Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business

For McDonough, the biggest fall was in Forbes’ 2011 biennial ranking, which measures the return-on-investment of the MBA. McDonough fell to a rank of 35, down four places from its 31st place finish in 2009. The school also dropped one spot in the U.S. News survey, dipping to 25th from 24th in 2010. While holding on to its global rank of 38th in The Financial Times’ 2011 rating, McDonough managed a nice six-place climb in The Economist’s survey, rising to a global rank of 44 from 50 a year earlier.

BusinessWeek didn’t rank full-time MBA programs in 2011 because it is an every-other-year survey, but the last look BW took at the school ended up with a McDonough ranking of 33. Previously, the school had been bunched together with a group of other unranked institutions in what the magazine called the “second-tier.” BusinessWeek, which ranks MBA programs largely on the basis of student and corporate recruiter satisfaction, awarded the school a highly coveted grade of A+ for teaching excellence in 2010 (meaning that its teaching grades from the Class of 2010 were among the highest 20% of the 57 schools ranked by BW). Raved one member of the class: “The quality of teaching at Georgetown is outstanding. Classroom sizes do not exceed 60 people. Professors know you by name.”

In a tough year for the MBA job market, graduates were less likely to heap praise on the school’s career management staff. Indeed, in 2010, only 62% of the class had a job offer at graduation. A year later, the school was only able to increase its job offer rate at commencement by four percentage points to a disturbingly low 66%, even though the market for MBAs had improved significantly. An international student who obviously had a difficult time getting placed told BusinessWeek: “Career Management was understaffed, ineffective and at times gave the impression of being disorganized, which really left a sour taste in my mouth to an otherwise fantastic academic and learning experience at Georgetown.”

Looking forward, the school was able to increase the median GMAT score for its entering Class of 2013 by five points to 690, but not without a seven-percentage point increase in its acceptance rate to 49% in 2011 from 42% a year earlier–the result of a decline in applications that has hit many leading business schools. Georgetown has a strong chance to overtake Marshall in 2012 if it can improve its placement record and a few other key quality metrics, including its acceptance rate and GMAT scores.

MBA Program Consideration Set:

Stretch Schools: UCLANorth Carolina, Texas at AustinEmory

Match Schools: Indiana, USC, MinnesotaNotre Dame

Safe Schools: Washington UniversityRiceVanderbilt, Texas A&M

Tuition & Fees: $99,276

Recommended Two-Year Budget: $148,880

Median GMAT: 690

GMAT Range (mid-80%): 640-730

Average GPA: 3.35

Acceptance Rate: 49%

Full-Time MBA Enrollment: 506

International: 35%

Female: 27%

Minority

African American: 3%

Asian American: 20%

Hispanic or Latino American: 2%

Mean Age: 28

Median Base Salary: $100,000

Median Signing Bonus: $20,000

Percentage of MBAs with Job Offers at Graduation: 66%

Percentage of MBAs with Job Offers Three Months Later: 90%

Estimate of Total Pay over a 20-Year Career: $2,570,392 (only 18 other U.S. business schools have higher career pay totals).

Where The Class of 2011 Went To Work:

Financial Services — 34%

Consulting — 23%

Consumer Products — 12%

Technology — 12%

Health Care/Biotech — 5%

Energy — 4%

Manufacturing — 2%

Real Estate — 2%

Government — 1%

Notes: MBA Program Consideration Set: If you believe you’re a close match to this school–based on your GMAT and GPA scores,  your age and work experience, you should look at these other competitive full-time MBA programs as well. We list them by stretch, match and safety. These options are presented on the basis of brand image and ranking status.

* Payscale study for Bloomberg BusinessWeek.

Questions about this article? Email us or leave a comment below.