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Misalignment of MBA Rankings

Team 23

November 12, 2020

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Our team

Shanthi Pandiri

Nathan Zinn

Jackie Markisz

Nick Mccormick

Kara Hawkins

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Introduction

Rankings do provide a small indication for the strength of a business school

Prospective MBA candidates use rankings to figure out what university they should atten

A source from the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), “over 80 percent of prospective students globally say they consult rankings when researching which business schools to attend”

Every ranking is different

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Ranking companies

Forbes

03

Data is collected from alumni

Measures: ROI after graduation

Businessweek

02

Data is collected from alumni, students and schools

Focuses on the satisfaction levels of alumni, current students and corporate recruiters

US News Report

01

Financial Times

Data is collected from alumni

Salary increase, diversity of gender and nationalities (school's staff, faculty, students), international orientation

04

Fact based

Admission rate
Employment outcomes
Compensation
Gender
Alumni network size

Opinion-based

Employer/recruiter assessment
Alumni surveys
Professor quality
Campus experience
Alumni network

Data of programs comes by deans, directors and corporate recruiters, student selectivity, salary increase and employment rate

Ratings of programs by deans, directors and corporate recruiters, student selectivity, salary increase and employment rate

The MBA ranking reward system is in misalignment because they all have different grading criteria and they are not grounded in facts and raw data. They are more focused on opinions and timeliness of feedback.
�For this presentation we will focus on four MBA ranking companies: US news report, Businessweek, Forbes, and Financial Times.
��The US news report’ data of programs comes by deans, directors and corporate recruiters, student selectivity, salary increase and employment rate.

Businessweek: Data is collected from alumni, students and schools.

Focuses on the satisfaction levels of alumni, current students and corporate recruiters.

Frorbes:

Data is collected from alumni .

Measures: ROI after graduation.

Financial times:

Data is collected from alumni .

Salary increase, diversity of gender and nationalities (school's staff, faculty, students), international orientation.

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Problems with MBA rankings

Ambiguous criteria and lacks transparency

MBA rankings are seen to be out of touch with the delivery of MBA programs

Some programs falsify their data to fit MBA rankings requirements

The former dean of Temple University’s business school was involved with fraudulent data submissions to U.S. News to boost the school’s standing.

Focus their recruiting efforts solely on the ranking standards

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Factors that incentivise current behavior

Employment focused

Exaggeration & misstatements

Academic focused

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Factors that decentivise

current behavior

Negative feedback

Upsetting stakeholders

Increase cohort size

Extracurriculars

Accepting lower GPA/GMAT

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Recommendations

Redefine the relationship

Cooperation

Advancement of Ranking Criteria

Thank you, Nate!

� Although no cure-all antidote is available for the rankings' spell, some actions by the players involved can retain the benefits of academic competition, improve education, and still sell magazines. At least one of these possible actions requires a redefinition of the relationship between business schools and the media. Whereas this relationship has to date been overwhelmingly opposing, it could be better viewed as a form of partnership. In fact, the business school-ranking media relationship might, if anything, be seen more productively as a symbiotic one: The magazines need the business schools and, perhaps surprisingly, the business schools need the media. Under this assumption, we suggest, media organizations could - and should - take stock of unintended consequences, the undermining of professional management education.

� The lost-telling criticisms of the rankings are that the existing criteria are ill-chosen, incomplete, and arbitrarily weighted. Those criteria can be chosen more judiciously with the active participation by representatives of both parties. This is a system that can be fixed with mutual cooperation. If constituents insist on an overall ranking number (as they are likely to do), at least that number can be constructed with more complete criteria and some mutually agreed-upon weighting. Yet, the development of more comprehensive criteria would also enable the publishing of other indices besides an overall ranking, such that different constituents could assess schools on criteria most relevant to them.

�In addition, ranking criteria should be published in advance and adhered to for a reasonable amount of time, giving business schools time to focus on substantive educational improvement. It is a straightforward recognition that so long as criteria shift every year, business schools have little option other than to focus on image to stay in the game because bona fide improvements usually require more than a year to design and implement. The media might resist these suggestions initially, but considering them is in their own interest. Otherwise, we have a future not only of illusion but also of power struggles unlikely to produce a winner.

