Financial Times Excluded IE From Ranking Due To ‘Irregularities’ - Poets&Quants

IE Business School in Spain

The Financial Times says it removed IE Business School from this week’s 2018 global MBA ranking because of “irregularities” that included surveys completed by users who were not alumni of the Class of 2014, the graduates targeted for the newspaper’s ranking.

Initially, IE officials told Poets&Quants that the school was excluded from the ranking because the FT was not able to get a representative sample of the school’s alumni whose views are essential for the Financial Times to rank an MBA program. That left open the possiblity that either IE was unable to meet the required 20% response rate on the survey or that the responses received by the FT were unusable for whatever reason.

Now, the FT is making clear that the quality of the data in the surveys was unreliable because the newspaper suspected that in some cases surveys were filled out by people who were not intended to complete them. And although the Spanish business school has told students and alumni it expects to be back in the ranking next year, the FT is making clear that IE won’t be included unless it “urgently tightens its data collection procedures.”

‘SURVEYS WERE COMPLETED BY PEOPLE WHO WERE NOT WHO WE THOUGHT THEY WERE’

Vicky Taylor, acting global communications director for the Financial Times

“We take the integrity of our rankings very seriously and this is not the first time a school has been disqualified,” says Vicky Taylor, acting global communications director for the Financial Times. “In this case, the quality of the data we received was not good enough. We received surveys completed by people who were not who we thought they were. We alerted IE to this issue and we have asked them to urgently tighten their data collection procedures so that they can be included in future rankings.”

While the FT notes that it has excluded schools in the past, it has never removed an MBA program ranked as highly as IE which placed eighth best in the world on its 2017 list. This is the first time since the newspaper’s rankings were launched in 1999 that IE has been excluded. When the FT first started ranking full-time MBA programs, IE was ranked 24th. The school’s highest FT rank of sixth place occured in 2009 and 2010 (see chart below).

Taylor made the comments today after the FT issued a rather vague explanation yesterday for why it had excluded IE. In that statement released to Poets&Quants, the newspaper said, “The FT Global MBA rankings are calculated after extensive in-house analysis of data submitted by the schools themselves. This year we have taken the decision to exclude Spain’s IE Business School because of irregularities in their submission. We have contacted the school’s leadership to request that it urgently tightens its data collection procedures so that it can be included in future rankings.”

SCHOOL BELIEVES IT TURNED OVER OUTDATED EMAIL ADDRESSES FOR AS MANY AS 100 OF 577 GRADS

Alumni responses are crucial to the FT’s methodology. They account for 59% of the total weight of the ranking and inform eight of the 20 different metrics the Financial Times uses to crank out its ranking. A pair of numbers–current alumni salaries and the increase in salary from pre-MBA days–account for 40% of the entire ranking, the most heavily weighted portion of the list.

The Financial Times began surveying Class of 2014 alumni on Sept. 11th. It apparently took a month before officials at IE Business School heard that their could be a problem. In mid-October, several alumni from the class said they had yet to receive a survey from the Financial Times. The school only became aware of the problem after delegates of the class encouraged graduates to complete the survey on WhatsApp groups and other social media. The school believes it had oudated email addresses for as many as 100 of the 577 grauates in its Class of 2014.

“We learnt about this issue in the submission process when some of our alumni, who participate in this year’s ranking, contacted us to tell us that they did not receive the questionnaires from the FT,” according to a message sent to students by MBA Director Erik Schlie. “The IE Program Management staff encouraged them to contact the FT directly and share this information. Unfortunately, this happened very near to the closing of the rankings survey.”

FT TOLD IE BUSINESS SCHOOL IN DECEMBER THAT IT WOULD NOT BE INCLUDED IN THE RANKING

Helen Barrett, work & careers editor for the Financial Times

Those overtures by class delegates ultimately led to a meeting in late October in which the FT requested further information from IE. By mid-November, the school found out that the FT editors were going to assess the quality of the sample and would decide whether to allow the school to participate in the ranking. Sometime in December, the FT notified IE that it would be excluded and urged the school to put better systems in place for future data collection. Helen Barrett, work & careers editor for the FT who is responsible for business education rankings, was involved in the decision to exclude IE from the ranking. Up until 2016, the rankings were overseen by long-time business education editor Della Bradshaw.

MBA Director Erik Schlie then sent his email to students just before the new ranking came out on early Monday morning.

Despite IE’s unusual exclusion from the ranking, the school’s leadership team believes it will have little to no impact on the MBA program.  “To be honest, I don’t expect it will cause that much fuss,” says Santiago Íñiguez de Onzoño, Executive President of IE University and the business school’s former dean. “We participate in more than 20 rankings. Our different stakeholders are not really aware of which rankings are out there. There is no correlation between a ranking and the performance of the school or a program. After pulling back from the FT’s ranking of custom executive education programs following our joint venture with the FT, we have more than doubled the performance of our custom programs. So I don’t expect much consequence from this.”

‘IT’S NOT JUST THE RANKINGS’

IE Dean Martin Boehm, who only succeeded Íñiguez in the job exactly one year ago last January. Boehm is a German-born marketing professor and ten-year veteran of the school who had served as dean of programs since 2012. Bohem told Poets&Quants that he agrees with his boss that the FT’s decision won’t have any real impact on application volume.  “For example our BBA program, which is not yet ranked, is growing at a faster pace than the rest of the portfolio,” he says. “The brand of an educational institution has several drivers including international acreditation, prestige among recruiters, the word of mouth of alumni, and of course academic reputation from peers. It’s not just the rankings.”

