The Wisconsin School of Business full-time MBA program has been ranked 54th among leading graduate business programs around the world, according to the 2008 Economist Intelligence Unit’s annual global MBA ranking.  In 2007, the school was ranked 48th. In the most recent survey, the Wisconsin MBA ranked 29th among schools in the U.S., 11th among public schools in the U.S. and fifth among Big Ten schools.

View the complete Economist Intelligence Unit rankings.

The Economist Intelligence Unit rankings, published by the Economist magazine, are based on questionnaires completed by 115 business schools and around 20,000 current MBA students and graduates. Final rankings result from taking a weighted average of data collected over a three-year period: 2008 (50%), 2007 (30%), and 2006 (20%). Numerical data such as GMAT scores are combined with subjective views from students and graduates to evaluate how full-time MBA programs deliver on the following areas:

Open new career opportunities and/or further current career
Offer personal development and educational experience
Increase salary
Potential to network

The Wisconsin School of Business launched the new Wisconsin MBA program based on career specializations in fall 2004. The first class of students of the new program graduated in May 2006. The new specialized MBA program prepares students to launch careers in highly focused areas.

Based on internal measurements, the school has made progress on key fundamentals:

Student quality, as measured by average GMAT score, is 666 for this fall’s entering class, compared to 656 for students who enrolled in 2007.

May 2008 graduates’ overall satisfaction with the quality of program was at 96 percent and May 2007 graduate satisfaction was 85 percent.

Career placement for May 2008 graduates was 94 percent within three months of graduation, with an average salary of $88,626. The class of 2007 had 96 percent placement, with an average salary of $82,000.

In announcing the ranking, Dean Michael Knetter said, “We appreciate the significance of the Economist ranking as a widely disseminated indicator of our relative quality on certain measurable criteria. We remain committed to improving the specialized MBA model we set into motion with the 2006 graduating class.”

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