We have not, historically, spent much time and effort on the rankings. There are so many of them, and they each have their own criteria for consideration. However, the rankings are not something we can ignore any longer. They have too much to do with student recruiting, and even something to do with corporate interest in hiring our students.
This last year we were dropped from the Financial Times ranking because we did not have enough alumni in their third year out complete fully the required responses. So, if an alum completed a survey on the school, but failed to include his/her current salary, their review would not be included.
The Financial Times has a requirement that it receive a certain minimum number of responses. It is the same number whether the class size is 65, (as it was at W&M three years ago) or 1,200 as it is at some of the larger schools. Our proportion of required alumni responses, therefore, is much higher. So this year, we were not only not ranked, we weren’t even considered because we did not meet minimum threshold responses for responding.
I think we would have risen in these rankings, but that is not something that prospective students would know. They only know that you are there or not there, and with a certain ranking. International students, especially, pay a great deal of attention to Financial Times ranking, so our absence is damaging to us.
Ranking affect the quality of students and faculty attracted to the school and the ability to raise private financial support for the programs. They are not necessarily entirely sensible in what or how they measure, but they are necessarily important in any case.
Next year rankings will be job 1. We need to start moving up the chain where we truly belong.
What do you think about the Financial Times and other bschool rankings?
Tags: Financial Times, MBA, Rankings
Rightly said jon, rankings are very important for the various reasons that you have elicited, though they are not always fair as in our case with FT this year. When it comes to international students, I have surveyed many students and I can say that rankings is ALL that is important to them. Well we cant be blamed too, as thats the main source of information we get to benchmark schools. USnews and FT are the most accredited rankings, while the former is believed to be more credible. Its a sad fact that not many students even read the Legend( factors) that affect these rankings but just follow them
Rankings affects all factors,
1) Students ( peer group)
Its because of not actively being ahead in the rankings that Mason has to lure international students with hefty scholarships is a fact that i have observed.
2) Recruitment( which itself again attract better students)
3) Faculty ( which Mason has the best though ! )
We need to leverage the strengths we have and use them as a marketing
tool. Couple of things the school can do to gain popularity and in the event branding.
* series of Youtube videos with student-faculty interactions
* Student - EP discussions could be broad casted
* Mason’s unique curriculum popularized
* A Case competition on “How to brand the school - Brand Mason” - could be an initiative amongst the MBA students.
* get the Alum to actively involved in branding and ranking the school.
and many more ….
however its great news that we are going to feature back in rankings which we truly deserve.
I couldn’t agree with you more. In the absence of more sensible information that accurately reflects the experience you get today in business schools, we are left with the rankings and we take responsibility in helping students interpret the factors. You have given us some great ideas to raise our visibility and tell our story better. I have talked with our marketing director. Some of your ideas are already in the works and some of your ideas are going to be worked into the plan. Please keep the ideas coming.
I can’t help but agree with one other point—I think Mason faculty are the best too!
While I agree with the issue around rankings, I urge you not to overlook the key driver here - a lack of alumni responses. Moving up in the rankings is great; however, getting alumni to praise our programs is another challenge altogether, and it needs to be addressed as part of the solution. When students choose not to respond to these surveys, the result is vastly telling in its own right. Granted, good work is being done in this area already, but as an alum, I see numerous missed opportunities to tap into alumni for everything from classroom speakers, to hiring, to internships, to career guidance and information, to – yes – taking surveys. In order to move Mason forward, I strongly encourage you to consider the role a strong alumni network would play in the school’s growth.
I agree with Allen. Why can’t the program leverage their small class and highly regarded faculty to their advantage? What I mean is, if FT requires the same # of responses from our alumni as larger programs for their ranking system, then why can’t the business school fight back? They can do this by asking a few professors to volunteer a couple saturday mornings conducting a telethon calling up the 65 alumni asking them to participate in the surveys etc. They can reconvene a few weeks later with a follow up call.
I’m sure many alumni will be floored to have an old professor call them up out of the blue asking how their lives are doing and would be happy to participate.
Everything you say is true and we have made a number moves in the last few months to align our actions in this direction.
First of all, earlier this year we brought on a new Director of Graduate Career Services, Mark Case. Mark held similar positions at Yale and University of Michigan and is an expert at building and rebuilding career services organizations. He also has years of experience on the corporate side as well, so he knows what it takes to get the job done. If you haven’t done so already, please take some time to read Mark’s blog posts on our School blog at http://blog.wmschoolofbusiness.com where he lays out his plan for our new career services. We are changing our focus there to be more externally focused with recruiters and employers.
Another move we’ve made to bridge the alumni-corporate connection gap is the creation of a Corporate-Alumni Relations group, headed by Tom Rideout. We are doing more to focus in this area and we welcome your ideas and support. I encourage you to contact either Mark or Tom directly to learn more about our new approaches in these areas. And please keep the great ideas and observations coming.
Surveys are pivotal. Perhaps we are not focused enough on why they are important. Why are international students participating at such higher rates. We need their feedback as to their feelings and perceptions on why they participate, so we can share that enthusiasm with the alumni community in hopes of increasing their participation.
Very important subject for both student, alumni, and prospective employers for recruiting.
Perception perceived is achievement achieved.
The first step to salvation is by accepting the rankings (or lack thereof) and moving forward from there. The program will never improve by crying foul and blaming the system each time it feels unfairly judged. They have little or no influence on the ranking criteria anyway.
