Yale SOM's average GMAT goes WAY up

From the list, at least in my opinion, you can see that Yale is probably the only American school where one of its professional programs (SOM) appears to be less reputable than the rest of the university's faculties (for example, the faculty of arts and sciences and graduate research schools, etc.).

In many cases, professional programs outshine their corresponding universities. For example:

Yale Law School VS Yale University
Kellogg VS Northwestern
Wharton VS U Penn
Queen's Business School VS Queen's University (Canada)
Ivey Business School VS University of Western Ontario (Canada)

In some cases, internationally reputable universities who got into the business school business late in the game (Yale, Oxford, Cambridge, etc.) are trying really hard to be on par with not only the rest of the business schools, but their own universities. I think Yale's SOM's pressures are more internal than external.

Keep in mind that not many baby boomers graduated from Yale SOM as opposed to Wharton and HBS. Those Wharton and HBS baby boomers are now running companies.

If it were up to me, I wouldn't care too much about the SOM rankings in the last 5 years because I think the SOM is capable and will probably knock off an M7 in the next 20 years, which is about the time when my career might be reaching C-level calibre and when my business school rep would come in handy. Yale has over over 200 years of experience at being in the top, and I am almost certain they won't let their new baby SOM lag too far behind.

I think you guys may be underestimating the quality of Dartmouth as an undergrad...

I think their acceptance rate is around 10%, and they are usually a solid Top 10 institution. I would say their undergrad rep is on par with Tuck, not below.

~Sam

That's a good theory, but it ignores history. Yale University (especially the undergrad) has always been around top 3 in the US. By always I mean at least 50 years, maybe 100 years, maybe more. This is not a new development. Yet for at least 20 years, Yale has been unable to make a significant move up the business school rankings. So, while the discussion and theory that the reputation of the underlying university will drag the business school up is interesting, history clearly demonstrates the opposite. Yale has been always been one of the wealthiest universities around (2nd only to Harvard I believe), and the reputation of it's college has always been super-ultra-mega-elite (traditionally top 3 along with Harvard and Princeton, and Princeton doesn't have professional schools, though Stanford has joined the fray in the last few decades); yet these factors have not resulted in an ultra-elite business school. Yale may or may not be poised to move up in the rankings, but the argument that they will be in the top 10 or top 5 based on the reputation of the underlying college and because they have a lot of money doesn't hold water.

Incidentally, the strength of the underlying university hasn't done much for Yale's medical school either. I know almost nothing about medical schools, but I do know that Yale does not stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Harvard, UCSF, Johns Hopkins and other schools among the ultra-elites. So, I wouldn't base an argument solely on the fact that the Yale University name and a huge pile of cash will carry a school up; twenty+ years of facts demonstrate that these are not enough to overcome whatever Yale's problems have been, be that muddled strategy, poor strategy, bad facilities, dangerous neighborhood, or whatever.

I think we need to remind ourselves that ALL the schools we have been discussing are top notch. I know that the quality of Dartmouth is up there, and they have excellent professors. These debates of Yale VS Chicago for example, or any other school discussed here, is overkill to say the least. For example, Chicago produced more Nobel prize winners than any other US university, and only second to Cambridge.

It seems fairly common for different schools to have one or two grad programs that are in the top but others that trail slight behind. Northwestern and Chicago both have highly regarded Law and B-schools however, their Medical programs are in the teens. John Hopkins is one of the best medical programs in the world but where is their b-school? There are plenty of schools with great brands but the only schools I know that seems to be a top 10 school in all the different areas is Stanford. Even Harvard has a weakness, its engineering program is not nearly highly regarded as a lot of other schools.

The overall brand helps impress people who dont know specifics but those in the business world know how schools stack against each other. I am not knocking Yale, I am just a realist...its too small to compete with the likes of Chicago, Kellogg, Columbia, HBS, and the other schools solidified at the very top. To increase its class size they are going to have to lower the bar for admissions or start handing out TONS of fullrides. Even then its tough to go from 175 people a year to 400+ without diluting the standing of the school...this would be a very long term goal.

Um, I don't know about Tuck/Dartmouth too much, so I won't say anything about that, but Haas uplifting UC Berkeley??? Hardly.

Haas, as much as I am biased and love the school, is *only* a top-10 school. Whereas UC Berkeley, most of its graduate departments are in the top 5, if not the top 3, all across the board. Its engineering and sciences are almost always top-3, and its liberal arts are generally in the top 5, with some 1st place rankings. Because of that, I don't think Haas is "uplifting" Berkeley at all. It's just another good school within UC Berkeley, and if anything, is benefitting greatly from the parent school's brand name. Notice how almost all Haas's marketing these days say "The Berkeley MBA - Haas School of Business".

Speaking of leapfrogging Haas, currently Haas is fully committed to increase the faculty size and faculty pay (so top faculty do not defect to private schools that pay a lot more), building new buildings so they can increase the class sizes, and increasing its own endowment (currently at a measley but growing $194M) so it can be self-sufficient from the UC system and the CA state. So with those in mind, Haas may be hard to pass by, even with Yale's efforts.



Not completely true, River, you forgot Berkeley.

