P&Q’s Must Reads: Ranking: LinkedIn’s Debut MBA Ranking: Shrewd Concept, Botched Execution

Hello everyone  — Welcome back to Poets&Quants’ Must Reads, a quick, digestible recap of the top business school news, sponsored by CentreCourt, P&Q’s virtual admission events.

I’m your host, Kristy Bleizeffer, and I’ll be highlighting the most important P&Q stories you might have missed. So, let’s get to it. 

No. 1: LinkedIn’s Debut MBA Ranking: Shrewd Concept, Botched Execution

LinkedIn today this week released its inaugural Top MBA Programs 2023, which ranked the best 50 American business schools for career growth. Call it a missed opportunity – a good idea that squanders its credibility by overlooking the most fundamental part of any comparison: transparency.

The methodology didn’t include any weights for each measure, nor did LinkedIn supply any underlying data alongside the ranking. In other words, they leave it up to their readers’ imagination on how business schools ranked where they did. This lack of transparency only raises questions about how trustworthy the LinkedIn ranking really is.

For what that’s worth, the ranking still provided a ranking that fits with conventional wisdom, based on their own data of career outcomes, promotion potential and more. You can find the full list in our ranking tab.

No. 2: A Prominent Harvard Business School Alum Attacks University Over Failure To Address Antisemitism On Campus

A highly prominent and deeply engaged Harvard Business School alum says he has lost confidence in University President Claudine Gay to effectively lead the university in the wake of a surge of antisemitism on the campus.

In a scathing letter to President Gay, Bill Ackman, a 1992 MBA and member of the Dean’s Advisory Board at Harvard Business School, said that “the situation at Harvard is dire and getting worse, much worse than I had realized.”

Among other things, Ackman cited an attack on a Harvard Business School student on Oct. 18th after a pro-Palestinian demonstration crossed from Cambridge to the HBS campus. 

You can read the full letter now, in our news tab.

No. 3: Ranking: World’s Best MBA Programs for Entrepreneurship

For the fifth year in a row, Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis has finished No. 1 in Poets&Quants’ ranking of the World’s Best MBA Programs for Entrepreneurship. 

In fact, Olin has topped the list every year we’ve done the ranking, starting with our 2020 issue.

Our annual ranking of MBA entrepreneurship programs dropped on Wednesday. As part of the package, we published how every school scored in each of our 16 metrics. Our methodology is designed to measure how resources are allocated to individual students, and each of the schools in the ranking are entrepreneurial gems.

We invite you to take a seat with this package and pour over the data. It is featured now on our homepage.

No. 4: Our Weekly Round Up of  News You Can Use

No matter where you are in your MBA journey, we bring several helpful stories for you this week.

First up: You’ve Been Interviewed. Now What?

In this story,  from Fortuna Admissions, outlines what candidates should do following that all important face-to-face. You can find it on our homepage.

Next: This Teacher Took The New GMAT & Scored A 755. Here’s What He Thinks Of The Test

This story, in our GMAT/GRE tab, offers Insights from a Manhattan Prep teacher on the evolution of the exam & what students can expect.

Finally: 4 Must-Knows About Your HBS Interview

This story from Gatehouse Admissions helps you be one of the 50% of interviewed candidates to actually become a Harvard MBA. You can find it in our admission hub.

And, that’s it for this week’s Must Reads recap. 

I also want to alert school seekers to our events tab from our main menu. There, you’ll find all the upcoming admissions events for a range of degrees and programs including full-time and online MBAs, specialized masters, entrepreneurship and more. Registration is free.

Again, I’m Kristy Bleizeffer, and you can join me next week, right here, for a recap of what’s important in the world of business education. Thanks for listening and, as always, stay informed!