9) Several Numbers Stand Out

Rankings hardly tell the whole story. For many schools, there are data points that might surprise applicants (and even administrators themselves). 

Take placement. Here, Iowa State produced a 96.6% employment rate for graduates. Still, this rate is tempered by $67,003 average pay packages to start – a number that falls below 93 of the Top 100 schools according to U.S. News. The Stevens Institute of Technology also achieved a 96.3% rate in 2020 (along with $91,484 to start).

Looking for a program that carefully screens its MBA candidates? Start with Penn State Smeal, where just 20% of applicants get accepted. The University of Rochester’s Simon School ranks 33rd and clocks in at 24.5%. UC Irvine’s Merage School and Texas Christian University’s Neeley School both rank 57th – and report 20.3% and 31.3% acceptance rates too. In fact, Merage is more selective than the MBA programs at UC Berkeley, UCLA, and USC. Not to be overlooked, the University of Arizona’s Eller College only accepts one-out-of-every four candidates who apply. That said, it isn’t particularly difficult to receive an offer at Clemson’s University of the University of Oklahoma’s Price College. Their acceptance rates reached 96.1% and 93% respectively in 2020.

Several MBA programs also feature graduates whose pay far exceeds their school’s ranking. UC-Davis’ Graduate School of Management may rank 53rd, but its $130,317 pay packages best those enjoyed by graduates of 22 programs ranked above them. Howard University also fits this description. At $126.849 on average, Howard MBAs are pulling down more to start than the likes of Arizona State and Brigham Young grads. Similarly, Rochester Simon MBAs made $143,249 in 2020, more than either Emory Goizueta or Georgia Tech Scheller alums. While recruiters pay Iowa State grads low, they are certainly attracted to them. Cyclone MBAs scored a 3.6 in the Recruiter survey – tying the school with USC’s Marshall School. Not to be outdone, the Stevens Institute of Technology averaged a 3.9 with recruiters, which tied it with NYU Stern and Carnegie Mellon Tepper.  

Here’s one more: UC-San Diego’s Rady School ranks 87th. However, its incoming class averaged a 662 GMAT – or better than the score produced by the University of Washington’s Foster School…which ranks 22nd. 

10) Academics Think More Highly Of The Schools Than Corporate Recruiters

One of the more interesting, if flawed, part of the U.S. News’ approach to ranking MBA programs is its surveys of academics and corporate recruiters. It’s generally less useful than you would think because the scores tend to be closely clustered together and you don’t really know who is responding to the surveys. You can bet that the deans at Harvard and Stanford are filling out these surveys nor are the top recruiters at McKinsey & Co. and Goldman Sachs.

Nonetheless, a fascinating pattern emerges when you compare the scores to each other. Academics who deliver the curriculum consistently rank programs higher than the recruiters who acquire the talent from these programs. In most cases, the differences are slim but they are still consistent. On a five-point scale, with five being the highest mark possible, the responding deans and senior faculty generally give .20-.40 higher scores than recruiters.

Translation: Academics think their peers are far better than the companies that hire the MBA talent. The trend is most obvious at the higher ranked programs. Academics, for example, give Stanford’s MBA program an average 4.8 score but recruiters assign it a 4.5 (see below table). The deans and professors award Harvard Business School a 4.8, while the recruiters award the students produced by the MBA program a 4.4. For the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management, the gap is slightly greater: 3.6 from the academics and 3.1 from the recruiters.

You have to get down to the MBA program ranked 31st, Brigham Young University’s Marriott School of Business, when the pattern breaks. Academics give Marriott’s MBA program an average score of 3.1, but recruiters think more highly of the students, awarding them a 3.4. The spread is even more produced at UT-Dallas’ Jindal where recruiters rate the program a 3.9 but academics deem it worthy of just a 3.2.

The conclusion? Academics have a higher opinion of their contributions to business education than the folks who hire the talent produced by business schools. It’s just another reminder that business school faculty need to leave the ivory tower more frequently to stay in touch with the business leaders who are actually doing business and not studying it.

By the way, the lowest peer assessment score for any Top 100 program–a 2.1–is assigned to North Carolina A&T State University, while the lowest recruiter score goes to the University of San Diego and Belmont University, both got a 2.6. The highest scoring schools on U.S. News’ peer assessment survey, receiving that top 4.8 score, were Stanford, Wharton, Harvard and MIT. The super scorers on the recruiter survey, achieving a 4.5, were Stanford and Wharton.

DON’T MISS: STANFORD AGAIN WINS TOP HONORS IN 2021 U.S. NEWS MBA RANKING or HOW U.S. NEWS RANKS THE TOP MBA PROGRAMS BY DISCIPLINE