Booth A Likely Victim Of BW Ranking Changes

MBA GRADUATE RESPONSE RATE FELL TO 48.6% FROM 56%

Changes also were made to the other two portions of the methodology: the student survey as well as a measure of a school’s intellectual capital as determined by publication of articles by a school’s faculty. Those changes are likely to be far less consequential to the overall ranking because intellectual capital only accounts for 10% of the overall methodology or because the student scores are so closely bunched together that they tend to exert much less influence than the corporate recruiter score.

BusinessWeek said it sent out 21,833 surveys to graduating MBAs this year at 138 schools. Some 10,605 students responded for a response rate of 48.6%. That compared with a response rate of 56% in 2012 when BusinessWeek surveyed 18,640 MBA graduates at 114 schools.

This year’s student survey, the magazine said, has been changed so that the latest survey results account for 75% of the student score, with the remaining 25% coming from the 2012 survey results. “As a result, this year’s ranking will show more change than previous rankings have done because previous years of ranking weigh less heavily on the current scores,” wrote Rodkin.

LIST WILL SHOW FAR MORE VARIABILITY

Typically, the Bloomberg BusinessWeek rankings have shown less survey-to-survey variation than other lists. That’s because the magazine had more heavily used  historical data in its ranking. In both its surveys of MBA employers and graduates, BusinessWeek used to incorporate two previous sets of data. So the latest results of those surveys—which account for 90% of the methodology—are given a weight of 50%, while the two previous surveys, done in 2012 and 2010—would each be given 25%. That tended to put more stability into the ranking. The new changes make this less so.

Even relatively small changes in methodology can have a fairly sizable impact on some schools. Last year, for example, a change in the way BusinessWeek tallied up its recruiter surveys led to a 15-place decline for Southern Methodist University’s Cox School of Business to No. 29 from 12. The University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business plummeted to No. 52 from No. 36 as a result of a slight change in how BusinessWeek calculated its employer score. This year’s changes promise much more of an upheaval.

BusinessWeek said the student score would be based on a list of 27 specific questions asked of the Class of 2014. They range from “program administrators have been responsive to students’ concerns and opinions” to “I feel ready to manage a team.” Students are asked to respond to these questions on a five-point scale, indicating whether they “strongly agree” or “strongly disagree” with a statement.

BusinessWeek disclosed that UCLA’s Anderson School was in third place in its student survey and 16th in its employer survey– a big improvement from its 21st place showing on the student portion of the ranking in 2012 and a 19th place finish on the employer side. In 2012, UCLA’s overall rank was 18th.

The magazine didn’t make any major changes to the intellectual capital component of the ranking, nor did it mention to readers that in 2012 it miscalculated those scores, resulting in the need to publish a corrected ranking later. BusinessWeek didn’t explain if it changed procedures to make sure a similar error does not occur in the future.

DON’T MISS: BUSINESSWEEK’S CORRECTED 2012 MBA RANKING