Via a post by Julian, I learn that the Economist Intelligence Unit has ranked Barcelona-based IESE as the number one MBA program in the world.
The salient quote:
IESE topped the EIU’s list because it scored particularly well in two
categories: opening new career opportunities, and the starting salaries
of its new graduates (their average—of $142,000—was higher than that at
any American school).
This seems to me to be TOTALLY wrong: such a huge exaggeration that either people surveyed were lying, or someone at the Economist made a catastrophic error in their Excel spreadsheet (maybe multiplied by 2 by mistake?).
I have several friends who attended IESE, and one from the most recent graduating class once mentioned that peers were getting offers in the range of 90,000 Euros outside of Spain, and 55,000 Euros in Spain, and that *most* of the graduates were staying in Spain.
In addition, anybody who knows a minimum about salaries in Spain would know that $142,000 for a 1st year MBA is laughably high.
Now, I have nothing against IESE the school, and couldn't care less whether it's ranked 1 or 1000 in the list of MBA programs.
But it does sort of bother me that the school seems to have done nothing to correct what is so obviously a big mistake. If you google "IESE salary", the first result is the EIU's MBA ranking page, and the second result a press release from the IESE website lauding the survey and reprinting the same salary estimate! That to me, if they themselves know these numbers are wrong, seems to be borderline unethical. It's great to celebrate good news about yourself, but not at the price of propagating mistaken or false information.
Even worse is seeing the EIU mess up so badly. I generally trust the numbers from the EIU and respect their work a great deal, but this mistake, especially the longer it goes uncorrected, sharply reduces their credibility in my eyes. Next time I'm reading some forecast about the Czech market, for example, I'll be much less likely to accept their numbers or point-of-view.
UPDATE: A reader has sent me a brochure from the IESE website with data from the 2004 class. You can see below that the average salaries are all clearly below $142,000. So unless one of this year's graduates won a multi-million Euro record contract or professional football contract, and skewed the average grossly upward, then it's increasingly obvious that the figures are *wrong*, and that IESE, but particularly, the Economist Intelligence Unit, should correct them.
On a separate thread, I find it rather weird that Spain, which has been in the EU for almost 15 years, and in the Euro since day 1, still pays its MBAs the same wages as Eastern European countries which have just joined. You'd think there would have been more convergence with Western European salaries by now, no?
UPDATE2: Hmm...another reader points out that the Western European number might be entirely skewed by the fact that all the high-paying banking jobs in Europe are pretty much in London (where on top of it you earn in Pounds). Fair point...
UPDATE3: My server logs today show traffic to this specific post coming from search engines. Curious, I noticed that a search for "Economist Intelligence Unit" results in this post being on the first page of results of Google Blog Search, Technorati, and Blogger Search. The same is true for searches of "IESE".
Are people from the EIU not paying attention to what is being said about them in the blogosphere? I'm curious: if I'm wrong, shouldn't I be informed so I can correct this post? And if I'm right, shouldn't there be a correction in the data that make up the rankings?
What seems to me to be the worst outcome is silence. One reader who emailed me said he was considering applying for an MBA next year- should he and others make decisions based on bad data that has *knowingly* not been corrected? And should the EIU really allow people like me and others to increasingly distrust the quality of their research output?
UPDATE4: Sigh....I've gotten some emails from people asking why I hate IESE, and even warning me not to mess with a school owned by Opus Dei. Well, I also read the Da Vinci Code, so let the record stand that if anybody sees me being led off by some sinister-looking hunchback monk, to call Tom Hanks or Audrey Tautou quickly!
So to repeat from when I first wrote this post: I have nothing at all against IESE!
But I do think it's the right thing to do to try to draw attention to data that are so obviously, *factually* wrong. Especially when the data are being disseminated by a brand that I care for. And yes, I care for the Economist brand because I think they do a great, professional job of representing a classically liberal point-of-view that I think is important.