Wharton rises in 'Wall Street Journal' rankings

The Wharton School has been ranked as the top business school this year by yet another source -- an annual survey by The Wall Street Journal and market research company Harris Interactive.

In this particular survey of both national and international MBA programs, Wharton has been climbing upward in recent years, from 18th place in 2001 to fifth last year.

The results of the survey revealed that Wharton rates highly in producing students with sound financial and analytical skills.

"I think what I found helpful was that some of the educational strengths of the program were reflected in the assessments of the MBA program," said Anjani Jain, vice dean of Wharton's graduate division. "It's also good to see both the external and the internal stakeholders are beginning to recognize the very substantial strides in improving career services."

The survey's top five spots were filled by Penn as well as the business schools at Dartmouth College, University of Michigan, Northwestern University and University of Chicago.

The Wall Street Journal/Harris Interactive ranking has been controversial in previous years because of disparities between its ranking and those of other publications such as the U.S. News and World Report.

The Journal's rankings are based entirely on MBA recruiters' experiences and opinions. The survey asked over 2,000 recruiters to rate business schools based on 26 attributes, including core curriculum, faculty expertise and students' work experience and leadership potential.

The survey also incorporates a measure of a school's "mass appeal" -- or the number of recruiters who say they visit the school.

Jain said that the methodology used by The Wall Street Journal and Harris Interactive is "rare."

"This particular survey is focused entirely on the recruiters' assessments," he said.

According to Joy Marie Sever, senior vice president at Harris Interactive, the survey aims to raise awareness about new methods of evaluating business schools.

"Our results often are not what people expect," Sever said.

Jain noted that the various rankings published each year may use different methodologies, ranging from the "algorithm" utilized by the U.S. News and World Report to the focus on recruiters' assessments by The Wall Street Journal and Harris Interactive, but they are all ultimately similar in one way.

"Perhaps [the rankings] do contain some signal value and not only reflect some perceptions; they are also quite capable of creating perceptions," he said.

However, Jain said that the rankings do not always accurately reflect the qualities of business school experiences, which he described as "varied and multifaceted and individually different."

"But I suspect a simple linear order out of the multifaceted complexity is something that appeals to people," he said.

He added that "certainly the research and scholarship goal of the school is driven by a lot of other factors, not just the rankings."

Top 10 Business Schools for 2004 Rankings based on survey of recruiters with Harris Interactive PENN (Wharton) Dartmouth College (Tuck) University of Michigan Northwestern University (Kellogg) University of Chicago Carnegie Mellon University Columbia University Harvard University Yale University University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Kenan-Flagler)

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