That's the kind of reaction a Web site should elicit. MIT understands that it's in the business of making sure its graduates make lots of money. No other school features these statistics so prominently. No matter how crummy the site, people will still crawl through a sewer to get to them because these schools offer their students the chance to make big money. Even so, B-schools need to move beyond gimmicks to provide useful information if they want to hold the attention of students, applicants, and other visitors.
Content dealing with program details and admissions and financial aid policies is key.
Kirkwood's goal is to bring attention to excellent sites, rather than identify the single best business school homepage. He provides a table of the 13 sites he gives a five-star rating for meeting the majority of his criteria, which take into consideration items like electronic admission, student and faculty pages, and online publications. Kirkwood started his site in 1994 to present research into the design and utility of Web sites and evaluate the information presented. He has witnessed the explosion of B-school sites from about a dozen to over 600, and his reviews have adapted to accommodate technical advances. For example, his site evaluations now take into account innovative and increasingly common special features like virtual tours or student profiles.