It’s sad that our alumni are not responding to rankings surveys in sufficient numbers. However, I do not recall having received a survey request from the Financial Times. If I had, I certainly would have replied. Approximately 5 years ago, I was forwarded an urgent request to complete a survey for the Wall Street Journal rankings. Unfortunately, the survey questions were directed to an audience of recruiters and employers. In my position, I neither make employment decisions nor do I supervise employees so, I could not complete the survey.
You underscore a big challenge for us. Clearly not having the right contact information is part of the problem. As people move around, contact information changes and we are try our best to keep up with you. Email addresses are even harder to keep track of. People have several these days and knowing the right one to use is the key to the kingdom. Would you take a moment to update your information by going to http://mason.wm.edu/Mason/connected and could you help us by forwarding the link to some of your former classmates that may not be getting information from us, either.
We send a monthly newsletter out. So if you or your classmates haven’t been getting it, we probably don’t have the right email address. Thanks for the feedback and please don’t hesitate to give us more.
My contact information is current. I receive the monthly e-newsletter. As I stated, I will certainly respond to an appropriate rankings survey.
Both Allen and Kendall hit on something really important, and it kind of relates to my first blog… we have a lot to gain by simply connecting more. From my own experience, there’s a LOT of goodwill out there toward the school, but in the absence of more frequent and PERSONAL touchpoints it’s not top-of-mind. My take on alumni response to the FT survey? One more thing cluttering my in-box, and “someone else will fill it out.”
I have no doubt that Kendall is right with his “telethon” concept: alums would respond to a call from a favorite faculty member. They are very responsive to much bigger requests: can help me out with a class, can take a look at this resume, can you attend this event? And frankly, we don’t spend enough time reconnecting just for the fun of it.
Speaking of which, there’s an alumni/student networking event in Richmond on April 18th from 4 to 6 pm in Richmond at The Cultural Arts Center in Glen Allen, VA. Basically, meet and greet, reconnect, and have fun. I wonder what kind of turnout we’d get if EVERY faculty member placed personal calls to 5-10 former students they stay in touch with?
BTW, if you’re interested, here’s the info…
The Cultural Arts Center at Glen Allen
2880 Mountain Road
Glen Allen, VA 23060
I’d REALLY like to see more of this!!
I’ll be the first to admit, having tenured professors with 20+ yrs experience calling up newly minted MBAs 1-2 years out of school asking them to fill out surveys is a bit cheeky, but if the program wants to venture into unchartered waters (top 20 ranking perhaps) this will take a mentality or measure of thinking that is outside of the box as well.
One very current example of expanding connections is the opportunity Phillip Horne (Executive Director of Development and External Relations at Mason) and I had to visit with the Executive MBA Class of 2009 this past Friday, April 3rd. We asked the students to examine some ideas about an expanded external relations strategy that encompasses activities and programs for alumni, corporations and current students. The discussion was vigorous and some great ideas emerged. Let me discuss just two of them briefly.
One is to create ways for the Full-time MBA students to meet and network with the Executive MBA’s. Networking among these student cohorts has many potential benefits. Last month the first year MBA students had a Program Day during which they were exposed to four real world business leadership cases led by experienced managers. As a result of this suggestion, we are actively exploring the possibility of having a joint program day or days for Full-time and Executive MBA students.
The second idea is to run an annual case competition with these cohorts plus the Flex MBA students to elicit new ideas about strengthening our alumni connections and building an alumni network that will care for its own from rankings input to job placement help. The Corporate and Alumni Relations Group welcomes your thoughts about these and any other ideas you may have. Please send them to me through this blog or via e-mail at thomas.rideout@mason.wm.edu
And please do let us know if you would like to attend the networking event that Jim Olver describes just above. This idea came from students and the invitation has been issued on behalf of all of the current graduate business students at Mason. You can reply to alumnirelations@mason.wm.edu
Director of Corporate and Alumni Relations
Hi, I am not sure if i am the right person to post here, as i am neither an alumni nor a current student. I am a Mason MBA 2010 aspirant. while there is too much of attention given to “rankings”, primary focus being FT rankings . I believe most of the future prospective students give too much attention to the rankings, and they only do superficial survey.
In my opinion (made from whatever survey is have done). William & Mary is a good college, that has some of the best professors and a higly reputed undergraduate program (which reflects in various rankings). The question that naturally arises is what are the roadblocks in transferring this reputating (undergrad & professors) into Mason graduate program?
As a prospective student, i basically see three factors while selecting a college which is best “fit” for me. 1) Education (professor’s reputation , case study etc) 2) Placement statistics (how many get a job, and how much they earn) 3) Career progression (where will be be 5 years or 15 years down the line after I graduate from that college?)
Personally i feel that students give too much importance to FT rankings, there are many rankings available, USnews, Businessweek, FT, eduniversal, Forbes, WSJ, QS mba etc. I often become overwhelming and confusing for example FT ranks a school as 60 while US news and Forbes doesnt rankings it at all.
However Rankings are a piece of statistics, and i firmly believe that statistics should assist in decision making and not dominate it. Just for the record, Princetonreview has rated Mason as 91 in career rating (Harvard is 99), way ahead of several B schools ranked in FT. I would advice to fellow aspirants is to do an exhaustive survey about the school, and not just use rankings as a rule of thumb.