There’s some of a hidden, if not alarming, surprise in Bloomberg Businessweek’s newest MBA ranking. The survey results from employers, alumni and students are all down from the year-earlier results. From one school after another, stakeholders appear slightly less satisfied with the business schools they’ve attended or recruit from.
Among the rankings, Bloomberg Businessweek may be the best–if still flawed–measure for how well MBA programs achieve their mission. Why? Some 80% of the ranking is based on survey results from employers, alumni, and students: These are the people who are closest to the programs – who aren’t drawing a paycheck from them, that is. And the very ones who make the greatest impact inside organizations. In each group, school scores are down in the 2017 ranking.
Take recruiters. Here, 39 programs finished with a lower ranking than two years ago. In fact, 22 schools fell by 10 spots or more, with just 15 programs boosting their rankings in that same range. In the alumni ranking, 40 schools lost ground compared to 26 schools whose rank improved. The results were no different with current students, as 17 programs dropped by 10 spots or more.
Members of the Class of 2016 celebrate Commencement Day at Harvard Business School
SURVEY RESPONSES ACT AS A CHECK AGAINST GENERIC CLAIMS
Yes, the people have spoken. Collectively, their data is a reflection that ranking volatility extends far beyond individual schools. Why is this? Well, that’s the rub with Bloomberg Businessweek, which releases a rank without providing context through underlying data. As a result, this “Take our word for it” ranking just illustrates school trends without explaining them. That doesn’t mean they don’t offer value, however. Instead, they act as a place for applicants to start their research – an indication of where programs are trending and a conversation starter that keeps schools honest.
Recruiters are considered the consumers of MBA talent. Their hiring preferences can tip applicants off on which programs provide the best overall education (or recruit the most promising MBA candidates).The results of the employer survey dictates 35% of a school’s rank in the Bloomberg Businessweek MBA ranking, making it the cornerstone of the process. To evaluate programs, recruiters pick their 10 strongest schools from their experience and score them on a variety of critical skills. Unfortunately, neither the criteria nor the scoring system is ever specified by Bloomberg Businessweek.
This year, recruiter sentiment aligned closely with overall rank. Harvard topped all comers, followed by MIT Sloan, Chicago Booth, Wharton, and Columbia – all high enrollment, resource-rich, highly selective, urban programs. That’s just part of the story. 9 of the 10 programs ranked highest by recruiters were private institutions, with Michigan Ross being the lone exception. What’s more, MBA recruiters consistently give these programs the highest marks. Over the past two years, just two programs – Dartmouth Tuck and Carnegie Mellon Tepper – have managed to wiggle their way into the Top 10. Brand names have their privileges.
TOO VAGUE AND REPETITIVE?
Still, you’re never quite sure what rubrics that recruiters are using to measure schools, just that the 2017 surveys covers hires from the 2015 and 2016 classes. Is it quantitative mastery? Soft skills? Who really knows? Undoubtedly, Bloomberg Businessweek could give Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot a run for their money! This lack of transparency isn’t the only issue with how recruiters evaluate schools. This year, 11,801 recruiters were invited to complete the MBA survey. However, just 686 respondents from 400 companies responded to the call. That was a steep drop off from 2016, which netted 1,055 recruiters from 500 companies, and 2015, where 1,461 respondents from 672 firms were included in compiling school scores.
Rice Business Students
On the negative side, this means that far fewer employers were given a voice in this year’s ranking. That said, less responses could also indicate a more selective and targeted survey, one with far fewer redundant companies. Again, you have to give Bloomberg Businessweek the benefit of the doubt with these surveys – assuming the scoring is coming from seasoned MBA employers like McKinsey and Amazon. Such differentials may also influence how to evaluate shifts in employer sentiment.
The 2017 ranking, as noted earlier, focuses on the previous two graduating class. In 2015, the Bloomberg Businessweek survey reached graduates from the 2014 and 2013 classes, meaning there is no overlap between the two rankings. As such, it is best to evaluate recruiter preferences between these two surveys. Over the past two years, Rice Jones has been the program that gained the most from recruiters. It has risen from 40th to 14th in that time. In turn, this coincides with a pay improvement – with the school’s rank here improving from 30th to 18th according to Bloomberg Businessweek. Rice wasn’t the only Top 10 program making waves, either. Dartmouth Tuck jumped 13 spots to 8th since 2015 – a move punctuated by a $9,000 starting pay increase over the past two years and a 98% placement rate for the 2016 Class.