The school sought to reassure students that IE’s absence from the ranking would not occur again. “It is important to highlight that we will continue to be featured in future editions of the Global MBA ranking and also in all other rankings published by the Financial Times,” wrote Schlie. “In addition, we should not forget that other important ranking providers still feature us in their rankings. Allow me to highlight for instance our 8th position in the Bloomberg BusinessWeek ranking or the 3rd position in the ranking published by Forbes.”

Despite IE’s stated belief that the incident isn’t likely to impact interest in its MBA program, the school says it has implemented “measures to avoid this in the future,” added Schlie in his email to students. “We not only reviewed and changed the existing processes for alumni to update their contact information, but also did create an alumni engagement committee.”

DON’T MISS: WHY IE BUSINESS SCHOOL LOST ITS FT RANKING or STANFORD TOPS 2018 FINANCIAL TIMES MBA RANKING

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GPAs At The Leading Business Schools - Poets&Quants

There are two ways — at least — to look at the grade-point average data for the MBA Class of 2019, newly compiled by Poets&Quants. At only five of the top 25 schools in the latest P&Q ranking are average GPAs trending downward over the last five years — that’s good. But the increases are generally small and in some cases minute, averaging only .05 for the top 10 schools, the elite of the elite, and not much better for the top 50: just .06. Meanwhile, if you examine year-to-year data from 2016 to 2017, the number of schools with a decrease balloons to seven of the top 25 and 17 of the top 50, with seven schools staying even.

All of which is to say that while the best schools continue to impress with their GPA averages, there’s only so high a crop of scholars can go, and 2017 seems to be an acknowledgement of that.

The highest average undergraduate GPA is an honor once again achieved by Stanford Graduate School of Business, at 3.74, eclipsing last year’s mark of 3.73 but a hair below the all-time high for any school of 3.75, which Stanford set in 2015. It’s the fifth straight year Stanford has had sole possession of the top GPA (they tied Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management at 3.69 in 2012). Harvard Business School and UC-Berkeley Haas School of Business, both with 3.71, join Stanford as the only three schools above 3.70. In Berkeley’s case it was an achievement made possible by one of the biggest leaps in the top 50, of .11. Rounding out the top five in GPA are Yale SOM (3.67) and the University of Chicago Booth School of Business (3.61). (See Pages 2 and 3 for a complete list of the GPA averages and the five-year trends for the P&Q top 50.)

IOWA TIPPIE SEES BIGGEST 5-YEAR DECLINE

In all, 14 of the top 50 schools saw a drop in average undergraduate GPA over the last five years, at an average loss of .07. Three schools stayed even, while data for eight schools was incomplete. That means 26 schools experienced increases, led by the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business, which has climbed .15 to 3.46; USC’s Marshall School of Business, which saw an increase of .13 to 3.48; and Berkeley Haas.

Among the noteworthy decreases were MIT Sloan School of Management, which dropped .09 to 3.49, biggest drop in the top 25 and third-biggest out of 50. The biggest drop overall occurred at the University of Iowa’s Tippie College of Business, for which the incoming 2017 class will be the last to earn MBAs in the soon-to-be-defunct full-time program. Overall, in the last five years Tippie has fallen .21 points, the biggest drop in the top 50. Last August’s announcement that Tippie’s full-time MBA would be phased out might explain the year-to-year drop from 3.26 in 2016 to 3.22 in 2017, but the biggest decline for the Iowa program came a couple of years ago, when its average GPA score dropped from 3.39 in 2014 to 3.27 in 2015. Which raises the chicken-and-egg question: Did the lower GPAs contribute to the Tippie MBA’s decline, or did the program’s decline turn off the higher-scoring candidates?

Also seeing notable declines: Michigan State University’s Broad College of Business (3.30 in 2013 to 3.20 in 2017) and the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management, which fell .09 to 3.34.

IN ONE-YEAR SNAPSHOT, A MIXED PICTURE

That’s over five years. What about the changes in the last year alone? For one thing, the two schools leading the “biggest gainers” list below owe most of their progress to what they achieved between 2016 and 2017, with Georgia gaining .16 in that span and USC gaining .11. In all, 23 schools in the top 50 saw year-over-year gains, with other notables including the University of Pittsburgh’s Katz Graduate School of Business (.12), Emory University’s Goizueta Business School (.10), and Boston College’s Carroll School of Management (.08).

But that means that, subtracting the three schools for which there isn’t enough data to form a picture and the seven schools that stayed even — notably the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania (3.60), Northwestern Kellogg (3.60), Columbia Business School (3.50), and the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business (3.50) — 17 schools saw drops in the last year, and some of them were big drops. Purdue University’s Krannert School of Management fell .17 to 3.22, MSU Broad dropped .10 to 3.20, and MIT Sloan dropped .09 to 3.49. Before this year MIT had been enjoying a .05 rise in its five-year trend.

Overall, then, in the last year the picture is decidedly mixed, with schools that gained gaining an average of .05 and schools that lost losing an average .06.

HAVE A LOW GPA? THERE’S STILL HOPE TO GET INTO YOUR DREAM SCHOOL

A low GPA doesn’t always sink an application. At Chicago Booth this fall, someone with a 2.72 was admitted. As consultant Karen Marks wrote for Poets&Quants in 2016, “Despite what you may have heard, it is absolutely possible to get into a top MBA program with a low GPA,” adding that she has helped many clients succeed despite having shaky undergraduate records. “Just how low were these GPAs? I have helped clients with GPAs as low as 2.4 get full-tuition scholarships to top-10 schools, and clients with sub-2.6 GPAs get into top-five schools with significant funding.”

