Why choose MBA lions when you want MBA sheep?

From Mr Bruce Terrell.

Should students do the perp walk ... or is the admissions policy to blame?

Sir, I was amused to read in Michael Skapinker’s column that business school professors have had “an anguished debate about whether business school teaching was responsible for the recent financial crisis” (“Should MBA students do the perp walk?”, September 21).

Is “anguished” or “disingenuous” the operative word? Frankly, it is the latter. For the problem is MBA admissions policy (for which business school professors should accept the blame as individuals in the here and now), not MBA teaching itself (for which the blame is shared by all manner of successful cads, such as Machiavelli, Napoleon, Caesar etc).

In other words, the professors knew perfectly well what kind of student they chose to educate prior to admitting them in the first place. Harvard has a very rigorous selection process. It is highly competitive. Only the strongest get through. But maybe – and “maybes” is what academics do for a living after all – this ruthless efficiency comes with a cost in terms of humanity.

If I am right, business schools do not have the kind of admissions policy that fits with their (newly-stated-so-far-never-substantiated) aim of producing not only leaders but moral leaders.

So I ask the professors, “Why choose MBA lions when you say you want MBA sheep?”

The answer is that privately educating future Wall Street traders whilst publicly beating your chest is just a professional career move for the ambitious business school professor.

Seems like the right lessons are being transmitted after all!

Bruce Terrell,

London SW5, UK