The Wall Street Journal/Harris Interactive
Business School Recruiter Survey
Joy Marie Sever, Ph.D.
In the summer of 1999 while working with The Wall Street Journal on a corporate reputation project, I was asked to discuss an idea that Journal managing editor, Paul Steiger, had for a new project. He wanted to create a new survey to rate business schools that was more comprehensive than anything that currently existed, and the Journal wanted Harris Interactive to help design and conduct this survey.
The research we gathered enabled us to offer Annual Reports and customized School-Specific Reports, both of which were more comprehensive and more actionable than any other business school ranking. The School-Specific Reports, in particular, provided research-based results to help business schools meet their recruiting objectives overall, including differentiating from competing schools.
By 2005, we learned that the Journal’s rankings were rated by prospective business school students as the most credible of all media rankings (see Editor's Note from WSJ's Lawrence Rout, September 21, 2005, below).
The Wall Street Journal Business School Survey was designed, conducted, and managed by the Reputation Practice. Our smart and dedicated project team included Oliver Freedman, Deirdre Wanat, Rama Botlagudur, and Frinzetta Oluyemi Shivers, with support from David Bakken.
Three Elements Guided B-School Survey Design
By Joy Sever, Ph.D. SVP, Harris Interactive
In the summer of 1999 while working with The Wall Street Journal on a corporate reputation project, I was asked to discuss an idea that Journal managing editor, Paul Steiger, had for a new project. He wanted to create a new survey to rate business schools that was more comprehensive than anything that currently existed, and the Journal wanted Harris Interactive to help design and conduct this survey.
Using Surveys to Compare B-Schools
By Joy Sever, Ph.D. SVP, Harris Interactive
The “best business schools” …What does “best” really mean? Over the past few years, it has come to men a top ranking in one of three well-known business school surveys: Business Week, U.S. News & World Report, and the Financial Times. But what do the business-school ratings and rankings mean?
About the Survey
The articles in this Special Report are based on data collected by Harris Interactive Inc., as part of a survey jointly developed by The Wall Street Journal and Harris Interactive.
In addition to the results appearing in the stories on CareerJournal.com, 1,200 pages of extensive survey results and information, including recruiters’ comments, are available in the e-book “The Wall Street Journal Guide to Business Schools (available at WSJbooks.com). General and customized research reports are also available through Harris Interactive.
An Outsider Weighs in On the Survey Methodology
By John G. Lynch, Fuqua Business School (Duke U) May 3, 2001
… The conclusion of my analysis is that: The WSJ used a set of recruiters that was biased and open to manipulation. Rather than sampling randomly from all recruiters who visited a school, they allowed schools to choose which recruiters from a company would be invited to participate in the survey. The WSJ allowed and encouraged schools to make follow-up calls to recruiters to encourage them to participate in the study when initial response rates were very low. Of the 1600 total respondents, 700 came via a special hotline to which schools could direct recruiters.
…In the list of recruiters initially invited to participate by the WSJ, a large majority declined to participate. … The researchers made the fatal error of letting respondents decide which one to three schools they would rate. … Moreover, even if the samples of respondents had been sampled randomly – which was decidedly not the case – the same sizes were so small as to preclude meaningful comparison among schools.
By John G. Lynch, Jr.
Addressing Bias in the Business-School Survey
By Joy Sever Ph.D., senior vice president at Harris Interactive and David Bakken, Ph.D., senior vice president of quantitative methods at Harris Interactive May 4, 2001
On May 3, The Wall Street Journal and Harris Interactive received an e-mail from Jim Gray, Associate Dean of the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University. In that e-mail, he forwarded to us a review of the methodology used in The Wall Street Journal/Harris Interactive Business School Survey. The review was written by John Lynch, a professor at the Fuqua School.
In his review, Professor Lynch has drawn attention to three potential sources of bias in survey research:
A bias in the universe of respondents identified for the study (in our case, the universe of recruiters)
A non-response bias (in our case, potentially important differences between those recruiters who chose to participate in our study and those who didn’t.
A selection bias arising from the fact that recruiters were allowed to choose the schools they rated.
Year 3: An Inside Look At Methodology
By Joy Marie Sever, Ph.D., Special to CollegeJournal.com
As we publish our third Wall Street Journal/Harris Interactive Business School Survey revealing the 50 schools that rank highest among M.B.A. recruiters, we anticipate that the list, as in previous years, will continue to generate considerable discussion – and criticism.
Much of that criticism stems from a lack of familiarity with our methodology and from the mistaken expectation that our rankings should match other published rankings. But our survey is very different from other surveys. First, ours is the only one that relies completely on recruiters – and we interview far more of them than any other survey organization. Second, the range of characteristics on which schools are evaluated is not found in any other survey. Third, the process used to identify the schools eligible to be rated in our survey is more comprehensive and more rigorous than that of any other survey.
We are also much more open about our methodology than other surveys. The most comprehensive explanation appears in “The Wall Street Journal Guide to the Top Business Schools 2004” (Wall Street Journal Books/Free Press, 2003). In addition, during the past three years, editor Ron Alsop and I have met with many business schools – from the West Coast to the East Coast, as well as with schools throughout Europe and Canada. We’ve presented at conferences, to groups of schools, and we’ve met with schools individually. Not only do schools come away with a much better understanding of what we’re doing, but once they understand our methodology, they understand our results – including their own results. It’s been particularly satisfying for us to hear schools acknowledge in private what they would prefer not to admit in public.
Year 4: Business Wire | September 21, 2004
The Wall Street Journal and Harris Interactive Rank Top M.B.A. Programs According to Leading Corporate Recruiters
Corporate recruiters placed three M.B.A. programs at the head of their respective classes in new, expanded business-school rankings to be published Wednesday by The Wall Street Journal, the world's leading business publication.
With the methodology changes, the value of the results increases," said Dr. Joy Marie Sever, Ph.D. senior vice president of reputation research at Harris Interactive. "Schools can see where they cluster and which schools they're competing with, recruiters can learn about other schools in their recruiting cluster, and prospective students can more easily compare their short list of potential schools with one another."
Year 5: Editor’s Note, September 21, 2005
By Lawrence Rout, The Wall Street Journal
According to a survey of prospective M.B.A. students by the Graduate Management Admission Council, the Journal’s rankings were rated the “most credible” of all media rankings. It was gratifying news. And it reaffirmed our belief in the value of our unique approach, which looks at what corporate recruiters – the consumers of M.B.A. talent – think about the schools.
Year 6: How the Schools Were Evaluated
From The Wall Street Journal Online
In the 4th year of the WSJ/Harris Interactive Business School Recruiter Survey we adjusted our methodology to create three rankings: A National Ranking, A Regional Ranking, and an International Ranking. We also expanded the number of attributes in the survey. In Year 1,a total of 1,600 business school recruiters participated in our survey. By Year 6, that number had reached 4,125.
Letter from Doug Sease
Editor, WSJ Books, September 11, 2000
"I have come to expect Joy to perform above and beyond the call of duty in any joint undertaking. She brings a rigorous intellect and deeply held ethics to our projects."
