SOM scores impressive ranking in Forbes magazine

In its soon-to-be-released Oct. 15 issue, Forbes Magazine has ranked the Yale School of Management the sixth-best major national business school.

Unlike the rankings of BusinessWeek, U.S. News and World Report or the Wall Street Journal, which gauge the overall strength of different

master’s of business administration programs, the Forbes rankings measure if the increase in pay conferred by each school’s MBA degree is worth the tuition. According to Forbes, SOM ranked lower than Harvard, Wharton, Columbia, Dartmouth and Chicago in degrees yielding the highest pay increase, and higher than such traditional stalwarts as Stanford and MIT.

But the survey disproportionately rewarded schools with strong finance programs, an area in which SOM has recently devoted extensive resources. And SOM attracted students with low pre-MBA salaries; for example, the 1996 pre-MBA average salary of an SOM student was $38,000, while that of Stanford and MIT was $50,000. So, relative to Stanford and MIT graduates, SOM graduates saw a higher jump from pre-MBA salaries to post-MBA salaries, but their post-MBA salaries still paled in comparison to those of Stanford and MIT graduates.

Last spring, SOM captured the number three spot in the Wall Street Journal’s controversial new ranking system, and jumped from 16th to 12th on U.S. World and News Report’s annual business school guide.

–Sahm Adrangi

Schiavone removes bridge on mayoral campaign trail

Politicians usually like to build bridges. Tuesday, Joel Schiavone ’58 had one demolished — on purpose.

The Republican mayoral candidate and members of the media watched as a friend of Schiavone’s removed a fallen bridge from the West River near Ella T. Grasso Boulevard. The bridge had partially blocked the river for more than 15 years. Riverkeeper Peter Davis had contacted several local and state agencies to try to remove the bridge, including the office of Mayor John DeStefano Jr.

But Schiavone said estimates of the cost of removal had ranged from $30,000 to $100,000. When Davis contacted Schiavone, he called George Cook, a friend of his who lives in Wallingford and owns a contracting firm. Cook agreed to do the job for $1,000, which was paid by the Schiavone campaign. Schiavone said it was “a good day,” although the weather wasn’t entirely cooperative.

“We got rained on some,” Schiavone said. “The tide was going in at the beginning, and then going out at the end, so they had a little trouble with that.”

DeStefano campaign manager Julio Gonzalez ’99 said the issue was more complicated than Schiavone let on.

“If the city had acted we probably would have been sued,” Gonzalez said. “The mayor has already said how neighborhoods and individuals team up on issues, and in a bizarre way it seems that is what Mr. Schiavone has done.”

–Charles Enloe