Rankings: Imperfect and Important
Gene Anderson, Associate Dean for Degree Programs
Issue date: 1/31/05 Section: Dean's Office
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I'm sure that many of you would argue that rankings of business schools are not worth the paper on which they are printed. Despite what we may think of the various methodologies and measures, the reality is that rankings remain the most widely used barometer of a business school's reputation. A business school's stock in the real world rises and falls with where it stands in rankings by Business Week, U.S. News, the Economist, the Financial Times, and the Wall Street Journal, to name just a few.
While these metrics may not always reflect Michigan's true value - either our current state or our promise for the future, we all know that we must take the implications of these rankings seriously. Our rankings are important to prospective students, faculty, recruiters, alumni, corporate sponsors, university administrators, and many other important constituencies.
So, we carefully track our rankings, where we stand in each poll, and what makes each one tick. This year, the Full-Time MBA program is 6th in Business Week, 10th in U.S. News, 11th in the Economist, 16th in the Financial Times, and 1st in the Wall Street Journal. The BBA program is ranked 3rd in the primary poll for undergraduate programs by U.S. News. Executive Education is ranked 3rd in Business Week. A major determinant of how well we fare in a given poll is the degree of fit between a ranking's methodology and our chosen strategy as a school. Given our broad-based, general management approach, we naturally tend to do better in some rankings than others. In particular, we generally do well where recruiter opinions are a major input (Wall Street Journal, Business Week) and not as well when what really matters is placing a large percentage of students in one or two very high paying industries (Financial Times, Forbes, and to a lesser extent U.S. News).
Personally, for a wide variety of reasons, I don't like to see us outside the top ten in any listing of business schools or individual programs.
While these metrics may not always reflect Michigan's true value - either our current state or our promise for the future, we all know that we must take the implications of these rankings seriously. Our rankings are important to prospective students, faculty, recruiters, alumni, corporate sponsors, university administrators, and many other important constituencies.
So, we carefully track our rankings, where we stand in each poll, and what makes each one tick. This year, the Full-Time MBA program is 6th in Business Week, 10th in U.S. News, 11th in the Economist, 16th in the Financial Times, and 1st in the Wall Street Journal. The BBA program is ranked 3rd in the primary poll for undergraduate programs by U.S. News. Executive Education is ranked 3rd in Business Week. A major determinant of how well we fare in a given poll is the degree of fit between a ranking's methodology and our chosen strategy as a school. Given our broad-based, general management approach, we naturally tend to do better in some rankings than others. In particular, we generally do well where recruiter opinions are a major input (Wall Street Journal, Business Week) and not as well when what really matters is placing a large percentage of students in one or two very high paying industries (Financial Times, Forbes, and to a lesser extent U.S. News).
Personally, for a wide variety of reasons, I don't like to see us outside the top ten in any listing of business schools or individual programs.