MBA RECRUITERS LOVE THE MIDWEST
If you’re looking for hidden gems, head to the Midwest – and public Big 10 programs, in particular. Purdue Krannert made the biggest jump in the recruiter rankings since 2015, rising 34 points from 50th to 16th. Although Krannert averages 75 students per class, its graduates land jobs with an impressive array of employers including Procter & Gamble, Amazon, Bank of America, Hershey, and Ford. The University of Illinois was no slouch either, going from 65th to 32nd – a ranking that could push even higher once the program reaps the rewards of its new $150 million dollar naming gift. Although Iowa Tippie is shuttering its full-time MBA program, it had been gaining steam with employers in recent years, jumping 20 points to 40th. Oklahoma (+21), Penn State Smeal (+18), and Michigan State Broad (+15) also posted impressive gains.
With yang comes yin. Among recruiters, Berkeley Haas has lost a certain sheen. It has tumbled 14 spots over the past two years, ranking lower than Texas-Dallas Jindal and Michigan State Broad in appeal. However, Haas was hardly alone. Yale SOM – the darling of the MBA universe since Ted Snyder took the helm in 2011 – has fallen to 21st to rank behind Penn State Smeal and Texas A&M Mays. Humbling? The ranking may be hazy and subjective, but it does tap into what some recruiters are too cautious to share publicly: the top MBA students at second tier programs are every bit as good as their counterparts in the big name programs.
In addition, William & Mary, once a Top 20 player in 2015, crashed to 51st, a much rockier landing than those experienced by highly decorated private gems like Georgetown McDonough (-23), USC Marshall (-19), Notre Dame Mendoza (-18), and Emory Goizueta (-17). Perhaps the biggest shock is Stanford GSB, which punches well below its weight with recruiters compared to its overall ranking (20th vs. 5th). Then again, Stanford MBAs follow their own drum beat, often creating jobs for themselves or targeting more boutique firms who can afford to have the best candidates come to them. Don’t shed too many tears for Stanford, with Bloomberg Businessweek reporting that the 2016 and 2015 classes still earned the highest pay.
Go to next page to see how alumni rank MBA programs.
Stanford GSB’s Knight Management Center
AFTERTHOUGHTS BY RECRUITERS…BUT BELOVED BY ALUMNI
Alumni were equally grumpy about their alma maters. That’s a big red flag, considering they are the ones who sign big checks during annual campaigns and answer calls from agonizing applicants and self-starting students. Many have reached the position where they can hire as well. This year, 10,000 graduates from the 2009, 2010, and 2011 classes opened up about their experiences – a 33% drop in alumni participation from the previous year. This survey integrates three dimensions: alumni pay increases, career satisfaction, and responses to 16 undisclosed questions related to “their MBA experiences, the specific impacts their MBA programs have had on their careers, and whether they would recommend their program to others.” Combined, this criteria represented 30% of a school’s 2017 rank.
Here, Stanford GSB earned the best scores, a position it has held for three years running. Berkeley Haas was the runner-up among alumni. Haas was followed by Harvard Business School, Rice Jones, and Emory Goizueta. Like the recruiter survey, private schools made up 9 of the 10 highest-ranked programs among alumni. More interesting, alumni heaped high marks on several programs that received tepid evaluations from recruiters, including Stanford GSB, Berkeley Haas, Emory Goizueta, Notre Dame Mendoza, and Yale SOM. Another surprise? Alumni sentiment wasn’t necessarily tied to outcomes. Just four schools in the alumni Top 10 were among the programs where 2016 graduates enjoyed the highest average pay.
The Marriott School of Management
Wondering where alumni sentiment is surging upward? Just compare this year’s results with the 2015 alumni survey, which includes the class of 2007, 2008, and 2009. In other words, just one class overlaps with the 2017 results. Here, Notre Dame Mendoza and Brigham Young Marriott made the deepest inroads, climbing double digits to rank 6th and 8th respectively. The connection? Both are religious-affiliated programs that hammer home the fundamentals, yet infuse the curriculum with an underlying deeper purpose.
Beyond that, the University of California-San Diego Rady made the biggest leap, going from 60th to 23rd in just two years. Higher satisfaction rates among Rochester Simon’s alumni enabled it to vault into the top 20, while Cincinnati Lindner’s 23 point bump helped it reach 21st. True to the Midwest theme, Iowa Tippie (+28), Minnesota Carlson (+26), and Wisconsin (+11) also gained ground – as did Texas-Dallas Jindal (+19) and Maryland Smith (+19).
