FT Business School Rankings

Off late, I have checked the following link:

http://rankings.ft.com/global-mba-rankings

and was quite surprised to see that Michigan, Kellogg and Duke were not in Top 25!!!!!!

We are maintaining our 19th rank for couple of years now. I am happy to see that we are in Top 10 for CSR stuff, which school is really really good at.

My another surprise was to see ISB at 20. However, when I was checking details, I see some misrepresentation of numbers for ISB, which I have written below. I believe FT should check the stuff twice before publishing them as many of the prospects depend on these rankings to make a decision. I am just probing into ISB numbers here as I am well versed with Indian markets. I have same doubts about numbers of CEIBS, ESADE and IESE in Top 30 schools, as I believe they are more local in nature than international.

Here are the numbers I believe should be checked at:

1. Average Salary of ISB : 155,938 USD, Weighted Salary: 169,000

I guess this is just average for people overseas and might not represent the entire average of school. I cannot imagine an average of 6.2 million rupees in India for 2004 ISB passouts just for the fact that my company CEO is paid close to that salary, and ISB grads in my firm are not close so far to catch him up. Also, the average of this year's class is some 1.5 million INR which shows that the above said salary is at the best mis representation in a large way. This is definitely not an overall representation of the class since the overseas offers are around or less than 20% in every class.

(For information: highest salary that was offered in 2004 is 151,000 USD as per ISB (http://www.isb.edu/pgp/PlacementStatistics2004.Shtml))

2. Average increase of Pre to Post MBA salary: 129%

When you say Average Post MBA is 156,000 USD, your pre-MBA average would be 68000 USD. An Average of salary of 2.7 Million Rupees before getting into ISB is very difficult to imagine.

3. What is more surprising for me is to find that ISB tops salaries in Finance and Consulting compared to IT, where it is not even figuring in Top 10.

4. If school charges 40000 USD for MBA and the average salary is 156,000 USD after MBA, I dont see any reason why the value for money rank is 16 for ISB. It should be 1 without any doubts.

Putting it simply:

Numbers bring in perceptions. Perceptions will set expectations. I believe that these expectations will kill one's MBA experience. I have seen people facing this problem in my class and in general with other MBA's. For those who cannot manage their expectations, bottom line will be to get the above said salaries rather than to do other activities that could build them personally. Or putting it other way, people will think that if I do MBA from so and so school I need to get so much of salary other wise the school is not good!!!!!

Post MBA Salary is a major driver for many people doing MBA, and any misrepresentation there might mislead to a lot of frustration for those guys getting in because of these rankings!!!

Tail Piece:

Kellogg should have ISB as their alliance in their website than ISB having Kellogg, for simple reason that ISB is ranked 20th and Kellogg is ranked 28th!!!