Looking Beyond Top Rankings and Making the Right Decision While Choosing B-schools
GMAT
Talk to ExpertBy Sangeet Chowfla
In mid-May, Poets and Quants published a piece that quoted Bernard Garrette, associate dean of the MBA program at HEC Paris, saying that “rankings are making it harder for schools to recruit and attract more women to MBA programs because they penalize business schools that enrol more women because women are paid about 15 per cent less than male MBA graduates.”
Also in May, Daniela Papi, blogging on The Huffington Post, questioned whether rankings were out of alignment with what current MBA students are really seeking to measure. “How is it, in 2015, when many of the most sought-after job placements students are competing for are social impact roles, questions about signing bonus amounts and salary figures are still dictating the quality of our business schools?” she asked.
So what are we to make of rankings? Conventional wisdom holds that students considering business school give great weight, if not the greatest weight, to published school rankings to guide their decision. However, in reality, students place other factors above rankings when selecting a school, according to GMAC’s latest mba.com Prospective Students Survey Report.
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The survey reveals that students from all over the world display distinct differences in ascribing what factors matter most to them and the order of importance in which they consider those factors when making decisions about b-school. When students listed their top five consideration criteria for selecting a program based on their preferred study destination, rankings didn't even rank. (Study destination is an important distinction, given that 52 per cent of prospective students seek to study outside their countries of citizenship, up from 40 percent in 2010.) Although published rankings do have influence in candidates’ school consideration, prospective students place them as the third most consulted information resource behind school websites, and friends and family.
For years, we have maintained that rankings don’t tell the entire story. We’ve always cautioned prospective students that school rankings are best viewed skeptically. Not only are they arguably hindering recruitment of women to MBA programs, as enumerated in the Poets and Quants piece, but they also do not take into account the unique attributes of your program, your curriculum, culture, and your core relationship with employers, etc., or how these attributes may meet the individual needs of your prospective students. So, what is influencing decision making among prospective graduate management students? It’s what you offer beyond rankings that counts most.
Another point worth noting is that third-party evaluations such as rankings thrive in a world with information asymmetry. When buyers (students) do not have adequate information about sellers (schools), intermediaries fill the gap. This would imply that the rise of ranking is, at least partially, the result of our ability as an industry to effectively get our message to students in a clear and consistent manner. Do we make it too hard for prospective students to understand our programs and the value that they deliver? After all, the consumers of these rankings are among the best and the brightest. They have awesome research skills and analytical mindsets. Why then do they feel the need to go to a simple rank ordering of schools to determine their future?
About the author
Sangeet Chowfla is the Global President & CEO of Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC).
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GMAT exam is actually very tough, as only a handful number of students crack the exam. Out of 200,000 students, only 6% of the students qualified the exam. SIne the competition is very high, these tests are a hard nut to crack. Students preparing for GMAT exam will have to prepare rigorously and solve question papers in order to crack the exam. GMAT is hard to crack but not impossible. With the right strategies, students can aim to crack the exam.
Check out: Is GMAT exam tough?
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Ideally these are some of the most important GMAT Focus books to prepare for the exam.
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650 - 690 is a good score, however, if you score above 700 then it is great and it also enhances your chances of securing admission to a top B-school. However, a good GMAT score is not the only criterion for securing admission to a top MBA college. Students need to build a holistic profile that should have a decent balance of work experience, academic excellence, extracurricular activities, etc. Nonetheless, a good GMAT score will definitely help you in improving your candidature. Make sure to cover every aspect of the GMAT syllabus with the correct resources.
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To get a 600+ score on the GMAT one needs to do a lot of hard work and made consistent efforts to get this score. Start with the GMAT syllabus and pattern. You can then move on to the GMAT official guide and other official study material. Make this as the base of your preparation. Once you are thorough with this, you can read other authentic sources such as the Manhattan guides, Princeton Review study material, etc. Make a study plan and follow it strictly and try to cover one topic at a time. Also, note down your weakness and try to work on them to increase your score.
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