Just to substantiate what I said, here are UC Berkeley vs Yale vs Stanford (parent school) rankings in different graduate schools/departments (using the most recent US News):

Yale top 10s - 9 departments:
Law (1), Biology (7), Math (7), Econ (7), English (1), History (1), Political Science (5), Psych (4), Masters of Fine Arts (2),

Berkeley top 10s - 16 departments (17 if you count UCSF Med):
Business (7), Medicine (if you count UCSF as a "partner" med school - 5), Education (7), Law (6), Biology (2), Chemistry (1), Computer Science (1), Earth Sciences (4), Math (2), Physics (3), Econ (3), English (1), History (2), Political Science (5), Psych (2), Sociology (2), Engineering (3)

Stanford Top 10s - 17 departments
Business(1), Education (1), Engineering (2), Med (8), Law (2), Biology (1), Chemistry (1), Comp Sci (1), Earth Sciences (2), Math (2), Physics (1), Econ (3), English (4), History (4), Poli Sci (2), Psych (1), Sociology (6)

Like sarzan said, ALL these schools are GREAT schools in their own right. But my point is, UC Berkeley definitely does NOT need Haas to "uplift" itself, and Stanford is not the only school with most of its programs in the top 10 (though I fully admit that Stanford is generally ranked higher in most of the departments - QUITE impressive actually! ).

Let's not forget it's just one person's opinion. There are quite a few I agreed with and some that I didn't agree with.

OK. I might have been off on Haas Berkeley. I guess I wasn't too sure and thats why I put an '=' as well. I know for certain Berkeley is top 4 in electrical engineering and computing science, along with MIT, Stanford, and CMU.

Anyway, the list was just my personal opinion, so take it with a grain of salt.

As for Kellogg and Northwestern, I do believe that Kellogg uplifts its university, and the opposite is true for Yale SOM.

I understand, just wanted to put the facts out there. I think I agree with your other assessments though.

I would say that Haas is totally more prestigious than Berkeley. Universities generally get their brand rep from the undergraduate programs....Berkeley is in the UVA/Gtown/Vandy territory overall.

I've been sitting on the sidelines watching this thread for the past couple of days. I'm not going to provide my opinion on Yale, but wanted to give some general observations.

1) People on this board are insanely passionate about this topic! I mean lanter1 seems to be just kicking it in the background (for the most part), while the Yale prospects and other "top 10" school admits are totally going at it
2) I love the stats and research that people provide. Obviously two people can interpret the same piece of data differenly, but the dilligence and the work that people put in on topics such as this, remind me why I enjoy the g-club.

Sorry for the interruption. Carry on!

We're talking about B-school here, not undergraduate business. MBA is a graduate program and thus compared with its parent school's graduate programs.

If you want to talk about "brand rep", then the peer assessment scores in US News (which I assume is where you got your UVA/Vandy/Gtown comparisions) is what matters (a general academic reputation evaluation by peers). In that case, I believe Berkeley and Michigan both have higher assessment scores than many of the top 10 overall UG schools. The scores may not be "objective" in any way, but since we're talking about "brand reputation", which is another super subjective evaluation, I believe peer assessment scores from US News is probably one of the best things to look at.

Speaking of UG, general rankings on US News include items that severely hurt all public schools. Things like alumni giving, acceptance rate (most states have some sort of mandatory acceptance of a certain amount of high school students in the state), class sizes, student to faculty ratio all hurt public schools. That's why great schools like Michigan, UCLA, Virginia and Berkeley are all ranked in the 20's and there are no top ranked public schools.

I know these are all personal opinions of each and every one of us, but having graduated from a public institution, I have to throw out some facts to defend public institutions in general.

P.S. Oh yeah, one more thing, based on the marketing of Haas that I mentioned a few threads before, I highly doubt that Haas would market themselves as "The Berkeley MBA" in MOST of their materials if they (the Haas dean and marketing team) believed that "Haas is totally more prestigious than Berkeley", wouldn't you say?

i think kryz is right about berkeley. the law school boalt is doing the same thing.

good point dabots, forgot about Boalt doing that too.

Here are some links to the business and law schools:

https://mba.haas.berkeley.edu/ (The Berkeley MBA)
https://ewmba.haas.berkeley.edu/ (The Berkeley MBA)
https://www.law.berkeley.edu/ (Berkeley Law - Boalt Hall)

and Haas is probably one of the few named top B-schools who's email address ends with "@mba.berkeley.edu" ("haas" is nowhere to be seen).

I thought the original poster was comparing b-schools with the general university?

yes, he was trying to say how Yale's reputation/brand name will help push Yale SOM to become a top 10 school (thus the "uplift" comment), whereas Haas (and Tuck) "uplifts" UC Berkeley (and Dartmouth) instead.

That's why I brought up the fact that both Haas and Boalt (#7 and #6 respectively) are using the "Berkeley MBA" and "Berkeley Law" to promote their schools, which concludes that both Haas and Boalt believe that Berkeley has a stronger brand (whether Grad or UG) than the business and law schools, and that they can benefit from attaching the Berkeley name to their schools.

That's the reason why I strongly dispute your comment that "Haas is totally more prestigious than Berkeley", Graduate or Undergrad.

Hope that makes sense.

Excluding the ivys + Stanford, Berkeley (along with UMich) is a rare breed that is excellent across the board.