TOP PROGRAMS FINISH LOWER THAN EXPECTED
Still, 18 MBA programs suffered double digit declines among alumni. The most glaring is found in Ann Arbor, where Michigan Ross plummeted 19 spots since 2015 to rank 47th among alumni – the lowest finish among Top 20 programs in Bloomberg Businessweek’s overall ranking. Cornell Johnson, a Top 10 program among its alumni just two years, also skidded to 22nd in the survey. The same is true of UCLA Anderson, which sagged 10 spots to 16th since the 2015 ranking.
Ross School of Business
By the same token, Texas McCombs dived 24 spots to 37th, a number that should be rectified in the coming years thanks to the spring opening of its state-of-the-art Rowling Hall. The real head-scratcher, however, is USC Marshall. It is the home to the vaunted “Trojan Network,” Labrador loyal alumni who watch out for their successors by readily volunteering to act as mentors or opening doors wherever they can. According to Bloomberg Businessweek, the network is decidedly more ‘soft’ Swiss than ‘toughened’ Trojan as alumni ranked their school 58th in their survey. Still, the Trojans can be thankful that they aren’t in Fort Worth, where alumni cast Texas Christian Neeley out of the Top 20 – and all the way down to 69th – a volatility that borders on being outright arbitrary.
In fact, alumni satisfaction could be a mine field for many top MBA programs based on the survey. Despite ranking 4th overall, Chicago Booth finished 35th among alumni, a drag that torpedoed any hope of catching Wharton in the overall rankings. Count MIT Sloan in the same boat. Ranked 3rd overall, it finished 20th with alumni – a five spot bump that failed to negate Wharton’s advantage among alumni and students. This even extends to Northwestern Kellogg and Columbia Business School, whose solid marks in other ranking categories were dragged down by ranking 18th and 26th respectively among their alumni. The same is true for Michigan Ross, Cornell Johnson, Carnegie Mellon Tepper, and Washington Foster, whose claims to the Top 10 are undercut by alumni ranking them anywhere from 22nd to 47th.
Of course, alumni sentiment runs both ways. The Top 25 finishes of Emory Goizueta and Brigham Young Marriott, for example, can be credited to ranking among the Top 10 with alumni. At the same time, some MBA programs are far more popular with alumni than their overall rank might indicate, headlined by Baylor Hankamer (13th vs. 67th) and Oklahoma (14th vs. 53rd) – a clear sign that both schools exceeded the expectations that alumni had when they were students.
Go to next page to see how graduating students rank MBA programs.
UCLA’s Anderson School of Management. Courtesy photo
UCLA, INDIANA AND MARYLAND PLAY HOT POTATO WITH TOP SPOT
Although the 2017 Bloomberg Businessweek ranking featured fewer responses from employers and alumni, students were more than happy to give their two cents. This year, 9,461 students completed the school survey, up from the 9,112 respondents credited to the 2015 survey. True to form, the 27 questions asked in the survey are left to the imagination. That said, Bloomberg Businessweek does allude to items like “campus climate, effectiveness of career services, and responsiveness of faculty and administrators.” Even more, responses from the 2016 class are lumped with the graduating class, with each school responses calibrated to balance large and small school enrollments.
Looking for a roller coaster ranking? Well, there are plenty of steep dives and barrel rolls with students at the helm. Last year, UCLA Anderson ranked 15th among alumni. How quickly things change, as it spiked up to 1st. So what happened to last year’s #1 program among students? Indiana Kelley crashed to 32nd. The same is true with the Class of 2015’s favorite program: the University of Maryland bottomed out at 39th in 2017. Call it the b-school answer to the Madden Curse. Perhaps this instability is why student opinion counts for just 15% of the ranking’s weight.
That’s not to say student opinion doesn’t matter. In reality, it can serve as a barometer for how recent investments have re-shaped a school’s MBA experience. More important, consistency can mirror a deeply-entrenched student culture whose values are passed on from class-to-class. The latter is personified by Virginia Darden, a deeply academic and interactive program, which ranked 9th in both 2015 and 2017 (and 2nd in 2016). Duke Fuqua, defined by its supportive “Team Fuqua” ethos, finished 11th in 2017 and 12th in 2015 – despite different respondents completing the student survey. The ranking results at collaborative Northwestern Kellogg, custom Chicago Booth, and purpose-driven Berkeley Haas programs have also wavered very little in recent years.