Betsy Massar of MBA admissions consulting firm Master Admissions, speaking to P&Q last year, added that “A great GPA is not the only thing that admissions officers care about. It’s also the quality of that GPA. A student who has a lower-than-average GPA for a school in a subject like applied math or chemistry is still going to get a good look. Everyone knows not all majors and not all courses are equally difficult. If you have just an average GPA but took courses in really difficult subjects like physics, you shouldn’t worry. It’s really about how much you challenge yourself.

“But it’s not just about grades,” Massar said. “We see people all the time with great grades and scores who are really quite boring. The grades might get you considered, but you have to deliver.”

(See the next pages for the P&Q top 50 schools and their GPAs over the last five years.)

Stanford GSB continues to lead all schools in the Poets&Quants top 50 in average undergraduate GPA score, at 3.74, a slight uptick from last year but still 0.01 off the all-time high mark of 3.75, set by Stanford in 2015

MIT Sloan was the only school in the Poets&Quants top 25 to see a drop in average undergraduate GPA scores over the last five years, falling to 3.49in 2017 from 3.58 in 2013, a 0.09 slip

DON’T MISS AVERAGE GMAT SCORES AT THE TOP 50 BUSINESS SCHOOLS and M7 SCHOOLS: THE 2018 DATA IS IN & THEY REMAIN MAGNIFICENT

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B-School Bulletin: Fighting Cancer More Efficiently - Poets&Quants

A Better Business Model For Fighting Cancer

News from Harvard Business School

“With billions of dollars spent on the development of precision medicine and related cancer research over the last decade, a recent partnership seeks a new way to bring these treatments to patients more quickly: through a better business model.

“Founded in 2016 with a $20 million gift from the Robert and Myra Kraft Family Foundation, the Kraft Precision Medicine Accelerator is a partnership between the foundation, Harvard Business School, and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. The alliance is working to eliminate inefficiencies and bottlenecks in the precision medicine development system to speed delivery of targeted therapies to the marketplace.

“’Early on, people would ask us why the (Harvard) business school, and not the medical school, was the recipient of this gift,’ says accelerator co-chair and HBS senior fellow Richard Hamermesh. ‘Nowadays, I don’t get that question—it’s clear.’ Simply put, inefficiencies in the development of precision medicine can best be addressed by a business-analysis approach.”

Read more …

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Professor James Rubin, who had worked at Darden for more than 25 years, died after a fall in his home in 2016. Photo courtesy UVA Darden School of Business

Darden Colleagues Carry Late Professor’s Book Over The Finish Line

News from University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business

“James Rubin, a professor at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, had spent years working on his first book before he sustained serious injuries in a fall at his home on June 21, 2016 – the same day he submitted his first draft to his publisher.

“Rubin, 64, died from his injuries 15 days later, leaving his wife, Jane Perry; son, Edward; and many more family members, friends, students and colleagues grieving his loss.

“Thanks to the efforts of some of those colleagues, he also left behind a published book.”

Read more …

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The 2018 Kellogg Women’s Leadership Seminar Kicks Off

News from Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management 

“During the first week of winter quarter, 150 female second-year and 1Y students gathered in White Auditorium for the kickoff session of the third annual Women’s Leadership Seminar. Started in 2016 by the Women’s Business Association Co-Presidents, the WLS has become a formalized, co-curricular program with five sessions facilitated by esteemed Kellogg professors, inspiring alumnae and external experts.

“The mission of this program is to equip and inspire high-potential women to pursue, navigate and sustain careers that drive impact and create lives of personal meaning. Each of the sessions is structured to define and educate participants on the four mindsets and behaviors that impact women throughout their careers: anchoring, aspiring, advocating, and adapting. Led by Professor Ellen Taaffe ’97, Kellogg’s director of women’s leadership programming, these sessions, along with organized discussion groups known as Kellogg Circles, provide female students with a unique forum to discuss and reflect prior to relaunching their careers after graduation.”

Read more …

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Brad Shervheim

‘Be Vulnerable.’ A Berkeley Haas Student Shares His MBA Essay Tips 

News from UC-Berkeley Haas School of Business 

“Deciding that the MBA application essay was truly a chance to reveal himself as a whole person — beyond his resume and test scores — Brad Shervheim dug deep and made himself vulnerable.

“It paid off. Brad shares his MBA essay insights in conversation with Eileen Jacob, associate director of admissions for Berkeley MBA Programs for Working Professionals.”

Read more …

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McNulty Leadership Program Executive Director Jeff Klein (left) watches from the side of the Irvine stage as Cluster 3’s Space Elevator team presents in The Big Idea finals. Penn photo

How The Big Idea Bridges MBA Pre-Term And Academics

News from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania

“’You got to know your learning teams. Now this is the first project you’ll do together,’ Manvi Goel, WG’18, a Leadership Fellow, told her Cohort L students as she introduced The Big Idea, the final event of MBA Pre-term. Fresh from their learning team retreat, the newly formed teams were tasked with ideating, researching, planning, and pitching a novel business idea in just two days.

“The fellows rolled a video of Vik Malhotra, WG’86, chairman of the Americas and a senior partner at McKinsey & Associates, which has sponsored The Big Idea for the past two years. He issued the the following challenge:

“’Pick an area where you think a collaborative partnership between private and public entities can provide a solution to to a problem, take advantage of an opportunity, improve an exciting partnership, or unleash untapped potential.’”

