Academic Integrity: the Otago MBA

As you may know by now, I'm the academic adviser for Executive Programmes with the dedicated responsible for maintaining the academic integrity of the MBA, as well as mentoring students through their Live Case and BUSI 540 professional consulting engagements. 

I was recently asked to document the steps we take to "maintain the academic integrity" of our MBA programme and thought it would be useful to share this information here.  All of the following initiatives fall under the umbrella concept of Quality of Learning as specified by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) and Equis accrediting institutions. 

We devote great attention to designing our courses and the overall MBA programme, including:

• working from a Graduate Student Profile linked to our coursework and mentored experiences

• emphasizing consistent themes across courses: e.g., educating the whole person with specific focus on character and the quality of students' conceptual reasoning abilities

• maintaining small and active classrooms, as well as encouraging the involvement of all students in discussions

• balancing student workloads across courses to assure the doability of assignments / assessments

• selecting students with sufficient experience to contribute to the classroom experience; emphasizing diversity among students; and not reducing students to a summary statistic (GMAT score of questionable validity.

• selecting lecturers (from around the world) with both scholarly grounding and practical experience in their area of expertise: see Denis Kobzev, Paul Hansen, Julia Richardson and Beth Rose

• monitoring students' performance in our classes on a near weekly basis: to assure their success (e.g., providing mentoring help if needed) in each course

• adhering to the scholarly literature on assessment and student feedback

• conducting beginning and end-of-term reviews of each course: and using these reviews to improve the quality of our programme from year to year

• offering professional development workshops tangential to core courses; for instance to building networking and presentation skills

• and, benchmarking our courses (e.g., our strategy course against the London School of Business), and evaluate how well we stack up.  Very well, thank you!  Recent reports from our students' participation in the "Doing Business in India" and International Exchange at Duke MBA affirm the quality / rigor of our Otago MBA core courses.

And we provide this high quality education in New Zealand, an environment of 

scenic beauty, adventure and great coffees

Perversion of the MBA as a Degree

Can A Sub-700 GMAT Take You Out?

Poets and Quants ran an article, "Can a Sub-700 Take You Out?" that read: "A score of 700 on the GMAT just isn't worth what is used to be. A comparison of the average scores at leading U.S. business schools with ten years ago shows that with the exception of Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business and the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, you’d be within 10 points of the top 7 schools, and ahead of the game for the rest of the top 20.

And while breaking the 700 barrier back in 2003 would secure you a place in the top 92% of test takers, the same score today means you have scored in the top 89%.

It's this kind of perverse logic that corrupts the MBA as a degree.  

Just look at the numbers: (1) top school report average GMAT scores, so even schools with a 700 avg. admit good students with less than a 700 score; (2) not all top 20 programmes average 700 (e.g., from QS TopMBA #6 Columbia 670, #8 Rotman 673 & #16 HEC 630); (3) the term "doomed" implies that you cannot get a good education from programmes outside the top twenty.

Here's an except from the most recent QS TOPMBA Global 200 report: "The top three schools are ...the strongest in terms of students’ average GMAT scores, suggesting that there is a close match between the perceptions of employers and the best qualified MBA students. However, the correlation is far less precise beyond the leading three. ...Columbia, Rotman and Fuqua all make the top ten for employer recognition yet have average GMAT scores of under 700."

Note: The correlation between programme reputation and GMAT score is loose at best; QS equates GMAT score to "best qualified MBA student" (a fallacy); and the average GMAT score in the QS Global 200 was 632 (We're talking about a few points!  Not evident from the quote).

Even more interesting is that GMAC's own data show an inverse relationship between GMAT score & age, as well as discrimination against females.

(1) The highest test scores (by age category) were posted by students of less than twenty years of age: kids. Males of this age averaged 604, while females averaged 597 (though this demographic accounted for only 0.6 % of test takers).

(2) Test scores drop precipitously for both males and females: i.e., inversely correlated with age and presumably attributes associated with age, such as experience, maturity and wisdom. Females: age 20-21 (avg. 572); 24-25 (528); 31-34 (504); 40-49 (449). Women over the age of 21 years averaged less than a 550 score and would likely be excluded from many top MBA programmes.

