00:00Joining us now to discuss these ratings and the impact AI is making on business schools is Bloomberg Business Week
00:04senior writer, Dimitri Kassanidis.
00:06Dimitri, great to have you with us.
00:08Let's start with who's at the top and who seems to be perennially at the top of this list.
00:11Yes, it's Stanford.
00:12Stanford's GSB.
00:14Why? What is so magical, seemingly, about the GSB relative to the rest of these business schools?
00:19You know, they've managed to hold on to the top spot in a lot of the key indexes that we've
00:23developed as part of our methodology over the past six years.
00:26Very top of the list is compensation and then networking and entrepreneurship.
00:31They have a very strong hold on these things, and they're getting high marks both from their alumni,
00:35given historically how they've done and the jobs and the work that their alums have had and gone into in
00:41technology, and from their recent graduates.
00:44So there are small differentials from the top schools at the top of the list.
00:49But Stanford, it does seem like it's a perennial thing, and we don't know when it's going to end.
00:53We're waiting for that year when it's not.
00:56But I think that they're continuing to deliver in the ways and in the way the world is changing, right,
01:01technology, AI, and more.
01:03They've got a lot of what people are looking for in a business school.
01:07And it's beautiful.
01:08It's a beautiful place.
01:09Northern California.
01:11Not to mention.
01:11And it's very nice.
01:12Yes, exactly.
01:13That's a look at.
01:14So you spoke with a lot of students.
01:16You polled a lot of students.
01:17What do they value most in an MBA?
01:19You know, it's interesting because there are these indexes that we measure, but then we solicit comments from them.
01:27And by and large, and this ties into the theme of AI, because the comments are all about these human
01:34elements, right?
01:35The connections with their cohort.
01:37The way they feel supported by their faculty members.
01:40Feeling as though they're really all united in something.
01:44That they're meeting interesting people from around the world.
01:47And the negative comments aren't really very negative.
01:51Like, we ask them for both pros and cons.
01:53They don't single out too many things, except maybe they're not happy with the way the Career Services Office was
02:00supporting them.
02:01But the pro comments, what do you like most about this program, overwhelmingly point to the types of things that
02:08we're very worried about losing right now in the world.
02:11And so that's a very interesting piece of it.
02:14I think the learning aspect and the way that they are feeling as though they have faculty members who are
02:21guiding them in the right way with respect to what they're being taught.
02:24And how they're being sort of introduced to work at the level that they're going to be pursuing once they've
02:30got the degree is another piece that they're very keen on.
02:33Can you talk through who else rounded out the top five or top ten and where you saw movements?
02:38Anybody lose a spot or gain a spot?
02:39Sure.
02:40I mean, there's always lose a spot, gain a spot.
02:42Those are not very significant moves.
02:44Stanford's at the top.
02:46You know, consistently over the last several years, we've seen Wharton very high.
02:49Wharton places very high.
02:50Actually, Wharton places higher on compensation than Stanford does.
02:53Oh, interesting.
02:54I think we see Wharton at the top.
02:56We see Harvard at the top.
02:57We see Northwestern Kellogg at the top.
02:59Those are really, those have been, we see Columbia sort of within the top 15.
03:05We see Chicago within the top 15.
03:08MIT Sloan.
03:09And UVA did well, I thought.
03:11UVA always does very well.
03:12UVA has a very strong program.
03:15Very, you know, case method heavy.
03:18Harvard is the be all end all when it comes to the case method type of teaching.
03:25UVA, it comes very close.
03:26And that's one area where, again, we're really questioning now, what is AI going to do to this way of
03:33teaching?
03:34And are we going to see it go away or are we going to see it evolve in interesting ways?
03:38And that's just a little preview to a story that we're coming out with on Tuesday.
03:42Do you want to talk a little bit more about, I mean, I'm very curious of how or the degree
03:45to which these schools are embracing AI,
03:47looking at it with some trepidation, or really starting to think through how it might change the curriculum.
03:51Yeah, I mean, we're seeing everything, right, because it's moving very quickly.
03:56And what they're reacting to is what's happening in the business world.
03:59And they're really very concerned about doing this in a way that makes, again, students and graduates feel as though
04:05they're prepared to get a job.
04:06Because at the end of the day, what they want is to get this degree.
04:10The degree is really a vehicle to pay off the degree, but get the job that they believe the MBA
04:15is positioning them for.
04:17And when they see what's happening in the business world, it's like, oh, my gosh, we have to keep up
04:21with what's happening there.
04:22So we're seeing a really wide span of activity, whether they're incorporating it just in their own preparation for going
04:31into the class and teaching it to students.
04:32So with the case study, for example, you know, we had a really interesting discussion, the reporter and I both,
04:38with two professors at Harvard, Mitchell Weiss and Kareem Lakhani, who are among the real sort of leaders at Harvard
04:44on this,
04:45about how AI is helping them to kind of anticipate the questions on cases that they're going to get from
04:51students
04:51so that they can then be prepared to come back at things in a way that isn't just going to
04:56keep everybody in this sort of AI bubble
04:58that's going to continue to challenge them.
05:01We see several schools developing lots of bots across every department in every way going whole hog in.
05:08We don't really know where that's going to lead.
05:10Some schools told us we surveyed schools.
05:12We will talk to you about what we're doing today.
05:14But in six months, we might scrap it all and be doing something different.
05:18We might not use it as much in teaching.
05:20You don't see anybody who's made it a requirement of the core curriculum.
05:24You do see them incorporating it in ways in which they understand and they're very aware
05:29that whatever they say, students are going to use it.
05:31They're probably going to use it for research.
05:33They're most definitely going to use it for job search and career prep, interview prep.
05:38And then beyond that, you know, business school students aren't really writing a lot of term papers, right?
05:42It's not the sort of work that you're doing at that level.
05:44So how else are you using it?
05:46You're using it as a way to just kind of delve a little more deeply into some of the things
05:50that you're doing.
05:50And really, job search, that's another big piece we have coming in the next week is
05:55in what way is it supporting their efforts to get a job?
05:58And then how is it factoring into what kind of job they're getting?
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