Faustini

RML,

HSW will always (certainly for as long as we'll ever care) surpass Haas. Look at the money. Do you really believe that with an endowment around $25 billion Harvard will ever let Berkeley become a better program? Stanford has around $15 billion, Yale close to $20 billion. Same argument there. Even UPenn at $5 billion is twice as rich as Berkeley. The private/public factor is in no way favorable to Haas considering the fact that California is in a very bad place right about now. This is another reason why Yale SOM will widely be considered better than Haas within the coming years; in fact, the "uneducated" people, to use your term, already think it is.

Did you see BW's recent ranking of the top 30 re: current job placement? Take a look at the slideshow here:

MBAs Confront a Savage Job Market - BusinessWeek

"
No. 1 YALE UNIVERSITY, SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT

Students without job offers three months after graduation
in 2009: 8%
in 2007: 6%

Median starting salary
in 2009: $96,000
in 2007: $95,000

Yale grads emerged almost shockingly unscathed by the financial turmoil, hardly registering a blip in the placement rate. At the same time signing bonuses, actually increased from 2008 by 15 percentage points, with 76% of the students who found jobs also getting a bonus.
"

versus:

"
No. 10 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY, HAAS SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

Students without job offers three months after graduation
in 2009: 14%
in 2007: 4%

Median starting salary
in 2009: $110,000
in 2007: $100,000

Haas had a decent showing in 2009, with relatively few students not reporting job offers. Salaries were a bright spot for this year's Haas graduates, with a considerable increase in pay since 2007, though no increase from 2008. Singing bonuses fell five percentage points since 2007, settling at 64% of students who accepted jobs in 2009.
"

Like most things in life, the quality of an MBA program largely come down to financial resources. Somebody should amalgamate several rankings (w/ different methodologies), average the rankings for each school, and then compare that with each school's endowment. I'd reckon there would be a pretty high correlation even beyond the elite programs.

In short, I wouldn't hold my breath on Haas > HSW anytime soon.

RML

^ I never claimed and will never ever claim that Haas is superior to HBS. I think anyone who is in his right mind would never ever claim such a thing. However, HBS does not have the monopoly of everything. Whilst it is the "king" of all the best B-Schools in the entire universe, it also has a few weak points. For example, HBS isn't the "king" for finance. That title rightly belongs to Wharton (and some may argue that it's Chicago-Booth). In this particular ranking, it did not appear number 1 because the methodology used does not favor HBS. Regardless of how HBS performs in any ranking game, only quite a few will argue that it is not the number 1 b-school in the entire universe.

On topic about endowment, I think you got it wrong. B-Schools do have their own endowment fund which have entirely separated books and accounts of their own. B-Schools don't generally rely on the endowment fund of their parent universities. Yale-SOM does not rely on Yale University's endowment fund. (Noticed how Yale-SOM's building construction was put on hold because the parent university isn't willing to provide any assistance to Yale-SOM?) Berkeley-Haas does not rely on UC Berkeley's endowment fund (but fortunately it's more than $330M endowment fund isn't meager for its size.) And so are the others.

Berkeley does not have as much endowment fund as HYS do because it's a public institution which rely funding from the government. HYS cannot and don't rely funding from the government. But Berkeley has finally realised that in order for them to rival with the best schools around, they don't have to rely from the government funds all the time, that's why Berkeley is now soliciting funds from their alumni and friends. My wife (who's from Cal) has since donated to Berkeley when she was contacted by the alumni office.

Lastly, I wouldn't really care if the school that I go to is ranked #4 or # 8 or # 15. If you want to go to Yale-SOM, it's all up to you. If you want to go to Haas, it's your call completely and I would not say that you will be in a disadvantage for going there (or even Yale-SOM) than going to HSW. (Most people that are attracted to Haas are engineers, tech-oriented or finance jocks. I'm not sure what type of people are attracted to Yale-SOM.) In reality, it's how you will use your MBA that makes it worthy. Like I said, even some HBS grads don't make as much as some Haas grads do. The link I provided showed that to be true.

RML

I'm curious; did you check how many grads from that pool went into entrepreneurship?
Many Haas grads form companies of their own making them self-employed and thus wouldn't have to go through the whole length of job application process.

Faustini

It appeared you were advocating the relevancy of this ranking which gave Haas the higher position. One can develop a methodology that would make most any school outshine HSW. The crux of the matter is that reputation drives the quality of any program. The brand has a great influence on the merit of the applicant pool any given school will draw; the quality of the students, in turn, will perpetuate that reputation whatever it may be. It seems that for this reason it is very difficult for schools to make much progress in the rankings, at least not in a short period of time (i.e. give Yale SOM more time).

Regarding endowment, surely a business school can easily tap the funds of the parent university? HBS is still Harvard and it is in the university's best interest that the business school retain its preeminence. It still stands that Berkeley will have a very difficult time increasing its standing w/o considerably more $.