Read more …

How A Good Analytics Strategy Can Become The Victim Of Its Own Success

News from Northwestern Kellogg

“There’s a parable that Eric Anderson, a professor of marketing at the Kellogg School, likes to tell, one he’s deemed the ‘Analytics Paradox.’

“’A young firm starts out making many mistakes. Eager to improve, they collect lots of data and build cool new models,’ he says. ‘Over time, these models allow the young firm to find the best answers and implement these with great precision. The young firm becomes a mature firm that is great at analytics. Then one day the models stop working. Mistakes that fueled the models are now gone and the analytic models are starved.’

“The paradox is that the better the firm gets at gleaning insights from analytics — and acting on those insights — the more streamlined their operations become. This in turn makes the data resulting from those operations more homogeneous. But over time, homogeneity becomes a problem: variable data — and, yes, mistakes — allow algorithms to continue to learn and optimize. As the variability in the new data shrinks, the algorithms don’t have much to work with anymore.”

Read more …

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The Other Way To Make Money Out Of Bitcoin

News from INSEAD

“What does a Bitcoin day trader or an Ethereum miner of the 21^st century have in common with a Californian gold digger of the 19^th century?

“The answer is that they are both looking for gold—digital or physical. Another similarity is that their endeavours will benefit the ecosystem of complementary product or service providers. During the Gold Rush period, Levi Strauss made money selling jeans to the gold diggers. Jeans were part of the gold diggers’ ecosystem at that time. Today, wallets to store coins or computer chips that solve math problems play the same role as the jeans back then.”

Read more …

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Michigan Ross MBAs Land Three-Peat With Another Victory In National Innovation Challenge

News from University of Michigan Ross School of Business

“A team of three Ross MBA students took home a victory at the recent Accenture MBA Innovation Challenge, continuing a three-year winning streak for Ross MBAs. Ross teams also won the challenge in 2017 and 2016.

“This year, teams were asked to develop innovative solutions to a challenge faced by the Wounded Warriors Project, a national non-profit organization focused on providing aid to U.S. military veterans and service members injured in duty on or after September 11, 2001.

“The winning team, consisting of Fox Herron, Andy Furbush, and Emmeline Cardozo, MBA ‘19, presented their plan to executives at Accenture and the WWP this past weekend, going head-to-head against teams from Cornell’s Johnson School of Business, Chicago Booth, and Duke Fuqua.”

Read more …

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FinTech Club Launches, Recruits New Members

News from Georgetown University McDonough School of Business 

The Georgetown FinTech club launched this month with an information session. Caroline Kenneally/The Hoya

“Georgetown FinTech, a new student organization that promotes opportunities for students at the intersection of finance and technology, launched this semester with its first information session.

“With graduate and undergraduate branches, Georgetown FinTech aims to expand opportunities for the community to work with FinTech, or financial technology, beyond the business courses newly offered at the university.

“The Jan. 24 launch was intended to introduce the club and articulate its goals for the semester. This semester, Georgetown Fintech plans to recruit new members and offer on-campus and external events. The club also plans to partner with alumni and entrepreneurs to offer a professional perspective about this new field. Other initiatives include a biweekly newsletter and networking events through FinTech workshops available to its members.”

Read more …

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If The CEO’s High Salary Isn’t Justified To Employees, Firm Performance May Suffer

News from HBS

“It’s no surprise that business executives make more money than lower-level employees. But when that pay disparity between a CEO and the average worker is perceived as unfair, the result may be more than unhappy workers: A firm’s performance can deteriorate.

“The gap between the large sums that CEOs take home versus average employee pay is taking on added importance in 2018, as public companies in the United States are mandated for the first time to disclose pay ratios between the CEO and employees. Harvard Business School Assistant Professor Ethan Rouen warns that if those disclosures are not made with proper context, they could ignite worker backlash and harm productivity.”

Read more …

DON’T MISS LAST WEEK’S BULLETIN FULL OF SCHOOL-REPORTED NEWS AND DATA

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The Highest-Paid MBA Alumni - Poets&Quants

An MBA is a very different kind of investment. You can’t trade it in for a newer or better model. After graduation, you’re tied to your alma mater — forever. You can’t switch jerseys from Columbia to Wharton; your new network won’t accept you. You’re stuck, for better or worse.

That’s why choosing a business school requires so much due diligence. The choice isn’t just life-changing. It is life-defining. It will determine your network and career path. In most cases, your school will impact your earnings too. Any employment report can reveal how much you’ll make during your first year. The real trick, however, is uncovering how your MBA will accrue in value over time. According to data shared exclusively with Poets&Quants by PayScale, there is one truth above all others in graduate business education…

“You get what you pay for.”

VALUE OF A HARVARD MBA INCREASES OVER TIME

Translation: The highest-ranked – and generally most costly – programs generally yield the highest returns on the backend. Look no further than Harvard Business School. According to PayScale, HBS MBAs are earning an annual median of $204,000 by “mid-career,” which is defined as “10 or more years of experience.” Not surprisingly, Stanford GSB ranked second in mid-career pay at $187,200, followed closely by Wharton ($184,300), MIT Sloan ($182,300), and Columbia Business School ($182,300).

Members of the Class of 2016 celebrate Commencement Day at Harvard Business School

Notice a trend? Each is a private, urban, M7 business school blessed with prestige, deep resources, extensive global connections, and plush endowments. They are also costly on the front end, with their annual tuitions ranging from $64K (Harvard) to $68K (Columbia)…and that doesn’t even count cost of living, travel, and the ever-unwelcome “required fees.” Even more, 8 of the 10 highest-paying mid-career MBA programs were also ranked among P&Q’s top 10 MBA programs – a further testament to rank carrying over to long-term career outcomes.

