MBA Rankings Are Not King - Top Tier Admissions

It’s been quite the month in MBA admissions and, per usual, I am tracking MBA admissions trends and data closely. I’ve been chatting with many MBA applicants who are in the midst of prepping for their round 2 MBA applications. We LOVE round 2. It’s not as rushed as round 1 is for many, GMAT and GRE scores are in place for more students, and students have Thanksgiving break to push forward with strong, compelling essays.

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MBA RANKINGS: FLAWED

It’s a rough time for Temple University as former Fox School of Business dean, Moshe Porat, is on trial for falsifying the school’s admissions data to improve their U.S. News and World Report rankings. Their online MBA program was ranked #1 for four years, and it seems they shouldn’t have been.

Poets & Quants, which recently quoted me on “what to ask a college admissions consultant” and referenced my article in Entrepreneur on how to ace a virtual MBA interview, confirmed that Temple increased their enrollment (pre-COVID) in its online MBA program by 57% after U.S. News and World Report (apparently falsely) ranked them as the # 1 online MBA program. WOW. That’s an awful lot of students who were swayed to apply, pay and enroll in Temple’s MBA program based on rankings that appear years later (now post-degree) to have been falsified.

I advise potential MBA applicants and my undergrad private counseling families NOT to follow or base their application decisions on ANY college and graduate school rankings. The temptation is strong to study rankings and make admissions decisions based on them, but the trouble is, the data is often flawed and/or not showing the full picture.

EXAMINING AN MBA PROGRAMS’ WORTH

Please STOP placing so much faith, money, time and effort into rankings. Top quality MBA programs differ in various ways, and that’s okay. Rather than focusing on potentially flawed MBA rankings, instead use this helpful list to examine the worth (to you) of MBA programs you are considering:

Values and mission
Alignment with your academic and career goals
Curriculum and concentration options
Pedagogical approach and cohort makeup
Expertise and real-world experience of faculty
Support network and academic support offerings on campus
Geographic location and size of campus
Type of program, time of day for courses and options for online learning and engagement
Academic climate and program culture
Diversity and inclusion efforts
Funding, fellowship and scholarship offerings
Alumni network and professional development opportunities
Placement and post-degree rates/salaries

MBA PROGRAMS: FUTURE-PROOF

Online MBA program options are growing and NYU Stern made the news this week with their “online modular program” announcement of an online partly-hybrid, part-time MBA program starting in fall 2022. Change is and can be a good thing. As the Harvard Business Review noted recently, the MBA remains “the quintessential managerial education program . . . [yet] the pace of change must accelerate to keep the MBA degree future-proof.”

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MBA programs are getting creative with their offerings to entice applicants, widen applicant pools, boost their rankings, lower their acceptance rates and increase their yields.

**The rankings are not king though, you are.**

I’d love to help you with YOUR MBA strategy, applications and essays —let’s chat.

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Dr. Kristen Willmott

Senior Private Counselor & Graduate School Admissions Director at Top Tier Admissions

A former Admissions and Financial Aid Officer for Harvard University, Kristen brings over 20 years of experience working in higher education. Kristen has a PhD in Education with a concentration in Higher Education, an M.S. in Business Management, and a B.A. in English. Her PhD dissertation won the International Susan B. Anthony Institute Dissertation Award. In her role at Harvard, Kristen oversaw admissions for 17 departments and was also responsible for distributing funding from the National Science Foundation Fellowships Program and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Student Research Fellowship Program. Kristen previously worked as a substitute K-12 teacher, as adjunct faculty at three universities in MA and NY, and as an educational researcher. Kristen recently published a book (Information Age Publishing) on faculty and tenure in academia which Stanford University Libraries featured on their recommended "Gender and Education Books" list. Kristen has written for Entrepreneur Magazine and published in journals such as the Journal of Critical Scholarship on Higher Education and Student Affairs and the American Association of Behavioral and Social Sciences Journal. Kristen has also been featured in and interviewed for publications such as U.S. News & World Report, the Washington Examiner, Yahoo News, and Business Insider.

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