Reference Reviews

Lawrence Looks at Books

Best 296 Business Schools, 2009 edition. Nedda Gilbert. 798p. New York: Princeton Review/ Random House, 2009. 978-0-375-42882-1. $22.95.

The Princeton Review has been preparing annual guides to graduate business programs for fourteen years. Their method of comparing schools has varied. Originally based on surveys of business students and data provided by school administrators, for several years the guide was simply a statistical comparison of programs. For the past five years, the guide has returned to using student surveys as a means of evaluating programs. The latest guide consists of five parts. A selection of introductory essays advise the student on the application process with specifics on admissions policies, diversity recruitment, costs, scholarships and what business school is really like. A brief selection of tables rank the top ten schools by 11 factors, including best professors, campus environment, family friendliness and opportunities for women. The bulk of the guide consists of descriptive profiles of 296 accredited programs. Standardized data include contact information, application deadlines, admission and enrollment statistics, costs, student/teacher ratios and the percentage of students receiving financial aid. The text profiles, which are built upon comments from students, describe academics, program emphases, career placement opportunities, student life and the admissions process. An admissions selectivity rating indicates the competitiveness of the admissions process for each school. Academic assessments include ratings of interesting professors, accessibility of instructors and overall experience. Many schools provide employment profiles of their recent graduates, which are used to generate a career rating for the school. A fourth section provides statistical profiles of another 154 accredited programs. These schools are not included in the main guide, because student responses for these graduate programs were too few to produce full profiles. Coverage is not limited to American universities, but includes 52 programs in 21 foreign countries. A final section includes detailed recruitment information from 60 universities. Indexes list programs by name, location and cost. In short, the guide permits the meaningful comparison of business programs and provides prospective students with the necessary information for pursuing their applications. The guide will serve undergraduate and public library collections.