That’s not to say there weren’t outliers. At Santa Clara University’s Leavey School of Business, MBAs earned $167,800 by mid-career. To an optimist, the number stems from the wealth of tech sector opportunities available in Leavey’s backyard – Silicon Valley. However, this number reveals a flaw in PayScale’s methodology: full-time MBAs aren’t separated out from their executive and online counterparts. Since Leavey’s MBA program caters to working professionals, they would – in theory – own a decided pay advantage with alumni who had steady jobs and career paths. That may not be the case, however. At Leavey, early career pay – median pay for students with 0 to 5 years of business experience – actually stood at $93,000. In other words, Leavey grads nearly doubled their pay between their early and mid-career, which represented the second-highest growth among the 25 highest-paying MBA programs.

Leavey wasn’t alone in making a statement. Emory (Goizueta) grads were also earning more than many higher-ranked peers by mid-career. The latest PayScale data shows Goizueta MBAs pulled down $166,700 by mid-career, an outcome better than Yale SOM. Similarly, Rice (Jones), which holds the #25 spot in the latest P&Q rankings, placed 14th in mid-career pay at $159,600 – ahead of UCLA (Anderson), Cornell (Johnson), and Duke (Fuqua). Similarly, SMU (Cox) ranked 21st with a $153,500 mid-career median. That was nearly $2,500 better than Michigan (Ross), which ranked 36 spots higher. By the same token, Babson College MBA alumni made $148,000 by mid-career despite finishing 54th with P&Q.

PAY LIKELY LOWER THAN WHAT MBA GRADUATES ACTUALLY EARN

This pay data was compiled by PayScale. A leading collector of pay and benefits data, PayScale has partnered with organizations ranging from Google to U.S. News & World Report on compensation-related projects. The data was derived from visitors to the PayScale site, who supplied salary and survey data in order to access industry and regional pay data. The pay is also tagged to the national median, which is the 50th percentile. In other words, half of the respondents earn more than the median and the rest pull down less.

Northwestern University, Kellogg School of Management

The median pay also extends beyond standard base compensation. It factors in bonuses, commissions, and profit sharing. However, it excludes equity, retirement, and non-cash benefits like healthcare. This places schools like Stanford, which places a larger segment of students in early stage startups, at a disadvantage. PayScale also doesn’t adjust numbers to accommodate regional pay differences. To be ranked, MBA programs must generate a minimum of 50 survey profiles from alumni. This is why Dartmouth (Tuck) was again excluded from the list.

How accurate is PayScale salary data? Admittedly, it skews towards the low side. For example, 2017 HBS graduates grossed $150,000 in median base alone, up $15,000 from four years earlier. Despite this, PayScale pegs the number at $118,100 in early career. However, the gap begins to narrow outside the ‘Big Three.’ Exhibit A: Northwestern (Kellogg) grads scooped up $125,000 in median base in 2017, up from $114,000 in 2013. In contrast, the median for Kellogg alumni on PayScale came to $115,800. One reason? Professionals visit PayScale for wage and benefits data, an indication that they may feel underpaid in their industry, role, or location and looking to move on elsewhere.

Overall, Stanford and Wharton grads reported the highest early career median pay at $128,700 and $126,000 respectively among the 25 schools shared by PayScale. However, a strong start didn’t necessarily continue through mid-career. Stanford and Wharton pay grew by just $58,500 and $58,300 respectively between early and mid-career, middle of the pack by top 25 standards. HBS grads enjoyed the biggest growth, an $86,700 improvement. Notre Dame (Mendoza) and Columbia Business School followed suit at $66,500and $66,200 respectively. Looking for the lowest growth? Head south to Duke (Fuqua), where median pay grew by just $41,200. There were also five programs from the top 10 bunched up in the middle with pay gains from $58,300-$58,700 – perhaps a harbinger of the real gains that MBAs should expect as they transition into mid-career.

(Go to next page to see early and mid-career at 25 top MBA programs along with job satisfaction rates by school.)

Students ready to receive their diplomas at the Stanford Graduate School of Business 2017 Commencement. Photo by Nathan Allen

YALE MBAs DOWN ON THEIR JOBS

Pay isn’t the only area measured by PayScale. As part of the visitor survey, MBAs were also asked about the degree of meaning and satisfaction they derived from their jobs. To gauge meaning, PayScale asked MBAs the following question: “Does your work make the world a better place?” When it comes to finding meaning in their work, Carnegie Mellon (Tepper) MBAs topped all comers. 67% of Tepper alumni answered either “Very Much So” or “Yes” to the question. 64% of HBS grads answered the same, with Berkeley Haas and UCLA Anderson MBAs alumni agreeing each at a 56% clip. At the opposite end, Cornell (Johnson) endured jobs with the least meaning, with 38% of respondents believing their jobs made the world better. NYU (Stern) and Chicago (Booth) MBAs were nearly as deflated at 39%.

When it comes to job satisfaction, Tepper MBAs weren’t as bullish. PayScale also asked MBAs about how satisfied they were with their jobs. Here, 74% of Tepper grads answered “Extremely Satisfied” or “Fairly Satisfied.” The most satisfied MBAs? Think California and Massachusetts. Stanford GSB topped the list at 91% satisfaction. UCLA (Anderson) MBAs were also pretty thrilled with their station, with 88% of respondents being satisfied. The same could be said of HBS and MIT (Sloan), whose satisfaction rates reached 82% and 81% respectively. 80% of MBAs at Haas and USC (Marshall) remained enamored with their jobs as well. Overall, it was a very happy group, with just one school – Yale SOM – falling under the 50% threshold.

