How MBAs Rate Their Business Schools

The UCLA Anderson School of Management

RESPONDENTS UNIMPRESSED WITH CAREER SERVICES

Overall, you could say recent MBA alumni and students were relatively pleased. Sure, there were two schools that scored below 4.0 for facilities. Otherwise, students as a whole ranked their programs well above average in terms of faculty, curriculum, and culture. Now, you’ll want to brace yourself. As it turns out, Economist survey respondents reserved their scorn for a convenient target that’s often the most maligned: Career services.

How bad was it? Ten programs scored below 4.0, with the worst marks coming out of HEC Paris (3.28) and IESE (3.62). Fuqua MBAs, which doled out some of the highest grades for faculty and culture, dumped a 3.65 on their alma mater. In fact, career services is the achilles heel for several programs which had enjoyed high stakeholder enthusiasm otherwise. Those schools include: Harvard Business School, MIT’s Sloan School of Management, INSEAD, and Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management.

That said, working in a career center is often a thankless task in many MBA programs. It is a Rorschach that somehow metastasizes every student grievance or disappointment. Despite the disaffection at some programs, you’ll find others that excel in this area, such as the consistently high-performing Booth and Anderson MBA programs. Booth, in particular, relies heavily on providing in-time student feedback along with a wide and deep network with employers, to produce a near-perfect placement rate. Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business, renowned for its undergraduate center, delivers a similar level of excellence for MBAs. And well-heeled programs like Columbia, Wharton, and Kellogg have also turned their career centers into augers for increasing student capabilities and opportunities, experiences certain to pay off in alumni support down the line.

DON’T MISS: RANKING THE B-SCHOOL RANKINGS