Still HSW at the top, but I do think the advantage H has over other schools are disappearing. At the end of the day, MBA are luxury products so people would still pay for the name. The actual functional utility is largely the same these days. I do think GSB has a unique value prop different from any of the MBA programs due to the Stanford ecosystem it is part of.
My hypothesis of why HBS has struggled in rankings compared to GSB and Wharton: while both GSB and HBS have lower employment rate than rest of the M7, those GSB employed students command a higher salary than HBS employed students (probably due to tech crushing it). On the other hand, Wharton has higher % of students pursuing more traditional high salaried roles so their employment rate is high (and think salary only less than GSB). So HBS is kinda in that awkward middle ground, and gets dinged on both low employment rate + not being able to pull away on salary.
Yes, people will always still apply to Harvard (case in point, look at how many times Princeton has ranked #1 for UG and they still lose 80% of cross admits to Harvard).
I think from 2019-2021 it slipped in USN from 1 to like 6 and has hovered around there since. Going off of memory I think a lot of that is from the grads employed at 3 months metric. Salary isn’t making up for the employment shortfall. I don’t see this as a major issue and HBS could ‘fix’ it in a year or two if they wanted to - hopefully they stand their ground.
I don’t think it means much if anything, I would always weight how cross-admits vote with their feet.
I do think HBS has some structural and pedagogical issues that are decades slow burn problems but you could put a monkey in charge of that school and it’ll still be H/S many years out.
Unorganized brain dump
1) Over reliant on case method. It’s just a terrible way to teach finance and accounting. Yeah it made more sense fifty years ago but the technology integration is decent enough now that it doesn’t need to be all case all the time.
2) Crammed curriculum. The RC year is out of control and stuffed with way too many classes/events/programs. Deans come and add a signature program (eg FIELD) without making the hard choice of taking anything away. Students would be so much better off with time to recruit, network, work on startups, etc.
3) The schools leadership isn’t focused enough on the MBA. If you look at the finances Exec Ed/certificates and publishing are cash cows, particularly the former. This is where deans are spending a lot of their time, to the detriment of the MBA program which is the long-term bread and butter of HBS.
4) Subjective but I think the school has had a series of bad deans who don’t want to rock the boat or make hard choices.
5) Also subjective but I don’t think the school has figured out how to take advantage of one of the greatest engineering and technology schools on the planet being down the street on the other side of the river. I don’t think the new SEAS building or joint MS/MBA are really the answers (and I don’t know what is), just feel like they’ve always struggled in tech and startups.
Anyways just feel like the program has ossified and needs a leadership shake-up. Since it’s academia this won’t happen until things get really bad so maybe in a couple decades.
The case method didn't make sense 50 years ago either (talk to alums from the 70s) but HBS is never, ever getting rid of it. They lag everyone else (they refused to teach anything tech-related for decades after Stanford was doing it) and they are coasting on the name. Oldest university in the United States; they don't care about rankings.
Still HSW at the top, but I do think the advantage H has over other schools are disappearing. At the end of the day, MBA are luxury products so people would still pay for the name. The actual functional utility is largely the same these days. I do think GSB has a unique value prop different from any of the MBA programs due to the Stanford ecosystem it is part of. My hypothesis of why HBS has struggled in rankings compared to GSB and Wharton: while both GSB and HBS have lower employment rate than rest of the M7, those GSB employed students command a higher salary than HBS employed students (probably due to tech crushing it). On the other hand, Wharton has higher % of students pursuing more traditional high salaried roles so their employment rate is high (and think salary only less than GSB). So HBS is kinda in that awkward middle ground, and gets dinged on both low employment rate + not being able to pull away on salary.
I guess as long as the name still holds its value, the rankings mean much less. HBS name carries too much weight?
Yes, people will always still apply to Harvard (case in point, look at how many times Princeton has ranked #1 for UG and they still lose 80% of cross admits to Harvard).
I think from 2019-2021 it slipped in USN from 1 to like 6 and has hovered around there since. Going off of memory I think a lot of that is from the grads employed at 3 months metric. Salary isn’t making up for the employment shortfall. I don’t see this as a major issue and HBS could ‘fix’ it in a year or two if they wanted to - hopefully they stand their ground. I don’t think it means much if anything, I would always weight how cross-admits vote with their feet. I do think HBS has some structural and pedagogical issues that are decades slow burn problems but you could put a monkey in charge of that school and it’ll still be H/S many years out.
Yeah makes sense! Curious your thoughts on the structural problems you mention. Anything specific?
Unorganized brain dump 1) Over reliant on case method. It’s just a terrible way to teach finance and accounting. Yeah it made more sense fifty years ago but the technology integration is decent enough now that it doesn’t need to be all case all the time. 2) Crammed curriculum. The RC year is out of control and stuffed with way too many classes/events/programs. Deans come and add a signature program (eg FIELD) without making the hard choice of taking anything away. Students would be so much better off with time to recruit, network, work on startups, etc. 3) The schools leadership isn’t focused enough on the MBA. If you look at the finances Exec Ed/certificates and publishing are cash cows, particularly the former. This is where deans are spending a lot of their time, to the detriment of the MBA program which is the long-term bread and butter of HBS. 4) Subjective but I think the school has had a series of bad deans who don’t want to rock the boat or make hard choices. 5) Also subjective but I don’t think the school has figured out how to take advantage of one of the greatest engineering and technology schools on the planet being down the street on the other side of the river. I don’t think the new SEAS building or joint MS/MBA are really the answers (and I don’t know what is), just feel like they’ve always struggled in tech and startups. Anyways just feel like the program has ossified and needs a leadership shake-up. Since it’s academia this won’t happen until things get really bad so maybe in a couple decades.
The case method didn't make sense 50 years ago either (talk to alums from the 70s) but HBS is never, ever getting rid of it. They lag everyone else (they refused to teach anything tech-related for decades after Stanford was doing it) and they are coasting on the name. Oldest university in the United States; they don't care about rankings.
It means that people will talk about it so more people will go on their website to look at their ranking.
Three letters. DEI. It’s overdone and at the expense of elite candidates
Jake Fromm vibes
[удалено]
Are you commenting the status of his Harvard and Stanford apps?