Yale MBA - Ranking & Perception? (or lack thereof?) - Page 6

the H-bomb would definitely drop more panties, but perception within the industry, as well as the professional opportunities that come with it, definitely slants heavily towards yale.

I agree that Yale is clearly #1, but its dominance tends to be overstated by the Internets (typically by OLs, who don't understand the legal profession). USNEWS, for example, reports that Harvard is ranked number #1 by law firms. Similarly, the academic reputation scores of Harvard are always at least as good as Yale's scores. Yales does better in USNEWS because it is a much smaller school, and the USNEWS methodology favors smaller schools. In any case, I suspect that most of the "Yale or fail" crowd are, like most other people, pretty far from even sniffing Yale, or any of the top 6 law schools.

from my experiences at a law school that's ranked pretty high on the "ranked by law firms" list (both on USNWR and Vault) compared to overall ranking/"reputation", these lists don't seem to mean as much as USNews would like to have you believe. (kinda like those silly girls who claim that they just want a nice guy for once, and that a sense of humor is more important than looks, but still end up going after the cliched bad boy). In any case, yes, the dominance isn't as if we're comparing MLB vs AAA level baseball, and yes, def, Yale's smaller size helps more than it hurts--but it's not just in USNews, but also in terms of clerkships, law firm placement, and the "aura of prestige" that 0Ls might factor in when making a decision (in turn allowing Y to grab the "better" candidates). I mean, as far as fed clerkships and faculty hirings go, esp per capita, the numbers are hard to overlook--and I'm not sure if judges and universities are prestigewhoring 0Ls that can't see beyond USNWR rankings.

I think you misread what I wrote. I wrote that Yale's smaller size helps with USNews, which is undeniably true. The USNews factors are biased towards smaller schools. This is obviously separate from whether Yale's smaller size helps in other respects (particularly those not considered by USNews, such as quality of job opportunities). I also wrote that Yale is clearly #1, so I'm not sure how you're disagreeing with me regarding judges and law firms. My point is that the Internets tend to exaggerate the dominance of Yale, as evidenced by the "Yale or fail" idiocy. The USNews methodology is deeply flawed, so your criticism of the law firms ranking should be seen in that context.

I have a lot of experience with faculty hiring committees. Any marginal difference between Yale vs. Harvard and Stanford (and maybe Chicago) is, theoretically, easily bridged by other differences between candidates (such as other advanced degrees and scholarly potential).

Bottom line: my point was one about degree, to which you really didn't respond.

yes, my edit to that post was contemporaneous to your reply--but in the end, i don't think we're in disagreeance here (also I think i misread your post originally)

in any case, pretty sure yale or fail, esp as used by lord barrington ITT, is shits&giggles and not exactly a truism to which 0Ls adhere. so that's fine.
at the same time, in terms of dominance, while not yale or fail, still, hard to argue with the numbers, especially in fed clerkships or faculty hiring. Of course, there's definitely a degree of self-selection, but I'm not sure that's the only thing that's going on here.

to the OP....don't just think about the perception of a program from the eyes of an employer upon graduation. Think about the alumni base and how it may help you throughout your career. I chose Tuck in large part because of its active and highly supportive alumni base. I don't know anything about the Yale SOM alumni but I suspect that it would be a supportive group given the size of the program.

True 'nuff. Tuckies are legendarily tight. My last firm-- which until recently didn't do a ton of MBA recruiting-- sent 2 or 3 analysts to Tuck and took back 2 or 3 to be consultants each year. A huge class has a lot of advantages, but there's no point having four times as many classmates if you don't get along with any of them.

I don't think students from Yale would be so willing to help an Yale MBA over a undergrad or law student. Kind of like how undergrad Wharton kids hold grad whartonites in contempt.

To the OP: I'm affiliated with the other Yale professional school being discussed in this thread. What I've seen in my brief interactions with SOM students is that they tend to lean away from finance and Wall Street and they tend to focus more heavily on nonprofit-y activities and setting up entrepreneurial ventures. A minority of the folk I've encountered also seem to have a bit of a chip on their shoulder about being the weakest of Yale's professional schools. Which is to say that at the moment SOM is definitely not a finance-oriented business school. I get the feeling that it's the sort of program that Yale is going to throw money at until it sticks, and it might be a great place for finance 10 years from now, but I'd not risk it today.

Ah, the Ivy league. The pettiness is so high, because the stakes are so low.

But if we didn't have rankings and lists how would we ever measure our own self-worth?

Seriously, I can see how my post came off as douchey. Mea culpa. SOM would be a great school to go to if the OP wasn't interested in finance, and the people who I know there who are into nonprofit and more "build your own company" kinds of activities are doing fantastically. It just isn't as strong a choice for finance as other business schools (including *gasp* several non-Ivy league schools). The people at SOM who I think are unhappy are the people who went there "because it's Yale."

It actually wasn't your post at all. I should have pointed that out. Your post was stating how these things actually work at many elite universities. I remember someone telling me once that KSG students at Harvard were considered the lepers of Harvard's graduate students and looked down upon by HLS and HBS students at tailgates. I found that quite telling.

To be fair, Kennedy is probably the widest-open backdoor into Harvard that there is. Those students are right to hold it in contempt.

The Kennedy School accepts about 25% while the other schools accept < 10%. A lot of HKS kids apply but do not get into HBS for a dual MBA. Most do dual MBA's with Tufts, BU or BC. A rare few with Sloan or HBS.

I've heard it described as a means of getting the Harvard brand without the Harvard education.

Sure. But the point is that some of these schools really do function as little bubbles that are totally separated from the real world. Yale may be the worst example of this. Within the campus walls, a bunch of grad students looking down their noses at each other because of the perceived differences in prestige between their programs. Outside the walls, ghetto-ass New Haven.