BusinessWeek 2008 Undergraduate B-School Rankings are Out!

as a bing alum, let me tell you the truth. i shoulda went to NYU Stern or Cornell

these rankings are bs, i don't go to carnegie, in fact i don't like the school in general, but they have amazing recruiting, firmwide internships with tons of fortune 100 firms, they don't even accept transfer students because nobody ever transfers out. it def deserves to be higher than #22. wasn't nyu stern #2 or 3 on US news and ranking? more recruiters than anywhere, stellar education for undergrad+mba, 9 is kind've low.

and BC at number 14 when carnegie's 22? what the hell are they basing this on? They gave Carnegie a C for recruiting last year...go on their website and there's a huge alumni network and lists of recruiters. BC is more alumni-based and not a lot of firmwide picks, lots of finance/ops bs, i'm not sure about top 20, but def a good school regardless of its ranking.

Meh, I would think UT/UNC/UCB need to be higher than BYU.

And Norte Dame? Is there really that much recruiting there?

a little surprised wisconsin is so low, some rankings have them at 13

what is wrong with these people? Their rankings are just a desperate cry for attention because no credible ranking could flucuate that much from year to year. Honestly, any ranking that has MIT/Berkley as 9&11 should not be taken seriously. Notre Dame # 3? Give me a break. Someone should really get fired over there for coming up with these dumb ranking. BYU/NYU/EMORY(????????????)/Nortre Dame before MIT huh?

These rankings are really bad. Damn, university of florida is way better than southern methodist or bentley or those other ones that are high up.

Honestly, no one gives a shit about these rankings. I would be surprised if more than 30% of people involved in interviewing/resume screening are aware of the rankings... also probably the most obvious sign of a weak resume or insecurity is someone talking about their UG b-school ranking.

These only matter to high school seniors applying to college and the Dean's of the schools. Is Emory even a target school?

The detailed breakdown of how each school got ranked can be found here:

http://bwnt.businessweek.com/interactive_reports/undergrad_bschool/

The little paragraph at the top describes why/how certain leaps in the tables were made. If someone can find the same table but for last year, that may also help in explaining the rankings.

And believe it or not, recruiters do take these rankings into account or at least know the relative position of the schools they are interviewing at on the list...

Everything is subjective on these lists. Who cares how a school is ranked. It's just another way for people to look at their peers and quantify themselves over someone else based around a trivial list. Now that you mention it, "The List" was on tonight. Take a look at that great South Park episide and then bring this up. Just proves how trivial this kind of shit is.

Meehgs,

What bank do you work at and how do you know they take into account the rankings? From my experience it's basically banks like to recruit schools people in the bank attended. Rankings like this mean jack sh*t. Really. Think of all the Iveys without BBA programs. Also, these are a total joke. US News & World Report is much more reliable, and their top three (there is a tie for third), rank 1, 6, 9, 11 on this list. I would also like to see how UVA/Michigan/Cal are ranked so differently, when they tend to be very similar. And BYU at 7 is a complete joke.. and Emory that high - please.

I don't believe that recruiters give any stock to the rankings at all. I think you're full of shit.

The "A+" bucket of schools is a better list.

Meehgs is obviously a retard... Buck seems a bit more bright.

Hey Buck, I don't work anywhere yet :-) Still in college but with SA offers. I do know that the head of my school's recruitment team at a top BB mentioned how my major had received a pretty good ranking last year and we were expected to move higher this year (which we did - this was before the rankings were released). It was also mentioned in another superday I had by an interviewer not from my school. Granted, the talk was more general (so how does your program compare to others? Have you looked at rankings? How would you say it prepares you for this type of work?). Hope that helps...

That was unnecessary.

univ of Florida better than SMU and Bentley? I think Bentley is a shit school full of rich kids that couldn't get into a decent school, but it is still leaps ahead of UoF. Give me a break... There's always 1 or 2 SMU and Bentley kids in a class.

Krakauer, I think you may be reading the list from the bottom up... UF (is that the proper abbreviation?) was ranked 46 while SMU and Bently were ranked 23 and 30, respectively.

