Is Business School Right for You? 02-03

Is Business School Right for You?

Over the holiday, I had the chance to talk with several prospective students interested in applying to Johnson. They came from a variety of backgrounds and, like most prospective students; all were curious how the first Johnson Cornell Tech MBA class was shaping up. After several phone calls, a few themes emerged as I noticed that many people were potentially applying for business school for what I think is the wrong reason. I’d like to explore a few of the more common reasons and talk about why I think they are troubling.

Reason 1: “I don’t like my current job therefore I’m hoping business school will help me get a better job.”

This is probably the number one reason I hear from people interested in applying to business school. It’s entirely possible that after Cornell, you’ll be able to get a job at a more “prestigious” company, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll like the job more. The trouble is that most people don’t know what type of job/role/activity they would really like to do for eight hours a day. 

They know what they don’t like (e.g., certain aspects of their current job) and they have some inclination of what they might like (e.g., typically industry/sectors that are hot), but they’re not really sure. When I push applicants on what they want to do after graduation, most provided high-level answers such as, “I want to work in XYZ industry or in ABC function.” Why? Most of the answers were vague, at best.

It’s okay not to know why business school interests you. The concern I have is, are you taking steps before applying to business school to learn what you want to do and what you’re good at? You can definitely find time in business school to explore specific industries, but I recommend exploring coffee chats and researching industries and functions before applying to business school. 

Especially if this is the primary reason you want to go back to school. Not only will you get more bang for your buck prepping yourself beforehand, you’ll also have a leg-up when recruiting begins. Avoid being scattered, applying for every “hot company” under the sun. Remember, when conducting a career search; don’t just think about what you want to do, also consider what you are actually good at.

Reason 2: “I am dissatisfied with my career growth and think business school can help me grow my career faster.”

This is an issue frequently expressed by younger applicants, but also by others. There are different ways to express this concern including, “I’ll be able to get a faster promotion with a MBA degree” or “I might not be promoted in the future if I don’t have a degree.” Another variation is, “My current career growth isn’t as fast as I’d like and I believe an MBA degree will help.”

 Again, nothing wrong with this line of thinking, but the more important question is if this line of thinking is actually reasonable in your situation. For some industries, it’s almost becoming a pre-requisite to possess an MBA, but that’s not true for all. For those who haven’t figured out what they really want to do (see first point above), this thought process becomes even more dangerous.

In our society, a society that values progression, promotion, and progress, we often feel that we must constantly be in an upward progression. Recognize that what made you successful in your current role doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be successful in your next endeavor. Furthermore, what you enjoy doing now doesn’t mean you’ll have to chance to do those things when you are promoted. Seeking growth for growth sake can be deadly for a company, just as it can be deadly for your career.

Reason 3: “I don’t have time to do my startup, work-on my passion, or do what I really love because of my current employment. Business school is a breeze so I’ll have time to do while enrolled.”

Business school isn’t medical school so yes; it is “easier.” However, you can’t sleep through classes. Even if you don’t care about academics, being in an environment where incredibly intelligent people are doing thousands of wonderful, innovative activities, you’ll quickly start running out of time just having fun. If you feel that business school is going to give you free time, I’d like to correct that misperception. 

Instead, view business school as providing options and it’s your quest to effectively manage that time, no different than your current situation today. I recommend for people feeling burned out at work and seeking to attend business school as an escape, ask your employer about taking a leave of absence. Take some time off, even without pay. 

If you’re a great employee, most employers would be more than willing to consider the request. While experiencing a hiatus, use that time as a sabbatical. Two months later, you’ll know if it really was a poorly suited job or just the excuse you’re giving yourself for not pursuing your passion.

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Big Data Drawing Big Student Enrollments 12-17

Big Data Drawing Big Student Enrollments

How does Netflix recommend TV shows and movies for you? How does the Center for Disease Control predict the spread of infectious diseases? Why does my computer now only display ads for MBA programs? What are the most dangerous intersections for a cyclist in Los Angeles?

All of these questions can be answered by some (relatively) simple big data analysis. Business analytics and big data analysis courses are popping up at MBA programs at a frenzied pace. Florian Zettelmeyer, a professor at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, has been pondering the implications for a decade.

