's ranking was affected by the fact that the faculty there was less research-oriented than at other schools, and that that was a conscious effort on the part of the Darden administration. Spin or fact, who's to say... but I'd say that and their scholarship policy definitely affects their ranking.

They're also a little stingier on aid than they probably need to be. That, combined with the lack of any loan assistance program and the much-emphasized workload (which I think is mostly a lot of hype) made my decision to decline the offer there pretty easy.

domtri33 · Answer

Dare I say, for once I completely agree with Toubab. I think for the most part, within the cluster of schools, ultra elite, elite, etc, the schools are generally interchangeable (PE and HBS may be the aberration her). I think to say that Darden is a HBS wannabe may be a bit harsh. As Toubab said, Darden prides itself on the fact that it has a "teaching" faculty. This means that the focus is not on generating research (which is generally heavily weighted in many rankings).

I think one of the great misconceptions about the case method is that you are "teaching yourself". The case method done the wrong way, often leads to this. Case method done the right way is anything but. Facilitating a case is definitely an art and I think the faculty at Darden have it pretty much down.

Why Darden's ranking been slippling over the past 5 year?

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