nzmorange
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RE: Best conference-Big 10 according to JofA
(03-18-2017 09:01 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote: (03-18-2017 07:02 AM)nzmorange Wrote: (03-17-2017 08:49 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote: (03-17-2017 06:49 PM)nzmorange Wrote: (03-17-2017 06:26 PM)MplsBison Wrote: The article does a top down analysis, which is correct.
You're doing a bottom up analysis, which is false and a straw man.
You have to start at the top, because there are only a really few people with the potential to be CFO's.
Statistics disagrees.
The article is worthless because of the glaring flaw that I pointed out.
Do you honestly think that the average Big Ten school better prepares finance professionals than the average Ivy school? If your answer is yes, then I think you're clearly blinded by a bias. If your answer is no, then I'm right.
As it stands right now, the article pretty much just proves the B1G is big.
Yes, the Big Ten has big undergraduate programs, so the sheer numbers aren't comparable to the smaller Ivy League programs. However, it's not a fair characterization that this is just a matter of "quantity over quality". No one is saying that going to a Big Ten school for undergrad is the same as going to an Ivy League school or that the numbers are similar. However, much of the ACC, Pac-12, SEC and Big 12 *do* have undergraduate programs that are similar in size to the Big Ten, so the fact that the B1G has substantially more CFOs than those conferences is an interesting data point. The SEC has essentially the same mix of schools (13 large public universities and 1 private universities), but the Big Ten has well over twice as many CEOs, so that shows that it's not merely just quantity. It's also not just quantity for why Illinois and Indiana are up there with Penn and Notre Dame in terms of CFO numbers - they're perennially ranked in the top 5 accounting programs in the country. (Illinois and Texas generally fight for the #1 and #2 spots in the US News accounting rankings every year.)
Separately, the surprising one for me is how high the Big East is on the list. Georgetown and, to a lesser extent, Villanova have well-ranked undergrad business programs, but the fact that the league has more CFOs than the SEC and Big 12 while having nearly as many as the Pac-12 (and 11 of their 38 came from Stanford) when their enrollments are much smaller is definitely interesting.
Undergrad is just part of the equation. Look at total graduates per year w/ a bias towards grads (some finance jobs require a graduate degree for advancement), and you'll have a more complete picture.
The B1G is big ... really, really big.
If the claim was that the B1G is huge and better than the SEC, the closest comp in terms of size, then I'd agree. But the thread title claimed that the B1G was the best. That claim isn't true.
But this specific study is only looking at where CFOs went to undergrad. They're not counting MBA grads or other advanced degrees. If they were including advanced degrees, the Big Ten would probably be even farther ahead just by being able to count Kellogg at Northwestern (which has an insanely high number of C-suite alums from their MBA program).
Regardless, I'm actually surprised that the Big Ten is that far ahead in terms of numbers. You're correct that it's not the same as comparing them to the Ivy League on a per capita basis, but you seem to be discounting it entirely to size when being that far ahead of all of the other P5 conferences (not just the SEC) doesn't show just randomness and sheer quantity. The Big Ten undergrad business programs are generally all very good. As I've stated, Illinois and Indiana are virtually always in the top 5 in the nation for accounting (and that's reflected in them being top 5 CFO schools) and all of the undergrad Big Ten business programs besides Nebraska are perennially in the top 25 of the US News rankings for that area (which doesn't even include the best academic school in the Big Ten of Northwestern since they don't have an undergrad business program). That's not all random as compared to the ACC, SEC, Pac-12 and Big 12. (I'm not talking about the Ivy League.)
14/15 - B10 conference size
14 - SEC size (+0%/-7%)
14/15 - ACC (+0%/+0%)
12 - PAC (-14%/-20%)
10 - BXII (-29%/-33%)
**I don't know how they handled ND and JHU**
Context:
Wake Forest has 4,800 total undergrads, BC has 9,000 total undergrads and ND has 8,500 total undergrads; Illinois' business school has 2,800-3,000 undergrads (depending on the source), Smeal (PSU main campus) has 5,000 undergrads (as per their website), plus an untold number on the branch campuses that may or may not have been included. This is just a guess, but I'd bet that Michigan and Ohio State are even bigger than PSU.
Yes, there are substantially more B1G alumni than any other conference. Individual B1G colleges are the comparable to entire ACC universities, and, SEC aside, all of the other major conferences are smaller in terms of the number of schools and school sizes. The B1G isn't bad, but size is dramatically distorting these statistics.
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