When Zettelmeyer was at the University of California-Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, Harrah’s casino chain was just starting to dabble in using big data to make c-suite decisions. At the time, Harrah’s had 29 casinos across the country with 29 different managers. The problem was establishing a new incentives program to get people in the doors. They were examining data from each casino as a whole. The adoption of big data analysis allowed them to examine each individual customer and their actions once inside the doors, switching the central value from the actual casino to the patrons. Management could make better decisions for their individual casinos instead of an over-arching decision with little specificity or relevance. Scary, huh?

A CORE PHILOSOPHICAL SWITCH

Big data is old news for statisticians, engineers, and (obviously) data analysts. But the reason it is increasingly essential to an MBA education is what Zettelmeyer labels as the core philosophical idea. And a wealth of business schools have jumped on this bandwagon, offering majors and minors in the field within their traditional MBA programs or MS degrees in business analytics. The programs range from online offerings, such as Indiana University’s Kelley School MS in Business Analytics for just $36,000 to a concentration in it at such schools as the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business or NYU’s Stern School.

“Data analytics is a job management problem and a leadership problem,” Zettelmeyer says. “An MBA program should help answer the question, what do you need to be effective as a manager in the current business environment? Right now, being a good leader means possessing at least a working knowledge of data science.”

Zettelmeyer’s main point is it is a leader’s job to strategically decide which problems should be examined through the data. Once the problem is identified, someone has to interpret the data. Interpreting for interpreting’s sake can produce some intriguing insights, but is largely unhelpful unless there is a calculated problem to be solved. Zettelmeyer teaches all of his courses in a problem-solution format. That is, what is the problem? And how is data mining and analysis going to bring a solution?

According to Zettelmeyer, managers need to combine data with intuition to make decisions. More importantly, they have to know what they are seeing. Then, they need to communicate the data in persuasive ways. And so the Kellogg curriculum was forged from the stone of Bay Area entrepreneurship and Big Tech. Kellogg professor, Brian Uzzi teaches multiple classes focusing on social implications of analytics and has helped shape Kellogg’s evolving curriculum alongside Zettelmeyer and other faculty members. Two years ago, the faculty members drafted initial curriculum, gathering a list of Kellogg alumni in the Bay Area and then connecting with the Silicon Valley tech giants. The faculty gave course descriptions and syllabi to execs from Facebook and others, gathered feedback, filled holes in what the companies felt the needs really were, and finished the curriculum.

“We prepare students to understand customer to customer dynamics,” Uzzi says. “We train them to be able to pull data from Twitter API and do a marketing analysis. By the end of one class period, our students can do something that would cost $70,000 for a consultant to do on their laptops in less than an hour. They leave our program feeling like they can get the best job imaginable and be able to have a startup on the side.”

FROM ENGINEERING SCHOOLS TO A B-SCHOOL NEAR YOU

While the actual master’s degree in analytics still remains at the engineering school at Northwestern, the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business is one of the business programs to house a one year master’s degree in business analytics. And it has been well-received. The program started its inaugeral class of in March. According to Yehuda Bassok, chair of the Data Sciences and Operations department at Marshall, they had about 80 applicants. This year they are expecting up to 500.

Bassok says the benefits and use of big data analysis goes beyond marketing problems and figuring out how to increase profit. It can also monumental in areas like public safety issues. One of the projects students have worked on in the fledgling program is addressing pedestrian and cyclist safety issues for the city of Los Angeles.

“All of the data for streets and intersections of where there are cyclist and pedestrian accidents are compiled by the City,” Bassok says. “Our program teaches students how to take that unstructured data and structure it. Is there a connection between the structure of an intersection and the accident? How serious were the accidents? Structuring the data might lead to a simple and low-cost solution.”

‘AN MBA IS A SWISS ARMY KNIFE’

The University of Rochester’s Simon Business School also recently announced a new MS in Business Analytics program.

“An MBA is a Swiss Army Knife,” says Simon Dean Andrew Ainslie. “There are a ton of topics covered and is appropriate for someone wanting career mobility. The one year masters program is for someone wanting a more focused and specialized education.”

