Given: You want an MBA in order to get a better job.
Given: You’re very focused on getting into the most prestigious school that you can.
Given: You want there to be lots of recruiters coming to campus to ply you with gifts recruit your bada$$ self into this great new future career you’ve imagined for yourself.
Question: How much does a school’s ranking affect how much demand they’re seeing from recruiters?
Here’s the answer from the Class of 2016 recruiting survey from the MBA Career Services professional organization:

Relationship of school rank to recruiting activity
n = 87
So. If school ranking wasn’t correlated with an increase in recruiting activity, then what was?

Alumni driving recruiting increases
Schools like Tuck are famous for alumni engagement. This graph is proof that there can be real value coming out of those relationships. We don’t have the breakdown of alumni recruiting involvement by school rank so no idea where the overlaps are there, however this should be a good question for you to be asking when you do your school research for the coming season – or when you’re evaluating the competing opportunities you now have in hand between multiple schools that have accepted you this year!
Tell us what you think.