Business school drops in ranking

The Financial Times announced its rankings of graduate business programs world-wide last week. Last year, the magazine ranked IU's Kelley School of Business 29th overall. This year, IU dropped to 42nd, tied with Purdue.\nThe rankings were based on a survey filled out by 1997 graduates. Some of the most heavily weighted categories were starting salaries, progression of graduates' careers and number of female and international students and faculty.\nThe base salary component of the rankings hurt IU the most. IU's average starting salary is $95,000, compared to the University of Pennsylvania, with an average starting salary of $162,000, according to the Financial Times. Penn State was ranked first.\nMarketing professor Dan Smith, chairman of the MBA program, said that although the school needs to work on certain areas he feels the program fared well in many other categories that weren't weighed as heavily.\n"The thing is, it is a disappointment to see your overall ranking drop in any of these rankings," Smith said. "However, if you take a look at a number of other factors that they consider, we really come out pretty well."\nHe said that although IU dropped overall in the ranking, it compared with the University of Pennsylvania, London Business School and MIT in many of the categories.\nIn the measurement of career progress, IU received 45 points, which is comparable to New York University (44), Michigan (45) and Yale (45), and fared far better than Duke (30) and other respected schools.\n"The overall ranking doesn't tell the whole story," Smith said. "So when I look at the individual components that went into the ranking, we did pretty well." \nSmith said the program needs help with its salaries but added that since 1997, much has changed at the school. The program instituted Graduate career Services to help students find jobs, put them in touch with recruiters, hold resume workshops and many other job-related services.\nSmith said in addition to career services, the program will start teaching courses on interviewing and salary negotiations. He said this should help the school in future rankings.\n "The Graduate Career Services we have right now is first-rate, and we didn't have that three years ago when this survey was done," he said.\n GCS was established in January 1998. Since then, the staff and its services have grown substantially. It now boasts 25-30 career coaches and 30 career partners who contact businesses about what they are looking for and how they can improve their campus visits.\n"When our offices started two years ago, we came up with a philosophy that the students are our partners," Allyn Curry, associate director of corporate relations at GCS, said. "The companies are our customers. The students go to the market with us.\nKelley's graduate program also suffered in the number of international faculty on staff, the number of female students and number of faculty with doctorates.\nAssociate business professor Thomas Bowers said that the overall ranking did not concern him much, but that he felt there were some areas that needed work.\n"I am not terribly concerned, but I think it is important to have a diverse population among our students and faculty..." he said. "But I think probably the most important thing is that we get the best faculty, wherever they might come from, and the best students, wherever they might come from."\nSmith said the Financial Times, although a respected business magazine, is not what business schools give the most attention. He said he definitely takes into account the Financial Times' rankings, but he said he is most concerned with the Business Week rankings, the next set of rankings to be released. \n He said Business Week is the magazine prospective students most often follow. He also said recruiters most often turn to Business Week. \n "You really need to be in the top 25 in Business Week. We are ranked No. 20 right now," Smith said. "From a student standpoint, you want to go where the recruiters go. And many recruiters draw the line at the top 20 in Business Week"