Bad-Mouthing The B-School

While Harvard College was recently named the best university in America for the fifth year in a row, the Harvard Business School (HBS) has sunk to its lowest rank ever: fifth.

Or so the new Business Week magazine would have you believe. One HBS official found the new ranking "interesting," reminding us that of America's business schools, Harvard has the most selective admissions process, the highest yield among accepted applicants, the best job placement record and the highest average starting salary for graduates.

And since HBS, like all graduate MBA programs, is essentially a trade school, one would think that the element of job placement would prove paramount. The huge number of applicants (and universal desire to attend once accepted) indicates that MBAs appreciate this well-known fact about HBS.

So what's the problem? According to Business Week, the fifth-place finish reflects graduates' dissatisfaction with a static curriculum and unresponsive administration. The magazine's biennial ranking is based on a two-part survey involving graduates from 44 top business schools and representatives of 254 companies that actively recruit these graduates. While corporate recruiters ranked HBS number three, HBS's own graduates placed HBS 17th among MBA programs.

Surely MBAs know that bad-mouthing their alma mater only serves to erode the school's immaculate reputation (a reputation, we might add, that will forever be associated with their own names).

For graduates, it seems that the prudent thing would be to ignore any deficiencies in the curriculum and obstinately sing the praises of illustrious Harvard. A fallen Harvard can only serve to take the shine off that hard-earned Harvard MBA degree.

Surely MBAs know all this. And yet they still voice their dissatisfaction. Something must be wrong.

HBS graduates were asked by Business Week to judge their school on teaching quality, program content and career placement. According to the survey, Harvard graduates were dissatisfied with the slow pace of curricular reform and the high fees associated with attending the school. Graduates also deplored the administration's lack of responsiveness. One 1994 graduate branded HBS an "archaic dinosaur."

The Harvard name, it would appear, is not enough anymore. Students at HBS want more than a pretty campus and a Harvard diploma. They want a solid education and administrators who won't take them for granted. Significantly, the Wharton School, at the University of Pennsylvania, surged from fourth place in 1992 to first this year, due to what Business Week called the "most dramatic curriculum changes at any elite school."

And just last spring. HBS announced sweeping reforms, including a decreased reliance on the antiquated case-study method and the implementation of a new trimester calendar. While these changes come too late for those who have already graduated, we hope the HBS administration will move quickly to improve the quality of the HBS experience--and ultimately improve graduates' satisfaction with the MBA program.

While any one survey should not be taken as gospel, one would hope that the new ranking for the HBS might legitimately motivate the school in its ongoing public fight against obsolescence.