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MBA students shun league tables, survey shows
Anna Bawden
Thursday September 08 2005
The Guardian
Business school league tables are no longer the main criteria for choosing MBAs, an international survey has revealed.
According to a survey of over 4,000 aspiring MBAs, the most important factor was a school's reputation, followed by the track record of its careers service, return on financial investment, availability of scholarships and other financial aid, and the range of subjects that the school specialised in. But traditional business school rankings came only sixth in order of importance. David Lampe of Harvard Business School said league tables did not take sufficient account of the diversity of student interests. "Students have a wide range of interests, abilities and ambitions and, at the same time, business schools have a wide range of strengths and approaches to business education. What matters most is the match," he explained.
Pat Harker, the dean of Wharton business school at Pennsylvania University, said: "There is a very strong consensus among alumni, faculty and other institutions that the ranking methodologies are severely flawed." As a result, Harvard and Wharton now boycott such league tables.
"There seems to be a growing disillusionment with traditional 'static' rankings both among students and schools", said Nunzio Quacquarelli, director of the World MBA Tour and organiser of the research.
QS, the company behind the World MBA Tour, has followed the Guardian's University rankings and has introduced rankings that can be tailored to reflect individual priorities.
The "scorecard" allows over 200 schools to be weighted according to criteria such as return on investment, strength of faculty and diversity of student body to create a personalised ranking tailored to their own individual needs and abilities.
Participating business schools include all the key European institutions: Italy's SDA Bocconi; France's HEC and Insead; Spain's IESE, ESADE and Instituto de Empresa; Switzerland's IMD and Cambridge, Cranfield, Imperial, London, Manchester and Warwick in the UK. American schools featured include: Chicago, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, Michigan, Northwestern, UCLA and Wharton. Visitors to the World MBA Tour in London on October 22 at Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre can try the scorecard for free. | 
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发表于 2005-9-23 23:48:00