Ainslie says it is part of a large cycle. Big data was very much a part of business education in the late 90s during the boom of dotcom companies. The bust caused big data to fade away for a while. Now, with companies like Google and Amazon dedicating large amounts of resources to it, big data is regaining traction. It could also be gaining popularity in business schools to fill a decreasing part-time population.

“There has been a slow, steady 20 year decline in Americans taking the GMAT,” Ainslie says. “The part-time programs have taken the hit and are dying out. The popularity of big data allows schools to offer a new and attractive program.”

SOLVING A GLOBAL HEALTH CRISIS TO DRAFTING A FANTASY TEAM

In 2009, when the nation was rife with panic over the spread of the H1N1 virus, researchers at Northwestern were inspired by the website, Where’s George, which tracks how dollar bills move around the country. They used similar computer algorithms except the two mammoth datasets of air and commuter traffic trends replaced dollar bills. The result was an eerily close prediction of how many H1N1 cases would come about and where.

Dustin Pusch heads up the program at George Washington’s School of Business. He says the purpose of their program, which can be taken in two years as a part-time student or one year as a full-time student, is to prepare students to manage a business problem from start-to-finish with only analytic decision making. The school partners with Deloitte and Catalyst Consulting to create and solve the problems.

Another way George Washington students can delve into the galaxy of big data is through the Washington Nationals. Students mainly work with the Nationals’ marketing department, but are also exposed to the moneyball side of the sport.

“The cat’s out of the bag for the sports world,” Pusch says. “You are not going to be as successful as a sports franchise unless you are doing it. They run big data sets for player evaluation. The concepts we teach are absolutely applicable to this. I just use the concepts to better draft my fantasy teams.”

ALL ABOARD THE BIG DATA BANDWAGON?

The beauty of George Washington’s program is that students get a basic skill set and then the autonomy to create a program specific to their goals and interests.

“We have a corporate advisory board made up of representatives from organizations such as Deloitte, IBM, the Nationals, the Federal Treasury, JP Morgan, and others,” Pusch says. “They all weigh in on the development of the program. The importance we are seeing is not just the technical skills. We also have to emphasize soft skills and being able to communicate the analytics.”

Regardless of interest, the world is rapidly moving towards big data and being able to analyze and communicate it effectively and efficiently.

“Business, marketing, finance, the spread of infectious diseases, everyone is starting to use big data sets to make predictions and evaluations,” Zettelmeyer says. “General Electric is using big data to make decisions on building and scheduling railroads and locomotives across the country. Analytics are everywhere and managers need to know how to synthesize and make decisions with them.”

BUSINESS ANALYTICS PROGRAMS OFFERED AT BUSINESS SCHOOLS

School	Degree	Length of Program	Cost
Chicago (Booth)	Concentration in Analytic Management	Can be earned during two-year MBA	$61,520
NYU (Stern)	Specialization in Business Analytics	Can be earned during two-year MBA	$60,744
Northwestern (Kellogg)	Program on Business Analytics	Can be earned during MBA	$61,596
Indiana (Kelley)	Boasts major and minor in analytics in MBA program, plus an online MS in business analytics	Online program can be earned while at home	$36,000
University of Southern California (Marshall)	MS in Business Analytics	Full-time, 1 year or part-time, one class per semester	$47,000
The George Washington School of Business	MS in Business Analytics	Full-time, 1 year or part-time, 2 years	$50,000
University of Texas-Austin (McCombs)	MS in Business Analytics	Three semesters	$34,000 (in-state) or $40,000 (out-of-state)
Arizona State University (W.P. Carey)	MS in Business Analytics	9-month full-time or 16-month part-time	$31,300 (in-state) or $46,700 (out-of-state)
University of Minnesota (Carlson)	MS in Business Analytics	Three semesters	$39,825 (in-state) or $54,900 (out-of-state)
Michigan State University (Broad)	MS in Business Analytics	One year, full-time	$51,980 (in-state) or $54,980 (out-of-state)
University of Rochester (Simon)	MS in Business Analytics	11 months (non-internship track) or 17 months (internship track)	$62,678
Southern Methodist University (Cox)	MS in Business Analytics	Full-time, 1 year	$48,386
Drexel University LeBow College of Business	MS in Business Analytics	1 year, full-time (45 credits)	$42,750
University of Cincinnati, Lindner College of Business	MS in Business Analytics	Full-time, 1 year	$19,280 (in-state), $24,118 (out-of-state)
University of Miami School of Business Administration	MS in Business Analytics	Full-time, 9 months	$53,7000
Melbourne Business School (Australia)	Master of Business Analytics	Full-time, 1 year	$48,000

