Look behind the curtains of online college rankings

Added: 02/28/2006

The easiest way to understand something and to discover its real value is definitely comparison. On that basis we can make a table with the best one at the top and rank all the rest according to their dissimilarity. That's how all ranks are built. Concerning rankings of business colleges people take into consideration academic resources, student selectivity, faculty resources, university connections, grade output, and other resources such as technology and library spending. And the most convenient way to obtain almost all necessary information is certainly online college rankings.

It's a well known fact that all people are captivated by rankings. We rank almost everything, because it's rather convenient both for us to know what's best and for the ranked subjects - it helps them to improve themselves in order to survive through tough competition. Our prosperous future depends upon the education and working experience. So, in search of the former we look for the best opportunity checking thousands of educational advertisements, online college rankings or just listen to our friends' advice.

Both education management sector and the bulk of students are extremely obsessed with the ranking of business schools, and the intensity of online college rankings isn't subsiding either. The fastest way to deliver information to the customer is, of course, locating it in the Internet for people from all over the world to get the appropriate information fast. We believe that they can provide insight to many audiences looking for a definite business school. Moreover, this audience comprises prospective students, academics, recruiters, and executives interested in new research or in executive education programs.

But the most important thing to remember is that each ranking is measuring something a little bit different from the others. Indeed, rankings of business colleges are very popular, especially those online college rankings, but not always do they reflect the reality. Nowadays, both the data and methods used by some ranking services are questioned by schools, colleges and universities, even those highly ranked. It doesn't only concern the validity of online college rankings - the problem is dissimilarity and originality of each, which fact means not everything can be ranked and the ranking can not seize every unique feature. Still, special attention is allotted to those aspects of ranking which deal with the complicated to measure the concept of institutional reputation.

To get a closer look at online college rankings one should make a small survey of how they differ being conducted by different authorities. Take a research done by the MBA Career Guide. Having very transparent and simple methodology, it isn't ranking the schools, but listing them in alphabetical order taking into consideration only the input from international MBA recruiters looking for MBA graduates ready to work in more than one country. Consequently, the career outcome is the most important test here. The MBA Career Guide asks recruiters from different countries to identify schools or colleges they prefer, and then on the basis of their favours assembles the results to identify which of them are the most popular and list them in alphabetical order separately for Europe, the US, Asia, Latin America and more. These measures are generally stable, because recruiters tend to change their preferences not very often.

The Business Week ranking of business colleges is based upon 3 factors: student satisfaction, that of employer and research output. The problem with US MBA ranked colleges is that students are interested in praising their educational establishments and observe them reaching a foremost position in the ranking, the higher ranked the school, the better job its students receive. The Financial Times survey relies on rather objective measures without any input from recruiters, the main emphasis is put on weighted salary three years after graduation, then research ratings and a number of doctoral students produced by the school. And the most controversial rankings belong to the Wall Street Journal. It proposes recruiters to focus their attention on their recruiting experience and the profile of candidates they contact from a school, rather than the quality of the school itself.

So, if you are looking for a perfect business college do not rely on the final ranking - try to look at the figures behind the rankings making your decision whether these criteria are important for you. It's better to compare leading schools in each survey. And remember that schools may shift up and down from year to year and thus occupy a different place in several rankings, because there's no single, objective ranking of the best MBA college.

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