What school is best for business? World leaders sound off

[downtown]

Well if the survey is designed to answer the question, "what school is best for business", then yeah, leaving out business schools is a bad thing.

Well, perhaps I wasn't being as percise as I should have been. A large university could have many "schools"....and students from several of those schools, not just the Business school, end up working in "business". Depending on the business department, I think that would actually be the norm (I suspect most folks under the age of 30 who work in HR in my country dont have HR degrees). If businesses think highly of the general reputation of a school when hiring folks, I think thats relevant, right?

Some of this is likely a reflection of pure numbers. Arizona State is a school for idiots, but it's also one of the three largest in the US, so by statistical average, I'm sure there are thousands of decent graduates...

 

[Hygro]

It's not a bad thing, it's just a little misleading.

 

[innonimatu]

A survey of reputation is only good for confirming reputation, not true quality. Reputation may be deserved or not.

I always wondered why people cared about these popularity contests when the press publishes them.

 

[downtown]

I always wondered why people cared about these popularity contests when the press publishes them.

Because these attitudes impact the worth of your degree? I write a 300 dollar check every month to pay for the loans I used to graduate from Ohio State (and that's a very affordable school by US standards). I'm interested in making sure I get a return on that investment!

 

[Verbose]

Are there any surprises in your country? What do you think makes alumni of some of the larger, public unis more attractive to world business leaders than our more "elite" private schools? Does India only have 1 school in the top 150? THOUGHTS?

Handelhögskolan is a very elite school. The unviversity only takes 100 students per year. It is more difficult to get into than medical school.

So not really a surprise then.

More of a surprise that the Karolinska is in 80, second placed Swedish school of the 5 in total on that list. The Karolinska is a dedicated medical school. At the most it offers some courses in medical management.

And 5 out of the total of 16 Swedish universities made this list. That's maybe a bit surprising. Gratifying though.
(It's like I tell US colleagues: Of course I've graduated from one of the top 100 rated univs in the world. I would have had to put in a bit of work to avoid it since half the univs in the country back in my student days were on it. Even if picking randomly I would have had a 50% chance of free education at one.)

Possibly a surprise that Uppsala University, which tends to crop up on every other kind of ranking list, isn't on this one.

 

[Neonanocyborgasm]

I always wondered why people cared about these popularity contests when the press publishes them.

Because the lay public thinks the surveys are based on some sort of quality. They don't realize that quality is word of mouth. A recent study in New England Journal of Medicine found that applying quality indicators, such as core measures and mortality, to hospitals rendered a list of hospitals that had no resemblance to those judged quality by US News and World Report's rankings.

 

[uppi]

Because these attitudes impact the worth of your degree? I write a 300 dollar check every month to pay for the loans I used to graduate from Ohio State (and that's a very affordable school by US standards). I'm interested in making sure I get a return on that investment!

And people like me, who paid about that sum in total to go to university (without any scholarship), can look at the rankings, see that their university is ranked higher than Ohio State in some of them and find yet another reason to be glad for not living in the USA.

 

[lovett]

Clearly wrong. 4th is not good enough.

I think you will find that the original data shows Cambridge to be 'eighth'. In representing it in chart form there was clearly some heinous typographical mix-up. That's the only explanation I can think of...