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MBA From IIMA Offers More Value Than Harvard, Wharton: Report 11-10

MBA From IIMA Offers More Value Than Harvard, Wharton: Report

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The Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIMA) has been ranked the best business school (B-school) in the country year after year for many years. It has been one of the few Indian educational institutions to have found a mention in the global pecking order as well.

Now, a new ranking published by the Economist magazine has placed IIMA much ahead of its Ivy League competitors such as Harvard, Stanford, Kellogg and Wharton. In fact, IIMA is the world's fourth best B-school, when it comes to "Good value MBAs," the Economist says.

The Economist's ranking is based on the return on investment on MBA courses. In simpler terms, it means an MBA course from IIMA offers more bang for your buck.

According to the Economist, the return on investment on an MBA course from IIMA (a year after the course) is 44 per cent as compared to 15 per cent for Harvard, 14 per cent for Stanford and 10 per cent for Kellogg. The immediate return on investment on an MBA course from Wharton is just 6 per cent, the magazine says.

So, the investment on an MBA course from IIMA can be recouped in just over two years, while investments on MBA courses done from Harvard or Stanford will take much longer to recoup.

Only three other B-schools, HEC Paris (67 per cent), Aston (64 per cent) and University of Hong Kong (60 per cent) offer better value MBA courses to students, the Economist has found.

American B-schools are the most expensive and they enroll well-paid executives, who land jobs just a few notches above the ones they left, the magazine says. As a result, the immediate return on such MBA courses is small.

On the other hand, IIMA admits even graduates and charges comparatively less fees, boosting the return on investment post the course.

In the long run, however, a Wharton alumnus is more likely to top the greasy pole, the magazine says.

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Chicago Booth tops ranking of world's best exec MBA programs 05-22

Chicago Booth tops ranking of world's best exec MBA programs

After making a significant overhaul to its executive MBA program last year, the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business emerged as Poets&Quants' best EMBA in the world.

(Poets&Quants) -- Sometimes, the new model is just better than the old one.

After a significant overhaul to its executive MBA program last year, the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business emerged as the best EMBA in the world, according to the new 2014 composite ranking by Poets&Quants.

Chicago, which was second last year, nosed out the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School for first place honors. Wharton had held a tight grip on the top spot since Poets&Quants began ranking EMBA programs four years ago.

Rounding out the top five are No. 3 Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, No. 4 IE Business School, the highest rank ever achieved by a non-U.S. school in the ranking, and No. 5 Duke University's Fuqua School of Business.

Though there were many changes up and down the list of the 48 ranked programs, the biggest surprise was Chicago's emergence at the top. At a time when many institutions are lightening the workloads of their executive MBA programs and awarding the degree for less work, Chicago continues to have one of the most rigorous and academically challenging programs in the world.

The school last year increased the international exchange portion of the program to five weeks from four, doubled the number of required electives so that students can specialize in a discipline, and tossed into the program a full menu of leadership exercises that had long been an entry hallmark of its full-time MBA experience.

Booth also added a three-month-long capstone course that provides the opportunity for students to integrate concepts and tools from much of the curriculum in a multi-round simulation culminating in presentations to a panel of investor-judges. The simulation requires competing teams of students to maximize revenue for a fictitious company.

Booth's 21-month program is taught at campuses in Chicago and London, and the school has more than 500 students studying in its executive MBA program on campuses in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. Still, the school maintains unusually tight control of the program's quality. Booth doesn't partner with other schools, preferring instead to fly its professors from Chicago to London and Hong Kong to teach. Though costly and hard to scale, the practice allows Booth to parade its most seasoned faculty before its most experienced students. 

