Today in Global Perspectives class professor was seemingly glowing when he broke a news. Turned out that Financial Times published their Global MBA Rankings 2010 just two days ago on January 25. MBA program at GWSB climbed from position 71 to 57 among top 100 MBA programs worldwide. What he was even more proud of was that in a separate ranking of Top Schools by Subject George Washington University MBA program ranked #5 in Top 10 programs for International Business. The reason for his being especially happy about the ranking in International Business section is that it is probably in great part credited to the success of the department he is working at.
I mentioned before in one of the posts that rankings are quite helpful in getting preliminary information about schools and sizing up the programs. But once that information is analyzed, one needs to look beyond the rankings and find the best match for him/herself, based on personal goals and circumstances, not purely the rankings. At any rate, this news is a nice validation for all of us in GWSB.
The Financial Times Global MBA rankings is one of the three most recognized rankings of MBA programs in the USA. The FT rankings are taking more global outlook, instead of looking only at the US business schools. Just as the professor mentioned in the first lecture on Global Perspectives. The other two rankings are mostly recognized for rankings of domestic business schools:
I guess this new ranking will be celebrated and touted in the school now. But the real moral of the story is:
Heed to your professor’s advice when he is prompting you to subscribe for Financial Times and you will never be two days behind on a good news
Attend the lectures, and you will be up to speed on most important news you might have accidentally missed.
Edited 2/1/2010: Today businessbecause.com caught up on the Global MBA Ranking from Financial Times with a review on losers and winners, and some comparisons between the schools in various regions of the world.
There were many interesting articles touching upon various aspects of business education in general, and MBA in particular, that I came across in the last almost two years. But as far as I could remember there were two specific events that attracted the most of media coverage. Moreover it was not just a short outburst of coverage from various media outlets, but it was a relatively extended period of time when the event stayed in the spotlight. It also seemed that it got coverage in national mainstream news media, not just from the columnists of Businessweek and the likes writing about business education.
Here is just a short recap of those events. You can find tons of material on the internet to learn the details.
The first event was the scandal about cheating on GMAT test that erupted in June 2008. A lot of students, prospective, current and even graduated, were affected by the discovery made by GMAC, the owner of the GMAT test, that thousands of GMAT takers have been perusing the services of infamous website scoretop.com. Once GMAC seized the assets of the website through the court order, they got access to the database of users who paid money to get access to the “live” questions, as well as correlated that information with users who posted “live” questions on the website. Both of the actions are against GMAT Non-Disclosure Agreement and General Terms of Use. This discovey resulted in cancellation of GMAT test scores for those users. The business schools were left with decisions how to deal with the cheaters.
The second event was the Harvard’s MBA Oath. It draw media attention in June 2009. In a nutshell this was an oath taken by the Harvard MBA 2009 graduates who pledged “to act with utmost integrity” and serve the purpose of the greater good. This oath came in the wake of the financial crisis that shook the nation and the world at the end of 2008. The greed of the MBAs who were the integral part of the abuses on the Wall Street had been often cited as one of the main causes of that near collapse situation. The importance of that oath was that it was quickly supported by graduates from many other MBA programs not only in the US, but internationally.
I think that these two events and their timing is a significant indicator of the changes that have been going in the MBA education recently. The first one shows the MBA degree perceived by the applicants as a highly desirable designation, so much so that they would resort to the use of the illegal sources to get an upper hand and get admitted to their choice business school. The second one illustrates the budding change in the attitudes of the MBAers, and business schools who want to demonstrate to the outside world that they are not all about making a big buck at any price, but they “feel the pain” of the society at large and are willing to change.
Whether this second event is a lasting trend and not just a nod to the order of the day is yet to be seen. However, I think it is a remarkable shift of emphasis that is taking place in the MBA programs these days. The MBA programs try to stay relevant, and I believe they will manage to adapt to the “new world order”
Speaking of cheating on GMAT by looking up the “live” questions. Not only it is a questionable moral choice, it is really plain stupid. The GMAC says that the questions banks have thousands of questions, and the chance of running into particular question on the actual test is really very miniscular given the computer adaptive nature of the test. It’s really much more reasonable to try to learn the concepts than to brute memorize the answers to unlikely questions. And if you want to get the feel for real questions, just use The Official Guide for GMAT Review, 12th Edition from GMAC that have hundreds, and cumulatively thousands of real GMAT questions that have been retired.
P.S. After I finished this post I found out that GMAT cheating case made a come back again, this time on China soil. Apparently much less coverage this time around as I missed it before.
Read an article today about new online offering in business education: online MBA degree from Jack Welch Management Institute. The guy has already made a name for himself, even if occasionally in dubious nominations. Nevertheless, he was named the Manager of the Century by Fortune in 1999, and obviously has something to say about business.
Now he is trying to extend his legacy by buying an online outlet for broadcasting his business and probably life philosophy. The article rightfully admits the stigma which is still attached to online education in general, and business online education in particular. Some critics argue that Welch is also carrying stigma for his implementation of the “mean and lean” business approach. What I am wondering is if adding the two stigmas together will actually serve the purpose of de-stigmatizing either one.
About the perception of distance learning. I remember my conversation with a student during my class visit at Evening MBA, McDonough School of Business, Georgetown University. She got her undegraduate degree from the University of Maryland. Since at that time this was a number one program on my list, I asked why she had not gone to the Smith part-time MBA program. It would seem natural for two reasons: she had already had connection with the University, and, at least by Businessweek rankings, Smith stands much higher than the McDonough MBA. (Even though other rankings put them at about the same position).
What she told me was quite interesting and unexpected for me. She said that she had some acquantainces who got their undegraduate diploma from UMUC (University of Maryland University College) – mostly distance and some evening programs or combination of the two. According to her, they put on their resume in educational credentials – University of Maryland. Which is not the same thing altogether. At any rate she felt that her degree from UMD was somewhat devalued by the fact that other people used it for essentially online degree. Of course, the guys who inconspicuously ommitted part of the name of their school and presented themselves as UMD graduates, instead of UMUC, boosted their degree credentials quite substantially. So she was concerned that the same name interference would happen with the MBA program from the University of Maryland. And it was the reason, at least in part, for her decision to not go back to the University of Maryland for her MBA degree. Incidentally, UMUC also offers online MBA program.
Anyways, just a little insight on the state of online MBA education. Should I mention that part-time MBA is also looked down upon by some from the full-time MBA programs? Well, I probably just need to take the foot out of my mouth and go to bed ;-)
These days I do not really have time to read news about the Business Schools developments a lot. I still skim the headlines and read semi-regualarly. Now I am more concerned with my immediate MBA environment. But when I was in my preparation stage for part-time MBA I was more hungry for that kind of news and [...]
from GMAC that have hundreds, and cumulatively thousands of real GMAT questions that have been retired.
