7) Numbers that stand out
Yes, rankings are tools designed to bring order to chaotic data. Occasionally, you'll find numbers flashing in a spreadsheet. They defy conventional wisdom and remind us that business schools don't always scale across multiple dimensions.
Get acceptance rates. Despite their top-25 pedigrees, North Carolina Kenan-Flagler, Georgetown McDonough and Emory Goizueta all accept a large number of applicants — 44.3%, 48.1% and 53.1%, respectively, to be exact. This is much less selective than Arizona State WP Carey and Penn State Smeal, where the rates are 16.8% and 18.6%. Both Ohio State's Fisher and Rochester Simon come in just above those averages at 21.9% and 22.5% respectively. If you're looking for a guaranteed admission, look to Clemson University, which accepts 91.7% of all applicants.
Speaking of WP Carey, their selectivity translates into high undergraduate GPAs. In fact, the Class of 2023's 3.62 GPA is higher than their peers at the Wharton School and MIT Sloan. While Tennessee's Haslam College ranks 53rd overall, its final class' average GPA of 3.52 is nearly equal to #1 Chicago Booth (3.54) and higher than two Ivy League programs (Columbia Business School and Cornell Johnson ).
High GMAT averages are not tied to top-ranked programs either. Example: 93 Saint Louis University. Their incoming class averaged 700, which is better than programs like North Carolina Kenan-Flagler (696), Emory Goizueta (692) and Georgia Tech Scheller (690) and Notre Dame Mendoza (668).
Unfortunately, it's no secret that NYU Stern graduates earn higher salaries than their peers. Despite ranking 12th overall, the Sternies collect $181,803 between base and bonus. To put that in context, that's $9,029 more than Harvard Business School graduates — and over $10,000 more than graduates from MIT Sloan, Northwestern Kellogg and UC Berkeley Haas. And that's not the only surprise when it comes to payment. Looking for a strong return on investment? Rochester Simon's grads raised $154,529 to start, higher than grads from USC Marshall and North Carolina Kenan-Flagler. The same could be said for Howard University, where 2021 graduates earn $152,534. The difference: Howard is ranked 53rd.
If you're looking for assurance that you'll get a job, consider Michigan State. 100% of Broad graduates held jobs within three months of leaving campus last year. Historically, Emory Goizueta ranks high in placement — and their 99.1% rate in 2021 will only strengthen that reputation. You could say the same for Penn State Smeal (97.4%) and Rutgers University (97.2%).
8) The Story Behind This Year's Biggest Plunge: The 30-Place Plunge For Northeastern's MBA
How does a school sink 30 spots in a single year when it became more selective, raised the average GMAT score of its incoming class by more than 35 points, and managed to get better grades from recruiting firms?
That's where Northeastern University's D'Amore-McKim School of Business finds itself this year. The school's full-time MBA program fell to 85th place US newsranking from 55th last year. No school saw a larger decline this year and remained in the top 100.
But Northeastern did so after becoming far more selective, accepting only 16.7% of its applicants, down from 39.2% a year earlier, while raising its incoming class GMAT score to 654 from 618. Additionally, its corporate recruiting score school increased to 3.4 from 3.2. All of this improvement occurred while Northeastern's peer review score remained unchanged at 3.2, and the average undergraduate GPA of the last MBA class also remained exactly the same: 3.4.
So what happened? Payment and placement for D'Amore-McKim's graduating class of 2021 is complete. While many schools reported better pay and job offers for their graduates, things were really bad for these MBAs. Average salary and bonus fell a little more than 4 percent to $88,362 from $92,333 a year earlier. Placement at graduation dropped nearly ten percentage points to 47.9% from 59.5%, while placement three months later had only improved to 68.8%, also nearly ten points from 78.4%. These are abysmal results in a year when so many schools reported record or near-record starting salaries and job offers for their MBA graduates.
Interim Dean Emery Trahan, who took over last August when “Raj” Echambadi left to join Illinois Tech as its 10th president, must be wondering what hit him. But he could take some solace in the fact that while no school fared as badly as Northeastern, it's not alone. Misery loves company and Trahan has plenty of company. Seven other schools suffered double-digit declines this year (see below), and several other MBA programs fell out of the Top 100 entirely.