Chapter Five
The Rankings Game
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Using
the Major Ranking Systems
We’ve all heard about college rankings in the media. Schools in the upper echelon of the most popular rankings often boast about where they have been placed, and students use college rankings, perhaps more than they should, as part of their decision-making process before they start applying to schools. However, the first thing you need to know about rankings is that a reliable and valid ranking system for online MBA programs has not been invented. All the rankings you see and hear about are for traditional on-campus programs, not for online programs. The second thing you need to know is that the popular ranking services have great websites that are packed with information about schools that you can use during your online decision-making process.
Using the Major Ranking
Systems
When it comes to on-campus MBA programs, there are primarily
three highly regarded ranking systems with great websites that, along
with compiling rankings, provide huge amounts of information about
graduate-level education:
Online MBA programs are very similar in content to their
counterpart on-campus MBA programs. So, an on-campus MBA program with a
counterpart online MBA program that has made it inside any of these
three ranking systems could be unofficially considered a “top-ranked”
program.
The Economist Intelligence
Unit
Another respectable ranking entity is the Economist Intelligence
Unit (EIU), which is the London-based business information arm of the
Economist Group, publisher of The Economist, CFO magazine, Roll Call,
and other specialty business journals. EIU publishes its top 100 MBA
programs worldwide at a website called
“Which MBA.”
The Center for Measuring University Performance
publishes another valid ranking system that is more academic in nature.
Its rankings are very much unlike the popular rankings previously
mentioned, and they could be considered statistically significant due to
the nature of the research and analysis it conducts. The Center
publishes an in-depth annual report titled “Top American Research
Universities.” The report offers analysis and data useful for
understanding American research university performance.
Universities are ranked according to a variety of measures,
including research funding, endowment assets, annual giving, National
Academy membership, prestigious faculty awards, doctorates awarded,
postdoctoral appointees, and SAT scores of entering freshmen. You can
download the report for free from
http://mup.asu.edu/publications.html.
Some of the schools listed in this report that have online MBA programs
include, in alphabetic order, Arizona State University, Drexel
University, Florida State University, Indiana University, Syracuse
University, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and University of
Nebraska-Lincoln.
Nancy P. O’Brien, head of the Education and Social Science
Library at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, said, “The
Center is highly regarded for the work that it does. They use variables
that are very research oriented. So there is a lot of significance to
the factors that they use.”
Finally, a one-stop website where you can find links to all the higher-education ranking systems good, bad, and ugly, along with lots of great information about how rankings really work, including a “Caution and Controversy” section, is provided by the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign’s Education and Social Science Library.
Of course, the World Wide Web is by no means a perfect place,
which is why you have sites such as one labeled “25 Best Distance
Learning Universities.” An immediate warning flag is that nowhere on
this site did I see an explanation of the methodology that was used to
arrive at their list of 25, not to mention who exactly created this list
in the first place. Another website that left me wondering about the
criteria actually used to reach their conclusions about leading MBA
programs was a site called “Top 10” by Best Education. In short,
numerous websites in cyberspace are similar to this in nature, and I
would simply say these sites are not worth the time it takes to look at
them.
“Those who compile rankings will
tell you they are valid, but to a great extent it depends on which
factors are used to develop rankings, and I think that is where most of
the controversy comes in,” said O’Brien
Digging Out
Information at the Rankings Websites
All of the big rankers have decent websites that can be utilized
on a number of important fronts, including advice about MBA program
admission strategies and financial-aid concerns that can be applied to
online MBA programs. In my opinion, the best of all these sites in
relation to providing information you can use is BusinessWeek Online. A
lot of the good stuff, however, is only accessible through its “MBA
Insider” web-based information service, which at the time of this
writing was selling for $29.95. Nonetheless, there is a lot of free
information and services you can use at the BusinessWeek Online website.
BusinessWeek Online has a Part-Time MBA Comparator tool that you
might find helpful. This tool enables you to compare up to four
part-time on-campus MBA programs at a time. I used this tool to compare
the part-time MBA programs (which would be very similar, if not exactly
the same as, their online MBA programs) at the University of
Massachusetts-Amherst, Florida State University, and the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln - three similar public, nonprofit institutions. The
results revealed such things as average GMAT scores, percentage of
applicants accepted, average age of new entrants, percentage of
international students, average postgraduate work experience of
students, teaching methods used, and percentage of full-time and adjunct
faculty members.
All the institutions offering online MBA programs are not listed
in the Part-Time MBA Comparator tool, so it obviously cannot be applied
across the board. However, it could prove useful for certain programs,
such as the aforementioned example.
The USNews.com website has a similar online business school
comparison tool, but you have to subscribe to its Premium Content
Service ($14.95 at the time of this writing) to use it. For example, as
a paid subscriber, I used it to compare three private, non-profit
institutions that offer online MBA programs: Drexel University, Syracuse
University, and Worcester Polytechnic Institute. The service did not
reveal as much information as the BusinessWeek Online tool, but it did
provide a unique career prospects section that included average starting
salary of its MBA graduates.
The Financial Times website looks like it has lots of great
information, including a special section with articles that look
insightful about online MBAs; however, you have to be a paid subscriber
to view them, and to me it was cost prohibitive at $110 (at the time of
this writing) annually. However, a good number of articles available for
free are about getting a graduate-level education in business; and the
Financial Times’ editorial perspective is international in scope, which
will perhaps give you an entirely different global view of MBA programs.
These ranking websites have
good online tools and information services available for free
(and sometimes for a fee). You have to do a lot of navigating around
– web page after web page after web page
– which can be a bit cumbersome and slow-moving at times. If you
are a true “web-head,” however, you might find it to be fun,
interesting, and worth it.
All this pre-choice homework I’ve been advising you to do
– and there’s a lot
more throughout the rest of this eBook
– can make you one of the most educated consumers on the planet
about finding and choosing the right online MBA program. In addition, I
obviously want you to succeed as an online learner when you start moving
down this educational pathway. In my opinion, these ranking systems can
help you in only a small way.
“You can’t just go to one factor; you have to consider multiple
issues, such as accreditation, reputation, quality of the program,
quality of instruction, all of the issues that someone in the academic
world would recognize,” said O’Brien.
More importantly, as with any major business transaction, you will be required to write a substantial number of checks to the institution that you choose to attend. That institution will be responsible for giving you the right tools and guidance to help you become a successful business manager or entrepreneur. If the program does not live up to your expectations, you can always drop out early, but then you will have wasted a lot of valuable time and effort (and money). Plus, whatever credits you may have earned may not be transferable to another program (see Chapter 11 for information about credit transferability). So, my bottom-line advice is this: Educate yourself about how to choose the right program. Read on!
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