Selections Interview with Bob Morse, Director of Data Research, U.S. News & World Report

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Selections: Why did U.S. News begin ranking business schools?
Morse: Because at that point in time, I think outside of the field of education, business is the largest graduate discipline. We came at it to provide a consumer service. We felt that with so many people going to business school . . . and there was a desire by applicants to have information to help them make a choice.

Selections: You started in 1990?
Morse: Actually, the first year we did it was 1987. We actually beat Business Week. In 1987, we did it by reputation only. And in 1990, we started doing it in a way that is broadly similar to the way it is done today. Not exactly, but broadly similar.

Selections: What was the methodology for your first survey that was based solely on reputation?
Morse: Asking the business school deans. Of course, the Wall Street Journal and Business Week surveys are 100 percent reputation.

Selections: In 1990, how did you develop the methodology—including the weighting system—for your graduate business school rankings?
Morse: I did a lot of research. I personally visited a number of business schools, and there were a number of business school deans who came into our office. And we approached it from the premise of having a multivariable ranking system like we did with the “best colleges” ranking. We thought we could do something . . . not similar because the methodologies are very different. We did try to emphasize that if there were outcome measures—and we would define placement as an outcome measure or the opinion of recruiters. We tried to develop a methodology that was geared to the specific graduate disciplines.

Selections: How did you determine how to weigh the various elements in your ranking?
Morse: It was somewhat of our own judgment and talking to business school deans. We wanted reputation to have some weight and we wanted the statistical indicators to have some.

Selections: I know the schools supply a good deal of information for your survey. I’m wondering how you ensure that the schools are supplying accurate data and that everyone understands the questions in the same way? Have you taken measures to audit the information that schools are sending you?
Morse: At the beginning, the standards of business data reporting were significantly less evolved than they are today. There is the MBA Career Services [Council], which is two or three years old. And the AACSB [Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business] has now standardized information.

Selections: So, you work with these organizations to create standards for the way this data is reported? Or go by the standards that they create?
Morse: We are doing that. I would say we are the leaders. We were the first publication to implement the career placement standards. And I think we were the first guides to implement the definitions for the acceptances in GMAT scores. I don’t remember each data point. But we have implemented those in our surveys. And I think that we said that if this auditing does go into effect, then we would consider “asterisking” a school [noting in U.S. News that the school submits audited data].

We’re not working with the other organizations. If the other organizations develop standards and schools say their data is audited, versus generally accepted accounting practices, then we would indicate that. But we ourselves aren’t working to develop those standards.

Selections: What major changes have you made to your rankings methodology to make the U.S. News survey more transparent and accurate?
Morse: Our survey is very transparent. The others are very nontransparent. I think anybody you’d talk to would say that. Haven’t they?

Selections: I’ve been talking to all of the publication editors in charge of the major rankings, and certainly everyone so far has been standing behind their own methodology and their own way of doing things. Maybe you can talk about why you believe your survey is more transparent than the others, and if there are any specific examples that highlight that.
Morse: Well, I guess for a couple reasons. When you [say] transparent, you mean the most understandable to the public. That, if you were a student and you read our methodology, then you would have fewer questions about how it is done than the others. I would say that the way we publish the data using the actual scores . . . we publish the actual scores and the actual data that are used in the ranking. And we say, “This data point is weighted this,” and I think people understand. If you were to ask any dean, they would say that ours is the most transparent by far. I think people understand when you give a salary or the percent of people employed or a GMAT score and you say the schools that have the highest reputation and score the highest in these things are the best schools, people understand that. And when you give the weights, I think that is more understandable. And we give an overall score. Business Week does not give an overall score. It only gives a rank of its two reputation surveys. It says that in some way, it takes both of the responses, so that “if you do this in ‘recruiter’ and this in ‘student’ and one is weighted this and one is weighted that, and we’ve adjusted for historical, and we’ve made sure yadda yadda yadda.” I also think it is clear that Business Week has had trouble with people understanding that theirs can be gamed. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have had to weight previous years surveys so much. That indicates that they are dealing with gaming. It would be interesting to see what they have to say about us, but you can argue that it’s counterintuitive to say you are doing a consumer survey—which is an important thing to do, and I’m not arguing that is not an important thing to do—but then say that the consumers who you are counting may not even be experiencing the same education or the school may have changed in response to bad scores, and you’re still counting their grades in the survey. The students know that the value of their degree determines salaries in the marketplace. Let’s not be naïve.

If I could make one comment about the Wall Street Journal’s survey. Their ranking is not for students. Their ranking is for business people. I got an MBA from Michigan State, so I will say that before I say this. If I’m a student, and I get into Harvard, Stanford, Duke, and Michigan State—if you’re a student, and Wall Street Journal is telling you to choose Michigan State . . . I believe it’s correct that in the Wall Street Journal survey, the three schools I named rank significantly lower than Michigan State. And you’re also telling the students who are using this ranking that you are smarter to go to a school where the salary compensation is at least 50 percent to two-thirds lower. That flunks the reason why students choose schools. Now maybe it is a good tool for recruiters, if you believe that . . . and I’m not saying it’s not true that the Michigan State student is going to make just as good an employee as a Stanford student. That is a different thing [from] whether you’re better off as a student going to a school where the compensation packages are at least twice as much. And I’m not even getting into the subtleties of their methodology, which only uses one indicator.

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