Last time I had a post on George Washington University School of Business rise in Financial Times MBA ranking there was a lot of fanfare going around the school. I think I received at least 3 or 4 emails within a couple of days from different sections of the business school and university heralding the good news. This time I have not heard from the school yet. I hope there is some cork-popping and cheering going around in the background, it just did not trickle down to us yet.
At any rate, GWSB made a climb, albeit moderate, in the Economist ranking of full-time MBA programs. From 2010 the GWU School of Business rose 5 places from 73 to 68 in global ranking. Among the US-based schools only, it holds position 41 out of 59 schools presented in the ranking. Also, an important caveat, last year was the first time that Economist ever included GWSB in its ranking. This means that the school has made a steady progress in this particular ranking for two consecutive years. Having admitted that all rankings are imperfect, still the one from Economist is one of the more reputable in the world, and for the US it comes right on the tails of the “BIG 3″ names in MBA ranking business: Businessweek, US News and World Report, Financial Times.
All the rankings have slightly or not so slightly different focus on what and how they measure. You can read detailed Economist ranking methodology, but in a nutshell they rank MBA programs based on four criteria:
- open new career opportunities -35%
- personal development/education experience -35%
- increase salary – 20%
- potential to network -10%
So I guess there is some reason for celebration for the GWSB faculty and administration. For me, however, it is time for a final push for my assignments for classes in the first fall module. I still have two group papers not finalized, one presentation for the group project, and one final exam. Once I am done with these, I will sure clink glasses to GWSB success 
The Businessweek online has recently placed a video interview with the dean of the George Washington University School of Business – Doug Guthrie, who answers this question. The highlights of the GWU Business School approach to business education, as per dean’s interview, are the corporate social responsibility, sustainability, ethics and global perspective. These core elements need to be embedded into the business education, and this is the aspiration of the GWSB faculty and administration. The dean also emphasized again the unique location of the school that allows to it to effectively embed all those aspects into its curriculum and total student experience. By the way, this location advantage is also reflected in the tag line of GWSB: “In the Center of It All.”
From personal experience, I know that additional sustainability and international elective courses are required for graduation, on top of the core curriculum courses, and international or global business cases are extensively included into most of my courses in school. I have seen the roster of elective courses on sustainability and corporate responsibility offered in the school and it seems rather adequate to me. However, I have heard at least one of my classmates complaining that there were not enough sustainability courses available at school. As a matter of fact, the complaint I heard was in fall 2010, and since then the business school seems to have increased the offerings in sustainability domain according to the article in the George Washington University newspaper – the GW Hatchet.
For me it is hard to objectively evaluate this, since I don’t know what other schools offer in this area. But The Aspen Institute publishes its biennial ranking of Business School – Beyond the Grey Pinstripes – measuring them on “the integration of issues concerning social and environmental stewardship into the curriculum”. According to that ranking GWSB holds position 9 in the US, and 11 – internationally, out of 149 business schools participating in the surveys that lead to the ranking. Which means that our school does something right or, that many other schools are even less concerned with the “social and environmental stewardship” issues.
Interestingly, Harvard Business School is not included in the ranking, reportedly because they did not participate in the survey. Speaking of the “rankings fatigue” . Anyways, embedded at the end of this post is the interview from Businessweek. If you have other “why’s?” about MBA, here is my post on “Why Part-time MBA?”
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.
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 ;-)