Faustini

No, I did not check the eps yield. Good point. Nonetheless, I am sure that even you will agree Yale's relative immunity to this contraction is still very impressive. It is not a stretch to argue the Yale brand is partly responsible for this.

sakky

That actually would be quite difficult, at least from a political level. Each of Harvard's schools acts as a barony unto itself, and jealously guards its own prerogatives. If HBS were to attempt to tap the funds of the greater university, then the university would surely demand that HBS relinquish some of its suite of exclusive rights. {I know I would if I was the Harvard administration.}

As a case in point, HBS has its own gym that is open only to members of its own community. The HBS gym is not just any gym, but arguably the best gym in the entire university. HBS students are allowed to use any gym of the entire university, but regular Harvard students are not allowed to use the HBS gym. Similarly, HBS has its own dorms, which only HBS students are allowed to reside within, and they are unquestionably the best dorms of the entire university. Astonishingly, many of the dorm rooms go unfilled. Yet other Harvard grad students, such as the GSAS students, lack sufficient dorm space.

If I was the central Harvard administration, and HBS requested funding from me, I would immediately demand that they release control of their exclusive dorms and gym. That's something that HBS is keenly loathe to avoid because they view those assets as key to the development of the business school community. If that means that other Harvard students are stuck with crowded facilities while HBS has plenty of slack, hey, that's not HBS's problem.

Faustini

sakky,

Thanks for that illuminating post. Interesting, but certainly not surprising given that political maneuvering seems to drive most everything these days. I assume this is not unique to Harvard?

The point, of course, still rings true re: HSW > Haas as the b-school endowments appear to correspond highly to those of their parent universities. HBS is extremely wealthy, Haas a small fry.

RML

^ Did you read what I said on post #17? If you missed that part, let me post it again for you: I never claimed and will never ever claim that Haas is superior to HBS.

I hope that settles any doubts you have about my stand on this.

sakky

I'm not aware of any other business school that has its own gym separate and exclusive of the greater university proper that is of such high quality that it has been described as having ought to "...be part of the US Olympic Federation's elite training facility" (P.D. Broughton, 'Ahead of the Curve'). Suffice it to say that the rest of Harvard covets access to the gym and that is something HBS will never surrender without a huge fight.

Faustini

Yes, we're good RML. I was directing that one @ Tax Bear and post #7.

Faustini

sakky,

You appear very knowledgeable about HBS. Would you say Broughton's book is spot on? Any other titles you would recommend?

BedHead

I talked fairly recently to a senior technology company leader, a graduate of Wharton, who said his school specialized in people who make money by moving it around, but that Haas grads by reputation were known for creating wealth by creating companies and innovating. It was pretty clear that he thought Haas offered something superior, and yet he wasn't down on his own school.

I would take any ranking with a big grain of salt, but to conclude unsystematically that a ranking has no validity because it doesn't mirror one's preconceptions is intellectually silly.

Each ranking has its biases, and so long as you know what those are, you can use rankings to your benefit.

the_prestige

That's all very nice and good, but at the end of the day, the simple litmus test is that the majority of HBS grads in any given year would have gotten into Haas, but that simply just cannot say be said on the other way around. Basically, HBS / Stanford GSB / Wharton are all superior to Haas... and it's not close.

The fact that there is a current backlash against Wharton and the finance industry in general is absolutely a function of the state of the current market environment -- basically, it's popular to take anyone remotely related to Wall Street, take him out back and beat the ***** out of him.

RML

What??? That's complete unfounded. I know at least 2 current HBS students who didn't make it to Haas, and at least 5 HBS students who did not even apply to Haas because they think they wouldn't get into Haas anyway. Haas is not as great as HBS, in general, but Haas now is different from what it was before. If you would check on their student profile, you would know that a substantial students there are engineers and science graduates with working experience equal to those of HWS students in terms of level of experience, and GMAT scores just slightly lower. There are many students at Haas who did not even apply to HWS because they're set to go to Haas. Having said that, HBS is no question the superior b-school as it is the number 1 b-school in the world. Stanford is next, based on stats. But Wharton is not substantially superior to Haas. Wharton is just about as good as Kellogg. All stats would show us that Haas is just slightly inferior to WBS - from GMAT scores and GPAs of the admitted students to the earning potential of their graduates. http://finance.yahoo.com/college-edu...uing_education

Show me data that would tell us that Wharton is substantially superior to Haas.

BedHead

Utter tripe.

This guy wasn't in finance. He was criticizing his own. And he was senior at a large semiconductor manufacturer not based in the Northeast.

For you, the ivy league will always trump anything else. Your bias is pathetically obvious. There are answers out there that aren't so obvious.

I think you need to look at what people want to accomplish. Numerically speaking, Haas is up there in terms of difficulty to get into. And yet I've known plenty of people who have opted to go to the Ivy League. And yet I've also known plenty who have opted to go to Haas. And yet I've known people who regretted both choices and others who were happy with what they choose.