�Thus, failing some sort of cooperative effort, business schools will simply need to become savvier at the adversarial game to have any hope of counter- ing the spell. Perhaps the only way business schools can develop the wherewithal to usurp the magazine's power is by constructing their own more credible ranking system. Clearly, they cannot do it themselves, as outside stakeholders would see such a system as just as self-interested and suspect as business schools see the current ones.

�This concludes our brief on realigning the MBA rankings reward system.

�

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References

Are MBA rankings fit for purpose? (n.d.). Retrieved November 14, 2021, from https://businessgraduatesassociation.com/app/uploads/2019/06/Rankings-research-findings-min.pdf
Are MBA Rankings Still Relevant? (n.d.). Www.aacsb.edu. Retrieved November 14, 2021, from https://www.aacsb.edu/insights/2021/february/are-mba-rankings-still-relevant
Bloomberg - Are you a robot? (n.d.). Www.bloomberg.com. Retrieved November 14, 2021, from https://www.bloomberg.com/business-schools/2019/methodology
Byrne, J. A. (2020, December 5). MBA Ranking Scandal Costs Temple At Least $17 Million. Poets&Quants. https://poetsandquants.com/2020/12/05/mba-ranking-scandal-costs-temple-at-least-17-million/?pq-category=business-school-news&pq-category-2=online-mba-rankings
Gioia, D. A., & Corley, K. G. (2002). Being good versus Looking good: Business school rankings and the CIRCEAN transformation from substance to image. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 1(1), 107–120. https://doi.org/10.5465/amle.2002.737372
Morse, R., Brooks, E., Vega-Rodriguez, J., Ari Castonguay, & Hines, K. (2021). Methodology: 2022 Best Business Schools Rankings. US News & World Report; U.S. News & World Report. https://www.usnews.com/education/best-graduate-schools/articles/business-schools-methodology

Thank you, Nate!

� Although no cure-all antidote is available for the rankings' spell, some actions by the players involved can retain the benefits of academic competition, improve education, and still sell magazines. At least one of these possible actions requires a redefinition of the relationship between business schools and the media. Whereas this relationship has to date been overwhelmingly opposing, it could be better viewed as a form of partnership. In fact, the business school-ranking media relationship might, if anything, be seen more productively as a symbiotic one: The magazines need the business schools and, perhaps surprisingly, the business schools need the media. Under this assumption, we suggest, media organizations could - and should - take stock of unintended consequences, the undermining of professional management education.

� The lost-telling criticisms of the rankings are that the existing criteria are ill-chosen, incomplete, and arbitrarily weighted. Those criteria can be chosen more judiciously with the active participation by representatives of both parties. This is a system that can be fixed with mutual cooperation. If constituents insist on an overall ranking number (as they are likely to do), at least that number can be constructed with more complete criteria and some mutually agreed-upon weighting. Yet, the development of more comprehensive criteria would also enable the publishing of other indices besides an overall ranking, such that different constituents could assess schools on criteria most relevant to them.

�In addition, ranking criteria should be published in advance and adhered to for a reasonable amount of time, giving business schools time to focus on substantive educational improvement. It is a straightforward recognition that so long as criteria shift every year, business schools have little option other than to focus on image to stay in the game because bona fide improvements usually require more than a year to design and implement. The media might resist these suggestions initially, but considering them is in their own interest. Otherwise, we have a future not only of illusion but also of power struggles unlikely to produce a winner.

�Thus, failing some sort of cooperative effort, business schools will simply need to become savvier at the adversarial game to have any hope of counter- ing the spell. Perhaps the only way business schools can develop the wherewithal to usurp the magazine's power is by constructing their own more credible ranking system. Clearly, they cannot do it themselves, as outside stakeholders would see such a system as just as self-interested and suspect as business schools see the current ones.

�This concludes our brief on realigning the MBA rankings reward system.

