Customer Reviews

The Best 75 Business Schools, 1999 Edition (Annual)

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Seventy-five schools are covered, each with a two-page overview highlighting basic statistics, comments by students, and informal 'rankings' of the three best and worst things about a particular school. Schools are *not* ranked against each other. There is a bunch of supplemental material describing the application process and some sample 'good' essays. The information is a little dated, but the book does provide a basic starting point.

The overviews tend to follow a basic form and are generally favorable in their description of each school -- these are the 'top 75 business schools,' after all. After reading (and re-reading) the overviews, it became difficult to differentiate between specific schools. This is a problem. A fictional example might be in this form:

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Business University's business program established {many years ago} by {insane monk, prominent business person, benevolent megacorporation}. The students describe the curriculum as 'rigorous, but fair.' The school receives high marks for its {campus, location, diversity, team spirit, student friendliness}, but students feel {MIS, parking, career placement, professors in core classes} could use improvement.

Several students remarked 'the faculty is excellent and professors can walk and chew gum at the same time.' However, some disagree, 'not all of the professors are great gum chewers.'

The first year students take core classes in accounting, finance, marketing, and gum chewing. Second year students can select from {a lot of really cool} electives.

The admissions committee considers {GPA, GMAT, essays, recommendations, prior work experience, credit worthiness, and quality of penmanship} all equally. 'We want a student with strong {academics, leadership potential, likelihood of donating, well-roundedness} [...]

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Because the format has anonymous comments and does not provide any sense of the scale or number of people with a particular opinion about the school, the two-page summaries ultimately come across as wishy-washy.

The student surveys add some color, but they, too, have flaws. For example, Dartmouth appears at the top of almost all of the 'good' attributes for each school (e.g., 'great professors' 'strong marketing' 'strong teamwork'). I'm sure there are a lot of happy people there, but I couldn't help but wonder if proud students were sandbagging the surveys to pump up their school.

Finally, any book like this is only a snapshot of the school. What ultimately should guide your decision is whether the program and the environment meet your needs. You should definitely sit in on classes and visit campus. s and visit campus.

This is a very good reference for those who want to apply to a business school. Besides giving the school profiles, which is very good, its very best part is its categories ranking that includes Academics, Pressure, Social Life, Facilities, among others. Very interenting.

The Best 75 Business School's new edition for 1999 looks at the schools from many perspectives. For more than 15 academic qualities it ranks the top 10 schools. It also ranks the schools from other perspectives. Overall if you look through the different qualities that are important for you, you end up with a list of schools that might fit you best. It also has the regular, information on each school.