How MBAs Choose Their Schools

If you are inclined to think that business school rankings have an outsized impact on where prospective MBA students decide to get their degrees, you'll be highly disappointed in the results of a new survey out today (June 15). The survey by the Association of International Graduate Admissions Consultants (AIGAC) includes responses from nearly 1,400 recent applicants to business school.

The two most influential factors in a candidate's decision to apply to a business school? Reputation and MBA ranking. And, of course, the reputation of an academic institution is largely a function of rankings to begin with. Some 66% of the applicants cited reputation, while 61% checked off the MBA rankings box. Yet, candidates were asked to check off a wide variety of factors, ranging from the likely impact on their careers to the academic focus of the school.

Not surprisingly, the least important factors in how candidates target a business school were the quality of the faculty (20%) and the score a prospective student gained on either a GMAT or GRE exam (20%). It seems that the self-importance many professors have on business school campuses isn't all that much appreciated by the paying customers. And it also seems that whether or not you can hit a school's average standardized test score, if you really want to go there you will apply.

There were some surprises on the list, too. One of them is the role "culture" plays in choice. After reputation and MBA rankings, in fact, a school's culture was the most influential criteria used by prospective students to choose a school. Some 53% of the respondents thought culture was that important. Yet, at most schools, culture is something that merely evolves over time, often by accident and circumstance. Rarely is it cultivated by leadership and measured on results.

No wonder, UC-Berkeley's Haas School of Business has found that its hard work on codifying and strengthening its culture had led to such positive results. Surveys of Haas’ MBA and undergraduate business programs have found that three of every four students cite the school's cultural principles as a strong reason for choosing the school. Even more impressive, When MBA students were recently asked to pick one reason that tipped the scale on why they chose Haas over other options, the defining principles were selected three times more than the school’s brand reputation or its Bay Area location near Silicon Valley.

Yet, at the end of the day, it comes back to those damn rankings. Deans have long had a love-hate affair with the lists. When their programs go up, they are happy. When they go down, they argue that the ranking has little to no legitimacy. Like it or not, however, rankings are here to stay. They've become a permanent part of the decision process in higher education and little will change that reality.