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

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Selections: How do the business school rankings impact magazine sales at U.S. News?
Morse: The newsstand sales aren’t very big. U.S. News is basically a subscriber-based publication. I think 98 percent of the sales are from subscribers. And newsstand sales in any given week are about 2 percent. So, while it may result in a gain, I don’t have the exact numbers. The data supports three things: the weekly magazine, the grad book—and, of course, we do undergraduate business school rankings and no one else does those—and both sets of data support the Web site. We’ve seen that 70 to 80 percent of traffic to the U.S. News Web site goes to the college and grad school area. So it is the main magnet for the Web site.

The ranking has created an important brand for U.S. News, and the ad pages are larger for the rankings issues than they are for other issues.

Selections: Some people argue that above all, U.S. News and the other publications publish rankings to sell magazines.
Morse: If you define selling magazines as people buying a copy, that is not where the economics are. The economics are in creating a brand and having increased ad pages. I don’t know the exact economics for the guide book.

Selections: There are stories about administrators at different schools being fired or reassigned after their schools have fallen in the rankings. Have you heard this, and what is your response to that?
Morse: I guess I have heard that somewhat for Business Week. I don’t think it is the right response. I think the schools have to use our rankings . . . I think Business Week’s are more consumer-oriented. In some cases, schools fall in our rankings because of bad placement resources. Because of the data we use. It shows things that are really happening. It’s probably not the person’s fault. That is not the reason that we are doing them, to get people fired. It’s an incorrect response to fire one person because more than likely, it’s not one person’s fault. They’re just creating a scapegoat for the problem. It’s probably unlikely that it is one person who has caused this.

Selections: Are you concerned about the proliferation of rankings by other publications?
Morse: I just can’t get away from the Wall Street Journal survey. And I’m not saying that Stanford and Harvard and MIT have to be ranked number 1 or 2, like they are in ours. I think these schools saw the Wall Street Journal’s system produced the rankings versus a weakness in the school.

Selections: Yes, it did seem to surprise a lot of people that Stanford was ranked number 45 in the Wall Street Journal survey. Yet, when the recruiters were asked where they would want to go to business school were they to get an MBA now, Stanford was ranked number 2.
Morse: I know. That is what I am saying. If I had a choice between Michigan State and Stanford, it would be highly unlikely that I would choose Michigan State. I think that is proven by Stanford’s and Harvard’s and MIT’s yields. Their yields [of applicants who accept offers] are in the upper 70s or 80s. They are getting almost everybody who applies.

In terms of the proliferation, I said I think that students are smart enough to ignore the Wall Street Journal. Time will tell whether I am right on that. Again, I think the Wall Street Journal’s rankings are not for students. I don’t think their rankings are appealing to the main motives of students for choosing an MBA. I think the main motive is to improve yourself financially as much as you can. You go to the school, generally speaking, where you get the highest salary after you graduate. I am not saying that happens in all cases, but on average. And the Wall Street Journal rankings don’t capture that, generally speaking. I don’t know whether students are smart enough to understand that the Business Week rankings are saying something different than ours. I think they are, but I’m not sure. I’m not sure how people relate to the Financial Times. I think if you’re smart enough to get into one of these schools and the acceptance rates are pretty low, then you’re probably smart enough to understand the differences and pick out the information from each ranking that is important to you, and you’re able to distinguish the differences.

Selections: Do you consider these other rankings to be competition for U.S. News?
Morse: No. Because we are doing something different. I think the Wall Street Journal’s rankings are being looked at more so by businesses and businesses recruiters. I think students will find them illogical. I think Business Week is the leading weekly business publication, and their rankings are highly sought after. We are the only ones publishing a multidiscipline ranking yearly, and we are dedicating much less space for each discipline. Where people are looking at ours, the consumer is broader than just prospective business school students. Since we are producing a different kind of product, I don’t think the other publications are taking anything away from us.

Selections: What is the most significant challenge you face as you put out these business school rankings each year?
Morse: The amount of data that we have to gather and the deadlines that we have to do it under. Because we are operating under inflexible deadlines and under short turnaround time. And then making our best effort to resolve data problems.

Selections: How long do you have to collect the data?
Morse: Because we are collecting fall entering class, we can’t start collecting until October 15. So, it is from October 15 through the middle of January. We publish the survey in the beginning of April.

Selections: What do you see for the future of rankings?
Morse: Well, we will continue to have our rankings being based on data—at least to a significant degree. And I think there will be a movement, which will benefit business schools, to implement these standards. I think this will have the effect of making the field more professional, because it gives consumers more confidence in the data, and I think the data will get better as time goes on. I think some kind of accounting or auditing standards will be implemented. I’m not sure how long it is going to take. I’m not sure how many more publications will do them, so I don’t know if there will be more.

I think the main players are in the field. This is a guess, but I don’t think American students are consulting the Financial Times to the degree that international students are. I also don’t know if international students consult the Financial Times more. I think they probably don’t, because I think they are going to U.S. publications that are closer to the market.

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