In fact, Yale SOM grads, according to PayScale, appear to have the least happy alumni. Just 52% found meaning in their work while 46% were satisfied with it. That doesn’t mean there wasn’t some ambivalence. At Stanford, the difference between job satisfaction and job meaning was 39 points. At Anderson and Stern, the gap was 32 point, just one point higher than Columbia and Chicago (Booth).

DON’T MISS: THE MOST LUCRATIVE SEVEN-FIGURE MBA DEGREES or THE HIGHEST PAYING MBA CONCENTRATIONS OF 2017

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Ace the HBS Interview: An Insider’s Advice - Poets&Quants

You have just 30 minutes to impress Harvard Business School in your MBA interview. Here’s what the school is looking for, along with six top tips to make the most of your time.

Harvard Business School released invitations to interview on January 25 and 30 to approximately 1,600 candidates – out of a record-breaking 10,351 who submitted applications. And while securing the HBS interview is a laudable feat, it’s no guarantee to making the cut for one of the roughly 942 spaces in this fall’s incoming class.

First and foremost, the HBS interview is a search for authenticity – the admissions committee wants to know you’re the person they met on paper. The format is always 30 minutes with someone from the admissions office, either one-on-one or two-on-one with a seasoned interviewer who has read your entire file and prepared a set of questions specifically for you. While not always possible, they try to pair you with someone experienced in the background you’re either coming from or looking to move into. HBS knows your sector and has divided applications accordingly, ready to evaluate you against the others in your field.

The bad news is that you can have an absolutely flawless interview and still not get an offer. After more than a decade working in admissions at both HBS and INSEAD, I’ve witnessed the anguish of rejecting some truly exceptional candidates by virtue of the numbers – for example, 50 consultants vying for 10 spots and some 18 knock it out of the park. It’s rare, but it happens.

The good news is that HBS don’t bring in anyone who doesn’t have a really solid shot of being admitted. So if you’re among the lucky few it means they’ve seen the seeds of success in you. The interview is your chance to prove that you’re an indisputable asset to the incoming class.

There are several key differentiators that make the HBS interview unique. With these in mind, here are my top six tips for making the best possible impression in your limited time to shine.

1. Know your story and present a clear rationale for your decisions.

Admissions is primarily looking at what you’ve done professionally, using your resume as the starting point. It’s less to do with where you’ve worked than why you worked there, your understanding of your role, and your rationale for making different moves at various stages of your career. Your ability to articulate your thinking behind each of those decisions is critical, along with your motivations and ambitions beyond the MBA.

2. Convincingly connect your career vision to HBS.

Beyond the power of the HBS brand, the admissions committee wants to know that you understand what’s being offered through its general management program – what it will do for you, and then how that connects to your specific professional goals. You’ll need to be logical and convincing, not only about why an MBA, but why right now, and how an MBA is going to serve as a catalyst for your own success post MBA. Often times, applicants focus on leadership, which HBS is known for, but don’t forget at its core, HBS is a general management program, not a leadership school.

3. Convey a nuanced understanding of your market/sector/industry.

The interview is going to be unique to your specific experiences as well as potentially what you wrote in your essay. Do you have a thoughtful plan of action, and is it ambitious enough to be interesting? In terms of your future aspirations, can you demonstrate a broader understanding of the market and a few specific ways the industry might change? If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, have you thought it through tactically, and can you meaningfully articulate the opportunities and core challenges you expect to face? It’s not necessarily about right or wrong in terms of your planned pathway (I’m often asked “is it better to say I want to do x or y” and I always answer, “it’s better to tell them what you actually want to do; fabrication of your goals for the purpose of admissions is a terrible idea.” You want to be sure, whatever pathway you choose, you are able to convey how deeply you’ve considered these things. Doing well in a classroom where the case method dominates means you’ll have to stick up for your points of view – you can’t just offer different ideas without supporting evidence.   

4. Lead with authenticity.

Don’t try to be somebody that you’re not – the admissions committee genuinely wants to understand who you are and how you make decisions. The more you can convey what you were actually thinking, and how you made certain decisions and choices, the more believable and persuasive your impression will be. Be yourself – it’s your unique perspectives, rationale and thought process that distinguish you from others of a similar or identical profile. In mapping your story, you want the enthusiasm to be there, but let honesty and sincerity be the undertone that weaves through the entire conversation.

5. Be prepared but not overly rehearsed.

While it’s vital to be prepared, you want the flow to feel very conversational. I can recall countless interviews when it sounded like the person was hitting the “play” button on an internal recording or reciting a script from memory – which is a big turn-off. The best interviews were always the ones that felt like a natural conversation. It was always gratifying to get the real person in front of me, engage in a detailed discussion about the decisions they made and leave with a deeper understanding of how they tick.

6. Exude quiet confidence, not arrogance.

There can be a fine line between confidence and arrogance, and your ability to discern it conveys your acumen and maturity. HBS is looking for accomplished candidates with humility. Having humility is about letting your accomplishments speak for themselves to a large degree, and knowing when to credit “me” or “we.” Don’t exaggerate or try to inflate your importance or your skill set – given the company you hope to keep in the coming year, it’s vital to be forthright and honest.