(3) The number of woman sitting for the GMAT dropped precipitously after the age of 23 years: age 22-23 (N=27K); 24-25 (17K); 26-27 (12K); ... 31-34 (6K).

(4) Women consistently posted lower average test scores within age categories, oftentimes with meaningful differences (e.g., age 26-27: male avg. 571 vs. female avg. 533).

(5) Three countries, the U.S., India and China, accounted for 71% of all GMAT tests taken in the world, with the U.S. accounting for over 90K (of 238K) test takers. India (577) and China (582) significantly outperformed the U.S. (532) on average.

This last observation from the data suggests that the GMAT is largely a U.S convention valued most by those wanting to study in the U.S. and not valued as highly across the globe.

(see Observations on the GMAT)

Otago MBA - QS TopMBA Global 200 Ranking

Otago MBA - QS Ranking

I have written elsewhere that the Otago MBA management team made the decision long ago to design a fully-integrated programme to deliver best value to our students, rather than compete on rankings of spurious meaning (see design decisions and rankings).  Nonetheless, it's useful on occasion to examine how we stack up relative to other prestigious programmes.  Here's an analysis of the QS TopMBA Global 200 Rankings.

The QS TopMBA Global 200 programmes are distributed as follows: 90 are located in North America; 60 in Europe; 35 in Asia/Pacific; 10 in Latin America; and 5 in the Middle East or Africa.

The Otago MBA ranks 32nd in the Asia/Pacific region and is identified as an Emerging Regional MBA programme. We take satisfaction from being included in the QS TopMBA Global 200, but take an even closer look. The Otago MBA:

Is the only MBA programme in New Zealand ranked in the QS Top 200.

Performs well (22nd in the Asia/Pacific region) on average GMAT score (632).  The average GMAT for all QS TopMBA Global 200 programmes is 632.

Averages more years of work experience than all but one other programme in the Asia/Pacific region (10 years).

Averages more years work experience than all but 3 programmes in the entire QS TopMBA Global 200 rankings.  (No North American MBA programme averaged more years of work experience than the Otago MBA.)

Offers a well-designed MBA programme; centered around mature, experienced peers; at a competitive price ($37.4K domestic, $45.2K Int'l) relative to other prestigious schools of business (see INSEAD - $59.5K and Melbourne School of Business - $70K).

 Note: An inverse relationship exists between GMAT score and age (see Observations on the GMAT), making the Otago MBA's performance on these measures even more satisfying.  We choose to emphasize experience/wisdom rather the recency/comfort in taking standardized tests.

 David

An MBA Degree is Essential

GMAC asked business school alumni from graduating classes in the past five decades

(1959-2013) if their MBA or business master’s degree was essential to obtaining

employment and 83 percent said YES.

The Data:

Survey results are based on direct collaboration with 132 business schools in 29 countries and include data for nearly 21,000 business school alumni,

Key Findings:

The vast majority of business school alumni consider their graduate management education a good to outstanding value: 91 percent of graduates from 2010–2013, compared with 95 percent of graduates from 2000–2009, and an overwhelming 98 percent of alumni who graduated from the 1950s through the 1990s.

The vast majority of alumni (83 percent) from the classes of 1959 through 2013 report their graduate management degrees were essential for obtaining employment; and 80 percent of graduate business school alumni attribute their career success to their graduate management degree.

More than 4 in 5 alumni across all graduation years strongly agree that they make an impact at their company (86 percent), are engaged with their work (85 percent), have challenging and interesting work (85 percent), have meaningful work (84 percent), and work for a company that values their skills and abilities (81 percent).

MBAs and other business master’s degree-holders work in a variety of industries, with Finance/accounting and Products and services sectors (each with 20 percent) employing the greatest percentages of alumni surveyed. Among self-employed alumni, more than 3 in 10 work in both products and services and consulting.

Soft skills account for 3 of the top 5 skills that business school alumni use every day on the job. Interpersonal skills are the most frequently used skills, followed by knowledge of general business functions, conscientiousness, managing the decision-making process, and the combined skills of learning, motivation, and leadership.

Read more....