U.S. News' undergrad business ranking is based purely on surveys from deans and faculty members, of course it's gonna make a lot more sense than some journalist, who doesn't know jack about business education, trying to come up with random formulas for calculating the school's "index".

U.S. News' ranking (UPenn, MIT, Berkeley, Michigan, UNC, UVA, Texas...) makes a lot more sense in its methodology, and also in actually placing the better schools on top.

these rankings are a joke and we all know it. US news is far more reliable. To Krauker - the business faculty at UF tops the faculty at Bentley and SMU combined. Some of the professors here taught at places like penn and yale.

R U RAH RAH R U RAH RAH
HOO RAH HOO RAH RUTGERS RAH

YAY #50

im an econ major, so im not in rbs anyways

There's a difference between how business magazines and the U.S. News looks at business programs vs. banks. I don't think they're necessarily looking at "what the best schools for banking" are. We already know what the target schools at the major banks are. These publications are ranking probably on overall placement into finance (and that includes corporate finance - Fortune 500 and 1000, commercial banking etc.), accounting (Big 4), consulting, marketing and advertising, etc.

That's not to say there's a relatively high correlation between a great school that helps you get a great job (i.e. banking) and their corresponding ranking on lists like this. But just because everyone here happens to think banking and consulting are the top jobs an undergrad can get, therefore the most recruited schools for banking and consulting should be the highest ranked - that isn't how these reviewers think. They're looking generally - and their target market is probably the average college kid (or parents) who wants to find a decent job after school - not necessarily banking.

GameTheory is the only person on this thread that's posted a meaningful and thought-out response.

Everyone that goes to undergraduate business school doesn't want to be an investment banker or a management consultant.

I was replying to someone's post -- not commenting on the rankings.

People at A LOT OF SCHOOLS have taught at "Penn and Yale".

All my posts were very carefully thought out.

In all seriousness, I think too much weight is given to shit like "student-teacher ratio" or "study abroad programs" etc. The two most important factors should be intelligent students and perceived reputation. Intelligent students will eventually change the reputation of a school and that reputation is what drives recruiting. And let's be real, recruiting is the #1 reason to pick a business school.

On a tangent, it really annoys me to hear people defend schools like Bentley or UF or whatever as "actually they are great business schools because of X". The bottom line is students there on average just are not as smart- nothing, not where the professors formerly taught, not spending per student, is going to bridge that gap.

i agree on your last point - 100% true.

it's difficult to rank undergrad b-schools. imo, i view the top 20 as highly reputable. anything above that is subjective and not very useful.

I think somebodies panties are in a riff because their school didn't get ranked high enough. These rankings aren't based on placement to BB banks or top PE firms. For instance BYU is consistently in the top 3 for their accounting program and has a pipeline of students going to the Big 4 firms. Although not a target for many banks, many students do get jobs in Investment Banking. Additionally, this is a business school ranking for undergraduate programs, which means all the schools that don't have an undergraduate business program such as Harvard and Duke aren't competing with them in the rankings

It's hard to put too much stock into these rankings, but as a non-target it does suck to see your respective school so low on the list.

That said, if you think these rankings matter in the workplace, they don't unless you let them. I received 5 SA offers coming from a school in the latter-half of the 70's. During interviews I chose to bring up my school's weak ranking and describe how I felt I compensated for it. Usually the person I was interviewing with had no idea what the rankings were to begin with.

We dropped. RBS was ranked #32 last year by BusinessWeek.

Still, hopefully, I'll be an RBS student, when I get my decision. RBS has a better reputation than Rutgers overall, I think.

This just doesn't ring true. In this economy, coming from a school 35-70, getting 5 SA offers? Unless you orally pleasured Jimmy Cayne while getting a 4.0, I just don't see it happening... especially after you display the unawareness to even bring up your school's shitty ranking.

Sorry, don't know why I am such an a**hole today... guess I'm channeling mark klein MD.

