Being Married To An Accountant The following exchange is a typical example of how being in business school can cause... Read>> Posted September 13, 2008
Last Rose of Summer The last few days have been rainy and cool. The days are getting shorter. And... Read>> Posted September 11, 2008
First Day of Second Year Yesterday was my first day back to school at Darden and with it came many... Read>> Posted August 26, 2008
Working For A Living I am currently hanging out with my brother-in-law in Charlottesville working on my blog. I... Read>> Posted August 18, 2008
RIDICULOUS RANKING RANT Why Selfish Darden Students Are The Problem
Today dawned red and bright, and felt warmer than the 36 degrees my Jeep dashboard reported on the way to Starbucks. I’ve gotten into the somewhat ridiculous habit of picking up a cup of drip coffee on the way to Darden if I go in before 8:00. It feels like a way of soothing the pain of getting up before 6:00 or whatever but I always wonder if my hipper friends are quietly judging me when I walk into class with the green mermaid in my hand. Today I went in early not for class but because I had a one-on-one chat set up with a great professor Bob Landel. I’m taking his very good Systems Design course and had a few questions that I didn’t get a chance to ask in class, so I just sent him an email asking if he wouldn’t mind meeting up to go over a few things. However, since he didn't respond to me email by the next class, I just yelled at him as was trying to make a break for the door.
“Did you get the email I sent earlier?” I yelled. “Could be. I get a lot of emails. What did it say?”” Bob fired back. “I wanted to get together to go over some of my work from earlier and discuss…” Bob cut me off. “What time did you say?” Bob asked. He was standing in the hallway with a guest (you’d know his work) and needed to take him to lunch. I summoned up all the strength I had left and willed myself to be brief, “7:15 tomorrow morning.” “Done.” And that was it. You’d think by now I would have learned my lesson but I continue to think that I need to explain myself, give a good reason for meeting with a professor, or just explain why this particular time was best for me. No one ever cares. I am positively certain that I have met one on one with every single professor I’ve had at Darden. I also think it highly likely that most students meet with the majority of their professors as well. Which means that professors around here must love teaching, or hate research, or work a lot from home… Because there just doesn’t seem to be enough time in a day for faculty to meet with 3-4 students for an hour each, teach two 90 minute classes, eat lunch, respond to emails, attend mandatory meetings, and write cutting-edge books, papers, and cases.
The reason I bring this up is because BusinessWeek’s recent ranking of Business Schools put Darden at 16th in the nation. This may seem respectable to some people, but this is in comparison to our Forbes ranking of 5th, Wall Street Journal ranking of 10, and our former BusinessWeek ranking of 5th in the 90’s. Does this mean that our school has fallen off the map? I don’t think so. I just think that our blatantly student-focused staff spend so much time with students that they simply cannot compete with other programs in areas like scholarly research published per year, conferences attended, and so forth, that makes up a large % of the "peer ranking" portion that B-Week includes in their poll
On the other hand, some might argue that our current BusinessWeek ranking has everything to do with perceptions in the market. But if so, what perception could possibly be pulling us down? Our recruiter surveys consistently rank us in the top 5-6 of all B-Schools (including this year). Our % employed at graduation is in the top 5-6, and the quality of our education ranks 4th (in a five-way tie with Wharton, Stanford, Columbia, Cornell, and ourselves) according to this year’s BusinessWeek ranking. I think something else is going on to skew our ranking downwards.
In fact, the more I consider this issue, the more I believe it's me. I’m the problem. Every time I keep a faculty member after class, send an email asking for clarification, or stop by someone’s office unannounced, I keep the Darden faculty from schmoozing with their friends or editing their latest, extremely important article for the International Journal of Operations & Production Management or whatever.
But I’ve come to be at peace with my decision. Ok, sure, in the long-term more of our faculty should probably be put in special “student-free-zones” so they can have more time to focus on our ranking, but for now I’m happy to have the level of attention I’ve received. Unlike some people may want an MBA for bragging rights on the golf course, I wanted an MBA so I could learn how the markets work, how value gets created, and how to capitalize on arbitrage opportunities when I find them. If that’s you, then you’ll be hard-pressed to find a better all-around environment for learning than here in Charlottesville. For the others of you out there I wish you the best of luck. There are plenty schools who will be happy to admit you, give you a sub-par education, and then slap a label on your resume that supposedly means you are a "Master of Business Administration".
Oh, and for the rest of you who are still just keeping score, here are the latest rankings in the student-focused metrics that I think matter the most anyway:
#1 Faculty – Princeton Review
#4 Alumni Network – Economist
#4 MBA education – BusinessWeek
#4 ROI – Forbes
#10 Recruiter Opinion - Wall St. Journal
And now like a good Darden student it’s back to the grindstone. I’ve got two papers due and a very long to-do list with my name on it. Be back soon.
UPDATE: A little bird in Darden's Admissions Marketing & PR Dept. just corrected my Forbes ranking. We are not #5, but are #4. Click for the Forbes ranking page Posted November 26, 2008 MBA Rankings Posted by: David I think this is a great post, and one that reads very well if you have read http://dardenblogs.com/mba-rankings-management/
Posted 2008-11-28 15:04:08
Posted by: Lauren Good post. Prospective students also need to remember that rankings aren't everything. Fit is just as important as prestige. Posted 2008-12-07 21:40:18 perspective Posted by: mandy yours is so welcome! thanks for writing that. and if someone else wants yet another perspective, check out bill gray's post on the rankings. he is very detailed and even endures some jabs in the comments from an obviously-confused jerk who might go to another school that happens to land higher up on the list than us (this year, anyway). but read it for bill's words, not the jokesters in the comments. though that is a fun 5 minutes.
it's good to have defenders and philosophers putting pen to paper and thinking about the big "why" of the rankings. i didn't write much. at all. Posted 2009-01-18 14:42:58 COMMENT ON THIS POST