It’s true that the HBS takes its interview process very seriously. That’s why it’s vital to think deeply about each stage of your career, and also about why and how you’ll be more successful with a general management degree. HBS admissions want to make sure you understand what you’re getting yourself into, and that you’ll be someone who will contribute in a way that’s meaningful to the program and the community. And if the fit’s mutual, both of you stand to gain.

For more details and advice, view this 18-minute video strategy session on the topic with Fortuna Admissions Director and best-selling author Matt Symonds.

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Karla Cohen is an expert coach at admissions coaching firm Fortuna Admissions and former Associate Director at Harvard Business School. Fortuna is composed of former admissions directors and business school insiders from 12 of the top 15 business schools.

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UCLA Dean To Leave For Top University Job - Poets&Quants

UCLA Anderson Dean Judy Olian is stepping down to become president of Quinnipiac University

After more than a dozen years as dean of UCLA’s Anderson School of Management, Judy Olian today (Jan. 29) announced that she will leave her post at the end of the academic year to become president of Quinnipiac University.

For the Australian-born Olian, who has led Anderson since January of 2006, the new opportunity will allow a return to the East Coast. Before starting at UCLA, she had been dean of Penn State University’s Smeal College of Business as well as acting dean and senior associate dean of the University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business.

In a message sent today to administrators, faculty and staff, UCLA Provost Scott L. Waugh said Olian has left “an indelible mark on the school.” Olian successfully led a hard-fought effort through bureaucratic battles and faculty politics to gain self-supporting status for the school’s full-time MBA program. She has raised $400 million in philanthropic support at a public institution with little history of fundraising, bringing in a record $100 million gift from the late Marion Anderson.

‘A BITTERSWEET DAY FOR UCLA ANDERSON’

During an era of significant cutbacks in state aid, that money has allowed Olian to name three research centers, fund 13 term and endowed professorships, launch numerous student fellowships and programs, and begin construction of the new Marion Anderson Hall. More than half of Anderson’s current faculty were hired under Olian’s watch, and she has significantly increased gender diversity among both faculty and students.

“This is a bittersweet day for UCLA Anderson,” said Robert Murley, chairman of Anderson’s Board of Advisors and vice chairman of Credit Suisse. “We are proud of Dean Olian and the opportunity that she has been given to leverage her many capabilities and assume the leadership of a wonderful university. At the same time, we are sad to see Judy leave. She has been an exceptional dean for Anderson, and the school has flourished under her vision and inspirational leadership.”

Along with Northwestern Kellogg’s Sally Blount and Michigan Ross’ Alison Davis Blake, Olian helped to break the glass ceiling hanging over the deanships of highly ranked business schools. Blake stepped down in 2016, and Blount will leave her job at the end of the current academic year. Olian is hopeful that there will will be more. “I see change happening, perhaps more slowly than I would like,” she says. “But I see it happening and I wouldn’t read anything into the confluence of the three of us leaving because each of us have another act. I am certain we’ll see more progress because there is a strong mix of women who are available and I am sure interested and it’s not just the women deans, it’s the senior associate deans.”

OLIAN TO SUCCEED A UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT WHO HAS BEEN IN HIS JOB FOR 31 YEARS

There are, of course, still several other highly prominent women in major deanships, including Idalene Kesner of Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business, Erika James of Emory’s Goizueta Business School, Sri Zaheer of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management, and Amy Hillman of Arizona State’s W. P. Carey School of Business. And there are now four major searches for business school deans underway at UC-Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, Kellogg, Anderson, and the Wisconsin Business School.

At Quinnipiac, Olian will succeed John L. Lahey, 71, who is retiring at the end of June after 31 years in the job. Lahey transformed the Connecticut school from a small college with 2,000 students to a university of nearly 10,000 students. What was once a small liberal arts college with 2,000 students on a single 100-acre campus has since become a university with three campuses with nearly 10,000 students on over 700 acres. Quinnipiac now has a school of medicine, law, engineering and business along with an endowment that has grown to about $500 million, from under $5 million when Lahey assumed the leadership of the school.

Olian says she is thrilled to get the chance to lead the university, in no small part because of her belief that much of higher education is failing to best prepare students for future needs. “I have been in these major research institutions all my life,” Olian told Poets&Quants. “They are incredible. They move the planet. They change the quality of our well being. They are critical for the future of society. Yet there is also a part of the higher education landscape that addresses the here and now, and I am afraid that many of these institutions miss the needs of the marketplace of the 21st Century.

‘AN OPPORTUNITY THAT GREW ON ME UNTIL I BECAME VERY EXCITED ABOUT IT’

UCLA Anderson Dean Judy Olian

“We have six million jobs unfilled. By any estimate, 40% of college graduates are either under employed or unemployed. And when you think about it longer term, many graduates are struggling to keep up with what they need to know relative to what they have learned. I think that is a huge need and it is not addressed everywhere in higher education. Quinnipiac has been focused on that tight alignment and they are well positioned to prepare students for 21st century careers.”

She was initially approached for the job by the search firm Spencer Stuart and William Weldon, chairman of Quinnipiac’s board of trustees and the former chairman and CEO of Johnson & Johnson.  “It wasn’t an initial ‘I’ve got to do this,’ but it grew on me. I thought about the role of that institution in the higher education landscape and I was really impressed with the board chairman who has taken an active role with the board in advancing what Quinnipiac is. The speed of the university’s trajectory is truly impressive, and the president is a visionary who deserves a lot of credit for it. So the opporunity really grew on me, and I have become very excited about it.”

