Did you know that there’s a T-bird who blogs for Financial Times? Even better, did you know his posts have been ranked #1 consistently?
Meet Kyle Wu, 2nd Trimester Traditional MBA. Spring 2013 Foundations Leader and blogger for the MBA section on Financial Times. To lend some perspective in the recent change in our rankings, we’re publishing his blog article on business school rankings here. Sit back and enjoy the read!
What the rankings don’t tell you
January 28, 2013 5:56 am by Kyle Wu, Thunderbird School of Global Management
“So why Thunderbird?” This question comes at me almost daily. I was drawn to Thunderbird for two reasons. The first, I must admit, was the rankings.
US News & World, BusinessWeek and the Financial Times have all ranked Thunderbird highly.
The second was the particular global rhythm Thunderbird promised. Most business schools have the same education, but the emphasis varies. Some schools emphasise marketing, some finance, others entrepreneurship and some emphasise how they are very plugged into all that happens in their region.
Rankings do not cover every aspect of business school. Social events, professional events, academics and dating (potentially) are just some of the options to navigate all the while you are pursuing academic studies. It is really all about how you decide to govern your life. Finding a summer internship or full-time job is a non-credit course…at all MBA schools.
There are also deeper motives for applying to business school. These people can be placed into two groups: those on campus with a purpose (company sending them and they know exactly what they need to learn) and those who are looking for a change in their life, but do not know what kind. These individuals hope that business school will provide an answer or new options.
When people start investigating business schools they will use rankings, as I did. I’m not on a scholarship and my entire MBA education is financed from loans. I could not afford to ignore the rankings. Everybody here at business school is beset by an itch to make something of themselves. All want to make money, to be launched into a stimulating career.
Ozy Abram, founder of Uni-Edit, a first-class English editing and translation service gave me food for thought: “Being rich is about having enough money to do what you want with your time. Wealth gives you more options on how to be rich. You make money and you can turn off your cell phones at the weekends. You control the scarcest resource, time.”
As potential students you look at the rankings and so do recruiters. However, many executives are on record as saying what they really look for in a job candidate is, “a reasonable degree of intelligence, a strong work ethic, the ability to get along with others, a desire to build something important, the ability to keep one’s ego in check”.
Take the rankings as part of your decision progress; however, obtain a strong understanding of the other aspects of the life of an MBA student at each school you’re considering and try to visit each campus to experience its atmosphere. It could make the difference in your decision.
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The above article has not been modified. The latest Financial Times rankings does not feature Thunderbird into its overall rankings list, because of which Thunderbird could not maintain its #1 position in International Business. We are ranked #1 in International Business in the BusinessWeek and US News & World Report 2012 rankings.
Check out Kyle’s other blog posts here: http://blogs.ft.com/mba-blog/author/kylewu/