At the beginning of the program, all students take a course in analytical methods to refresh their understanding of quantitative methods and statistics. Each course has one or two PhD students working as teaching assistants to the professors. They too are flown to London and Hong Kong, so that they are available to students during class weeks. Both faculty and teaching assistants are evaluated by students, and the feedback is used to improve the courses.

None of this comes cheap. For the U.S. class that starts in June, tuition and fees come to $168,000, up $14,000 from a year earlier. The cost includes hotel accommodations for three weeks in Chicago, a week in London, and a week in Hong Kong, but not airfare.

Though fewer corporations are footing the bills for these programs, the costs continue to rise. For students in Kellogg's EMBA program that started in January, the tuition bill will be roughly $176,600. For the latest EMBA classes at Wharton, students entering the program this month at the school's home campus in Philadelphia will pay a whopping $181,500 in tuition and fees, up from $171,360 a year ago. Self-sponsored students must pay the tuition -- the highest of any MBA program in the world -- in six equal installments at the beginning of each semester.

Rank tends to influence the price of an EMBA. The highly ranked schools often have the highest price points. Last year, for example, the average cost of an executive MBA program was $73,400 -- much lower than the price tags at either Wharton, Kellogg or Booth, which sit at the top of the market.

"Full financial sponsorship has been going downward, but the number of students who are partially funded by their employers has stayed reasonably stable," says Michael Desiderio, executive director of the Executive MBA Council. "In terms of partial funding, some corporations have a cap and others will only reimburse the tax credit amount, so it really varies." The group's surveys show that 24% of EMBA students receive full financial sponsorship, 41% are fully self-funded, and 35% are partially funded.

The new ranking by Poets&Quants measures the overall reputation of these programs by combining the four latest ratings on EMBA programs from BusinessWeek, The Economist, The Financial Times, and U.S. News & World Report. By blending these rankings into a composite list, the methodology tends to diminish anomalies that often show up in any one rating system. 

A school must be ranked on at least two of the four lists to be included. The reason? Generally, the more widely recognized an EMBA program is, the more one can be assured of its quality and brand value. Programs that land only on a single ranking are less likely to have the cache and prestige of those that are ranked by all four or three of the most influential rankings.

There are some notable and obvious exceptions. Executive MBA offerings by UC-Berkeley, MIT Sloan, Yale School of Management, and Notre Dame's Mendoza School immediately come to mind. UC-Berkeley's EMBA was ranked ninth by U.S. News & World Report this year, but the school's 19-month program was only launched in May 2013 and has yet to graduate a single class. 

Berkeley's new standalone program replaced its long-time partnership EMBA with Columbia Business School. MIT didn't graduate its first EMBA class until 2012, one reason the program doesn't show up on any lists. Notre Dame actually improved its latest ranking in Bloomberg BusinessWeek, rising to finish 15th from 27th. But the school's program was not ranked by the three remaining ranking organizations, so it did not make Poets&Quants' list.

This year, Poets&Quants changed its methodology to incorporate the findings of The Economist'sdebut ranking of executive MBA programs last year. The Economist list replaces the now out-of-date ranking from The Wall Street Journal, which last ranked business schools in 2010.

That change alone caused significant reverberations on our list for two major reasons: The Economist ranked more than twice as many programs as the Journal -- 68 vs. 25 -- and The Economist's list is much more global. Four years ago, only one non-U.S. school made The Wall Street Journal's ranking, IE Business School in Spain. By contrast, there are 25 standalone EMBA programs outside the U.S. ranked by The Economist.

The upshot: International programs fare much better on this year's list. Last year, only three non-U.S. EMBA programs made Poets&Quants' top 25. This year, there are eight, ranging from No. 4 IE Business School to No. 25 National University of Singapore. Of the 48 EMBA programs ranked by Poets&Quants, 15 are outside the U.S. 

As always, the new ranking takes into account a blizzard of metrics to measure the quality of the programs, from surveys of student satisfaction to increases in income attributed to the degree. Each of the four major rankings are equally weighted in this 2014 survey of the best.

For the first time ever, Poets&Quants also published a separate ranking of joint EMBA programs. The Kellogg School's partnership with Hong Kong University of Science and Technology came in first among the joint programs. In fact, Kellogg partnerships with other schools in Germany and Canada were in the top five.

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