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April 25, 2004
The B-School Hierarchy
By SCOTT JASCHIK–THE NEW YORK TIMES 
he doors to the hotel ballroom hadn't opened yet, but the 200 M.B.A. students lined up outside were busy plotting their strategy. The mirrors in the hallway were perfect for last-minute checks of ties, hair and handkerchiefs. Are the business cards within easy reach? As the students primped, they traded intelligence. "I hear I.B.M.'s schedule is full."
"Philip Morris is hiring."
The job fair was sponsored by the MBA Consortium, a group of 16 business schools that are good but a couple of steps down the B-school hierarchy. To help their students get jobs — either summer internships or permanent positions — the consortium had gathered 14 employers at the Marriott Eastside in Manhattan on this January day to meet them. The recruiters, who sat at tables displaying their wares, had already selected some students for interviews the next day based on resumes, but they had saved places for applicants who would impress them today.
The students had paid their travel expenses and $50 to register. Many of them did not have interviews lined up. So the pressure was on. They had only a few minutes to make their pitch, and those in line — their competition — could hear them.
Ryan Hoebelheinrich, a first-year student at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C., waited his turn in the long I.B.M. line and made his pitch for an internship interview. After a firm handshake and a handoff of his resume, he told the recruiter he enjoyed problem solving, operations and finance.
"Are you flexible about where you would work this summer?"
Mr. Hoebelheinrich said yes instantly. And it was over. (He didn't end up getting an interview.) Next person in line.
As is often the case in troubled economic times, business schools reported an enrollment surge in 2002. Now those class members must compete for a limited job pool. Meanwhile, companies are putting off hiring decisions as long as possible until they can tell where the economy is going. Students at second- or third-tier schools can certainly build successful careers. But given the degree's hefty price tag and the tough economic climate, deans and corporate recruiters warn that a master's degree in business administration does not necessarily translate into a high-salary job. And the path to a leading investment bank or consulting company runs almost exclusively through a narrow band of elite business schools.
"If you want to be an M.&A. lawyer, investment banker in a top house or a consultant for McKinsey — these elite jobs that everybody seems to want — you're not even going to get an interview unless you go to one of the elite schools," says Robert H. Frank, a Cornell University management professor and co-author of "The Winner-Take-All Society."
"Going to an elite school doesn't guarantee you'll get one of those jobs," he adds, "but for better or worse, you won't even have a shot at it without it."
AS the tight job market accentuates the advantages that graduates of Harvard or the University of Pennsylvania enjoy even in the best of times, students from lower-tier schools must hustle even harder.
At the job fair, options are improving but it's clear that they are still more limited than a few years ago. I.B.M. will hire about 2,000 people for the summer, down from 3,000 in past years. Organizers are pleased to have 14 employers. Last year, there were 10. But in the 1990's, they had 30, and students could write their own ticket.
If you want to rile someone at the fair, use the phrase "core schools." Those are schools where companies recruit in person year after year. Many have only five or so core schools, some as few as two. At big-time companies, only a few business schools turn up on list after list: Harvard, Northwestern, Stanford, Chicago, University of Pennsylvania, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Columbia.
A survey by Business Week last year found that of Citigroup's 164 M.B.A. hires, 23 were from Columbia and 14 from the Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania. No other business school placed more than 8 there. Columbia M.B.A.'s took 16 of the 71 M.B.A. jobs at Booz Allen Hamilton, 11 of the 43 at Deutsche Bank, and 15 of the 40 at Goldman Sachs.
What do these gold-plated programs bring to the table?
Jeffrey Pfeffer, a professor at Stanford's business school, published a study in 2002 based on decades of data to determine what the M.B.A. degree actually did for students. Internal studies by leading consulting firms and investment banks of their M.B.A. and non-M.B.A. employees showed that the degree had no impact beyond helping them get the job.
Professor Pfeffer concluded: "There is little evidence that mastery of the knowledge acquired in business schools enhances people's careers, or that even attaining the M.B.A. credential itself has much effect on graduates' salaries or career attainment."
To practice medicine, medical school is essential; ditto for law. But if you can excel in business without business school, he wondered, what is its value?
Professor Pfeffer's report set off intense debate. "The official reaction is that I've got my head up some part of my anatomy," he now says. "But privately, a lot of people tell me I'm right, but they just can't say that." (And indeed, privately, many business educators do agree.)
But even critics like Professor Pfeffer say that top business schools do something of value: sort students. People who invest in an M.B.A. are often bright in the first place, and those with the most potential attend business schools from which they can land jobs with important futures.
"It wasn't what the students learned, but that you've got this preselected group of people," he says.
Eileen M. Stephan, executive …[Message truncated]