Anderson, Olian says, shaped her life in many ways. “I will forever and ever love the school and have been honored by it,” she says. “It has changed me. I have deep personal connections to the people on my team. I love the faculty and I love the students. I have a remarkable set of boards and close relationships to the administration. It gets in your blood. I am going to be in touch.”

‘EVERYBODY NEEDS TO PERIODICALLY REPOT THEMSELVES’

Ultimately, however, with this month marking the start of her 13th year as dean, Olian believed that both Quinnipiac and Anderson would benefit from a set of fresh eyes. “One of our great board members once said to me that everybody needs to periodically repot themselves. I think this is a moment of repotting and taking everything you’ve done and learned and starting something with fresh eyes.”

After repotting herself to UCLA from Penn State, Olian led significant changes at Anderson. While the school was already known for having a superb faculty, Olian had to face the challenge of maintaining the quality of Anderson’s professorial talent at a time of diminished resources. “Everyone of them are as good or better than the founding generation of faculty at this school,” she says with pride. “We have become very, very student centric and created an intimate, caring and purposeful culture. I am very proud of the high student satisfaction ratings we get. So many parts of this experience have been designed around students and they feel ownership of that.”

The school also has made great strides toward globalization and now has an entire portfolio of international immersions for students, while the alumni network outside the U.S. has grown to 25 chapters and affiliates from just two when Olian got to the school.

The UCLA Anderson School of Management

OLIAN PERSEVERED THROUGH TWO DIFFICULT CHALLENGES

While vast improvements were made at Anderson during Olian’s time as dean, she also had to overcome two especially difficult hurdles. Her decision in 2011-2012 to move the full-time MBA program to self-funding created an uproar, particularly among faculty outside the business school. The change in status made it easier for the school to raise money from donors and keep tighter control over how those funds were used. But critics of the plan considered it a step toward privatization that would start a trend that could spread to other business and law schools in the UC system. They warned of significantly higher tuition fees that would force graduates to go into severe debt to finance their education.

“The move toward self support was difficult, but it was a very understandably emotional moment,” recalls Olian. “It was much more about money. It was about the ethos of what a public supported institution is. None of that has changed today because we still believe strongly in our public mission. But it happened right after the recession. The state was $27 billion in the hole. Those were difficult times and there was a concern that this would change the whole nature of the relationship between the University of California and the state. That this would open the dyke. I understand it. I felt this was a much bigger shock to beliefs and values than just money. But I get it more in hindsight than I did then.”

The fight was worth it. The record $100 million gift came in after Olian’s plan was approved. and it opened the door to more fundraising. “We were very much a part of the legacy of the University of Califormia. We only started the tradition of fundraising fairly recently. That has happened across the university but also the move toward a self-support model really broadcast the message that we need engagement and support from alumni.”

‘WE HAVE COME A LONG WAY. OUR CULTURE IS MORE ATTUNED AND SENSITIVE TO GENDER DIVERSITY”

Anderson School Dean Judy Olian

Then, in 2015, Olian commissioned a report on gender diversity that ended up being fairly critical of the school. The report by Korn Ferry claimed there was “little real progress has been made. Today, in fact, some feel that the situation is worse than it has been in the past.” Korn Ferry said the school’s “culture and climate” serve to reinforce the status quo, making it difficult for meaningful change. The study also slammed Anderson leaders who Korn Ferry charged “have not demonstrated the focused intention and proactive behavior required to increase diversity.”

The report’s conclusions were painful for Olian to read and acknowledge, partly because the school had made what she considered significant progress. In any case, she then used the report to push through further change that has led to major improvements in faculty and student diversity. “The gender diversity issue was personally painful because in spite of what I thought were my values it wasn’t necessarily as evident as it should have been,” she recalls. “It was me and it was our culture. I am proud of the way we all addressed it. We were not go into hiding. We doubled down and tried to change and I think we have. We have the highest number of female students and are right in the midlde of the mix of faculty gender diversity around 23%. We have come a long way. Our culture is much more attuned and sensitive. We handled it with a lot of self-reflection. This is a journey that is ubitquitous, and I am proud that we took the steps and maybe helped others learn from us.”

“What is also hard for me and something I had to learn every day is just the challenge of leading change. Every system has its traditions and sacred cows. I have a predeliction for change and want to change things quickly when I see the need. And it has been valuable sometimes when you have to slow down and sometimes frustrating. But sometimes your initial biases or not the right ones.”

SEARCH FOR A NEW DEAN TO BEGIN SHORTLY

In his message to the UCLA community, Provost Waugh also noted Olian’s influence outside the business school. “Judy’s impact has been felt not just at Anderson, but across the university,” he wrote. “She is a global thinker, advancing the campus’s global strategic priorities alongside Anderson’s expanding international footprint. She served for 10 years as chair of the Council of Professional School Deans, is a member of the board of UCLA’s Technology Development Group, and was involved in many campus-wide strategic initiatives, committees and advisory groups. She is also a close friend to many of us on the UCLA leadership team.”

UCLA said it will appoint an interim dean to ensure a smooth leadership transition and begin a search for a permanent dean shortly.

DON’T MISS: THE P&Q CENTRECOURT INTERVIEW WITH DEAN JUDY OLIAN

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Students help nonprofit fight Ethiopian taboo: Part II - Olin BlogOlin Blog

Five MBA students are working to end the stigma surrounding menstruation in Ethiopia through their consulting work with US-based nonprofit Dignity Period.

The post Students help nonprofit fight Ethiopian taboo: Part II appeared first on Olin Blog.

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