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

Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

<-- Previous page | Next page -->

Selections: Why do you rely on input from deans and department heads for the academic reputation portion of your survey? Why not speak to students?
Morse: Because we personally think that business school deans and program directors know about what is going on in their . . . It’s a small universe of schools. They certainly rub shoulders with each other, they are competing over faculty, they are competing over research proposals and other things, and they are aware of what is going on in the field. We feel they have a high level of knowledge of what are the better programs. We would argue that reputation is probably more important in business schools than in medical schools, as an example. You can argue that with business schools, because there isn’t any licensing involved, the reputation of the school is what is determining the value of a degree in the marketplace. It’s not by what students say. We feel the academics have something important to say about it.

Selections: Do you think using input from deans and department heads opens the door to bias?
Morse: Well, there are so many people who respond, and they are rating on a scale of 1 to . . . unlike Business Week . . . and I think you need to talk to the Wall Street Journal. I know you are not going to get a straight answer from them. It will be interesting whether you think you have. How did they respond? Did you ask them something like, “Why should a student choose to read your survey?” I’m not even talking about a recruiter or an executive but a prospective student.

Selections: I spoke with Joy Sever at Harris Interactive and she says students would be able to see from the Wall Street Journal survey where recruiters are happy doing business, where they feel that they get good results from their recruiting efforts.
Morse: Even though you would earn a lot less. I think that flunks the real-world test of what happens.

When the people respond to our survey as either an academic or a recruiter, they have a list of all of the schools, and they are judging them against each other. It’s my understanding that when the students rate the schools [in the Business Week survey] they are only rating their school, and they haven’t experienced what is going on at the other schools. And Business Week takes those responses and makes comparisons. That to me . . . at least in ours, where the academics are judging the schools against each other, you are getting a relative scale. Whereas Business Week is assuming the same rating system . . . We have enough votes and the scale is so small that not one voter can cause a change in the overall score of the school in the reputation survey.

Selections: In what ways have you seen the business school rankings in general, and the U.S. News & World Report rankings in particular, impact the schools and management education?
Morse: I would say the thing that I am most proud of with the rankings, and this came out at the AACSB meeting in New York this year—I was on a media panel. I think the schools believe—even though it makes them madder than the dickens—that U.S. News and maybe Business Week to some degree—have been responsible for causing data standardization. And if it wasn’t for U.S. News—given that we are the only ones to use the data in the ranking; the other ones just publish it, right?—then there wouldn’t have been the standardization of the placement data, and there wouldn’t be move by GMAC to try to implement auditing standards and put in rigorous definitions and schools signing up for it. I think we have caused that. Or, as a result of the rankings and the need for better consumer data as a result of that, the schools have realized that they have had to do that. And it’s also helping the MBA education at least to seem more professional by having better data. I also think the schools have cared more about the students. They have taken the concept of the student being a consumer. They have probably put in more resources and taken more care about the placement. And even though sometimes it doesn’t seem that way, some of the top schools—I’m defining U.S. News top schools, not Wall Street Journal top schools, since they are very different lists—but Harvard, Stanford in particular, which had been aloof in terms of consumer data. I think they have now come a long way, and maybe they are not the same as a Duke or an MIT, but I think they have moved up a long way. I’m not saying they are exactly the same as the other schools, but the gap between openness about their data is now almost closed, and I think that is because of the rankings. I also think business education—which actually isn’t because of the rankings—but I think business education changes more quickly than any other discipline and responds to changes in the marketplace more quickly than in any other field. And that is not commonly understood. But that has nothing to do with the rankings.

Selections: I see the benefit of getting this information about the schools out to prospective students and recruiters and for having standards for how the data are reported. But what is the benefit of putting a ranking number next to the schools?
Morse: The benefit to whom? I think of any field in higher education that understands assessments, ratings, judgment, and competition, it is business schools. I think that the academics in the schools—that while they may complain about the rankings, they’re used to competing, and the business world is like that. I think the business schools are more geared to this. I know there has been a proliferating of these rankings, and maybe it has become confusing, but that is hard to determine. We touched on before that there isn’t any licensing degree and the reputation is important to the value of the degree. At least for the full-time programs, students have taken themselves out of the workplace, and it’s probably costing them over $100,000 in earnings, not even getting into the cost of tuition. They want to know what are the best schools and where they have a chance to get the highest-paying jobs. This is important to students, and our particular rankings give them that.

<-- Previous page | Next page -->

Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4