Holier than thou

The recent stance taken by Harvard and Wharton regarding Student and Alumni Surveys has taken the BusinessWeek Forums by storm. Well! I also had the luxury to discuss it in lengths with some of the prospective students for Fall 2005. Everyone agrees that Rankings are a necessary evil. There have been countless debates regarding the authenticity of the rankings and what we achieve in the end. Is it fair to say that School A is better than School B?

But, we are missing the point here. The question is not whether the Rankings are scientific or not? H/W (somehow reminds me of Hardware) have denied the access of students’ and alumni’ contacts to any commercial enterprises. But the question is what the schools are trying to achieve here? Is it respecting student and alumni privacy rights? OR is it denying the customers access to actual insider information? Is it respecting the students’ privacy OR schools’ privacy? Is it actual denial against the Rankings’ hoopla and commercialization OR is it something else?

Personally, to me it is important what the insiders think about their schools. That’s why I considered the Business Week Rankings more while making my decisions rather than US NEWS. To me USNEWS encourages playing the numbers’ game whereas BUSINESSWEEK does not. As a prospective applicant, it helped me a lot to judge about a school based on what the students and alumni think about the school. Keep in mind, when I am talking about this, I am talking about making my decisions among the Top 10 school. And frankly, even before I jumped into the MBA application process, I never ever heard about some schools. Hence, Rankings are a necessary evil and at the same time Student Satisfaction Surveys too – I agree to the point that there is no such reference yardstick, but remember we all have to start from zero. And coming to the argument that a small sample is not a representation of the entire student body – the argument is preposterous, as we all know that random sample taken from a curve is a fair approximation of the entire curve.

Now coming to the point that who is actually losing out in the end if a school doesn’t participate in the surveys – the current students, because the surveys are a way to keep the school on its toes. I know a lot of schools that have actually taken feedback from the student surveys and have implemented solutions based on it. But, I do agree to the fact that publicizing students’ and alumni’ email contacts doesn’t make sense – though encouraging students to participating in the surveys is a fiduciary responsibility of the school – what are they losing out in the end? – This is what I fail to understand.

Either don’t participate in the Rankings at all by not publicizing any statistical data or do it all.

To Summarize:
- Not participating in the student survey doesn’t necessarily denounce Rankings.
- Rankings are a necessary evil and not necessarily scientific.
- In the end, Current Students are the people who would be most affected. Not anyone else.
- Student Surveys are an important yardstick while choosing schools.
It is somewhat important to prospective applicants.
- Participating in Student Satisfaction Surveys is a fiduciary responsibility of the school as long as it wants to constantly innovate.