This is a great thread, everyone can just complain about subjective data that has little to do with banking. The targets and semi-targets have the best pipelines into banking, period. This is a subjective list ranking the undergraduate b-school overall. The rankings are worth little besides maybe a starting point for seniors in highschool. godofsmallthings, I'm sorry that you were waitlisted behind SMU and Bentley kids, keep trying I am sure your former yale professor can recommend you for a great law school.

For the record, I don't go to Bentley or SMU.

I agree about these rankings being futile though. Just wanted to rag on the kid hailing UoF as a superior school.

even at the risk of a flame war, that kid had it coming to him

TheStreet86, I can't open your PM. You need to put something in the subject line.

maybe I'm wrong. All I can say is that if you're smart enough, it doesn't matter whether you do college in some suburban place in west africa or you go to oxford or cambridge because, you will make money.

these rankings are nice to see and to know and they are one data point to consider on a variety of issues.

I mean what about service academies? There are tons of former cadets/midshipmen on the street and the Academies don't have undergrad business programs.

I don't know the stats from other schools, but at least from my b-school, around 75% of our class got placed into either finance or consulting. The rest is marketing, management, teaching, non-profit, grad-schools, and others... So I feel like looking at finance/consulting placement record is a pretty good estimate of the school's quality overall. But other schools might not have the same percentage as we do, so it I might be wrong.

I completely agree with GameTheory. The recruiters aren't interested in banking/mgmt consulting placements. The truth of the matter is, a school like Bentley places exceptionally well into the Big 4 and other finance and accounting positions. The majority of these kids will do their four years, get a solid position, and have what they deem to be a very successful career. Now, part of that is due to location (let's face it, there are a ton of opportunities in Boston) and other factors that don't include intelligence, but all of these things should be factored into what makes a "good" business school. Sure, you could count on one hand the number of kids Bentley sent to investment banks last year, but I don't think that would bother the recruiters at all.

i go to UVA's business school. No.2 my ass.

most of my friends in it (and I) hate it. Stunning professors, but curriculum is stupid.

Rankings indeed matter, albeit to a limited degree. I just had an interview today with UBS IBD. I had two interviews and both did not ask technical questions. At the end of the second interview, I asked what previous knowledge they expected from interns (hinting at the fact that they never really asked technical questions to test my business aptitude).

His reply was that 1) there was no practical point spending a lot of time testing a person with a 4.0 business GPA and 2) the quality of the university was high enough to warrant faith in financial acumen. He also gave an example, saying that if I had either a 3.0 GPA or attended a university like Ohio State, he would have certainly tested technicals.

We spent a lot of time discussing the differences between Wharton (his alma mater) and Ross during the interview and he was not aware of many of the features or system of Michigan's business school. Regardless, based on prestige, he was confident in the school's education. Altogether, I had the gut feeling that I was helluva lot better off attending my school than some other school.

With that said, I believe that USNWR better reflects the general prestige ranking as understood by the common IB recruiters.

These rankings don't make a lot of difference in IB. Schools such as Harvard, Princeton, Dartmouth, Columbia, Northwestern, Chicago, Stanford, Duke, Yale etc do not have undergraduate business schools.

Yeah, you're right, but this is a ranking of Undergraduate Business Programs, not a Ranking of Schools to Attend if you wanna do IB. I, personally, wanted to get a BSBA, so I didn't even apply to any schools that don't offer a business major (except for one, just to see if I can get it). And in the end, I feel like it worked out pretty well for me. It might have been harder to break into IB in the first place, but once I got that work out, it won't matter anymore who attended which school. I do think, however, that a business major is at least a slight tiny bit more relevant to i-banking than econ. I know some econ majors are gonna kill me for saying this, but please take it as it is, it's just my opinion...

you dont need to major in something "relevant" to finance to do IB or anything else. screw econ and finance ug, major in one of your other interests, if you have any. college = happens once. finance = rest of your life. and who attended which school will always matter, lets not delude ourselves.

SMU does get recruited by all the BB..MS, GS, MER, etc, mostly because it is in Downtown Dallas were all the major banks have offices as well. Also SMU got rated by playboy as the #3 school for most beautiful women.