Wharton ranked 2nd in magazine survey

The Wharton School was rated the number two graduate business program in the country, behind Northwestern University's Kellogg School, in a survey published in the October 29 issue of Business Week magazine. The school's rating moved up two notches from the magazines' last rankings, published in 1988. The survey was based on business ratings of school graduates and corporate recruiters, and avoided deans' opinions, which are often included in business school surveys such as U.S. News and World Report's ratings. Business Week's last survey ranked Wharton behind Kellogg, Harvard University's Business School, and Dartmouth College's Amos Tuck School. Corporate recruiters surveyed gave top honors to Wharton, which they said was "unbeatable in finance." They ranked Kellogg second and Harvard University's Business School third. The recruiters also gave Wharton MBA graduates "straight A's" as "analysts," "team players," and for their "global view." The school was the only one given such high honors in these areas, the only three ranked by the recruiters. A school had to be ranked in the top 20 percent of schools in each area to receive an A rating. Wharton fell short, however, in the ranking by its own graduates. 1990 Wharton MBA recipients gave teaching a C, curriculum a B, and gave job placement an A. Janice Bellace, vice dean for the Wharton undergraduate division, said the Wharton graduates rated the school worse in the 1988 survey, especially with regard to teaching. "There was improvement in the students' perception of graduate teaching," she said, adding that the area was given a D two years ago. Bellace, who has taught several graduate courses, said shortly after the D rating was given, officials formed a committee to examine how to improve gradutate teaching. Wharton Dean Thomas Gerrity was unavailable for comment yesterday. David Reibstein, vice dean for the Wharton graduate division, said the school has taken steps to improve teaching since the last survey, saying "there is now a direct link between the student's teaching rating and the faculty." He added that "number two out of 100 is not too bad, but I don't think I'll be satisfied until we are number one." This year, Harvard, the University of Chicago, and Stanford University filled the top five, and Tuck, the University of Michigan, Columbia University, Carnegie Mellon University and University of California at Los Angeles rounded out the top ten. Noticeably absent from the survey was the Yale School of Organization and Management. Graduates rated the school 29th out the 32 schools in the survey. The survey also measured recruiters' "favorite hunting grounds" for graduates with specific skills. In finance, Wharton was number one and in general management, the school was number four, behind Harvard, Stanford, and Kellogg. In both the marketing and production catagories, however, Wharton was absent from the top five listings. Wharton spokesperson Jean Brown said yesterday that "the Wharton School is pleased with the results of this year's survey." She added that while "any survey may be subject to factors related to sampling and research methodology," school officials were "pleased with this school's top ranking among corporate recruiters, since these executives have had the opportunity to visit the schools and to establish a true means of comparison." Vice Dean Reibstein said while the survey format provides valuable information to prospective students, it tends to oversimplify each school's offerings. "In some ways they do a disservice," he said. "[The survey] collapses all the information which is multi-dimensional into a single dimension." He added however, that surveys like these will continue to "have a dramatic impact to a very large degree." "They will legitimate Northwestern rightly or wrongly," the vice dean said. "It will have a direct impact on admissions and the number of applicants and indirectly on the ablity to raise funds and to recruit."

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