Darden produced the second-highest percentage of consulting MBAs among more than two dozen top programs in 2016, 38% of its graduating class. Courtesy photo
IOWA SKYROCKETS IN EVERY CATEGORY…ONLY TO SHUT DOWN FULL-TIME PROGRAM
After UCLA, William & Mary Mason, Cornell Johnson, Michigan Ross and Berkeley Haas round out the Top 5 programs for student satisfaction. These rankings were particularly satisfying for Mason and Johnson, which rocketed up 42 and 32 spots respectively. These weren’t the only big swings found over the past two years. In spite of its alumni’s misgivings, USC Marshall’s students love the program. The newly-graduated Trojan Network delivered higher scores, pushing the program up 16 spots to 6th overall. Likewise, Southern Methodist Cox and Carnegie Mellon Tepper marched into the Top 10. Wharton, NYU Stern, Texas McCombs, and Washington Foster climbed into the Top 20 by making similar progress with students. Sure enough, Iowa Tippie picked up steam among students here as well – making it one of the few programs to improve by double digits across recruiters, alumni, and students.
That’s not to say several programs didn’t falter, as scores were lower across the board in 2017. Dartmouth Tuck is unquestionably the surprise of the group. Renowned for its traditionally close-knit community, students still tanked the program, with its rank sinking from 17th to 35th in two years. That hardly compares to the head-first plunge taken by Michigan State Broad. Even after reeling in double-digit improvements from recruiters and alumni, Broad endured a jaw-dropping 53 spot collapse, falling from 7th to 60th since 2015. Punishing, yes – but small consolation to several programs that are in the midst of soul searching, including Minnesota Carlson (-23), Georgia Tech Scheller (-20), and Texas A&M Mays (-18).
Such numbers also highlight a big difference between how students experience MBA programs and how Bloomberg Businessweek ranks them. Notably, several MBA programs falling outside the Top 25 generated more plaudits from students than their better-known (and higher priced peers). These schools were led to Houston Bauer (24th with students vs. 65th overall), William & Mary Mason (2nd vs. 42nd), Pepperdine Graziadio (48th vs. 75th), and Texas Christian Neeley (34th vs. 55th). The opposite is true as well. Several blue chip MBA programs didn’t quite live up their hype according to Bloomberg Businessweek’s student surveys. Among these schools, you’ll find MIT Sloan (22nd with students vs. 3rd overall), Harvard Business School (18th vs. 1st), and Wharton (17th vs. 2nd).
Go to next page to see how alumni and student opinions differ about their schools.
Chicago Booth MBA students
IS CONSISTENCY THE HALLMARK OF THE RIGHT PROGRAM?
This difference is also expressed in the gap between students and alumni regarding their alma maters. In 60% of the programs, the alumni and student rank differed by 10 spots or more. How different can perceptions be? On one end, you’ll find Baylor Hankamer, which ranked 13th for alumni satisfaction – a higher rating than either Northwestern Kellogg or Columbia Business School achieved. Among students, however, Hankamer finished 85th – last place. In contrast, Michigan Ross ranked 4th among the Class of 2017 – a placement higher than any other Top 10 MBA program. Among alumni, it limped to 47th place – despite ongoing academic excellence (not to mention a 2016 class whose starting pay was only eclipsed by Harvard and Stanford).
Such discrepancies are found top-to-bottom. Among the big name programs, students gave higher marks to Chicago Booth, Columbia Business School, and Cornell Johnson. In contrast, alumni held fonder memories for Harvard Business School, Stanford GSB, Dartmouth Tuck, and Yale SOM based on their rankings. This gulf creates an odd dichotomy, where applicants and students may get very different responses from alumni based on when they graduated.
Several top programs, however, boasted a certain consistency in student and alumni sentiment. For example, Rice Jones ranked 4th with alumni and 2nd among students, positioning that highlights Jones’ strength in producing a transformative experience steeped in close relationships that resonate long after diplomas are conferred. Berkeley Haas, Virginia Darden and Duke Fuqua – three other programs that focus heavily on relationships and experience – also scored high with alumni and students alike. In other words, perceptions were consistent – making them more likely to produce the experience and outcomes that MBA applicants are craving.
DON’T MISS: Ten Biggest Surprises In Bloomberg Businessweek’s 2017 MBA Ranking or Wharton, MIT Gain Big In Businessweek MBA Ranking
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