On Campus
Ranking Results
Although there is much controversy about the reliability, quality and value of rankings of business school programs, they are a reality for major business schools.
Accounting Graduates Continue to Shine
Accounting graduates of the School of Business continue to match up against the best in the nation in terms of CPA Exam pass rate rankings.
For undergraduates taking the test nationally between 1993 and 2002, UWÐMadison graduates ranked fourth nationally. For graduate students, UWÐMadison students ranked third nationally for the same time period. The graduate students were ranked third nationally on the May 2002 test (with a 73% pass rate) and fourth nationally on the November 2002 test (with a 58% pass rate).
“While we do not believe any single ranking can capture the value a school can add to a particular student, they are important for several reasons,” said School of Business Dean Michael M. Knetter. “They affect prospective students' perceptions of our quality and, by extension, influence the quality of our applicant pool.”
Knetter feels rankings do reflect some fundamental realities about student quality, faculty quality and student outcomes. “By showing how we compare with peers, rankings provide some useful information in areas that we care about. Rankings are not likely to go away. In making an important, one-time decision like choosing an MBA program, people want objective references about quality. So, we do need to pay attention to how we are ranked and why.
“We're never going to manage to any particular ranking, but we will try every year to improve our student quality, improve faculty quality and deliver better programs and enhanced employment options for our graduates.”
Below, some recent rankings of School of Business programs:
Undergraduate
U.S. News & World Report recently ranked University of Wisconsin-Madison 11th among all undergraduate business programs. U.S. News has ranked Wisconsin's undergraduate business program among top programs since the magazine began ranking business programs in 1996. Two School of Business undergraduate programs were ranked among the top five in the nation. Real estate was ranked second and insurance/risk management was ranked third.
Executive MBA
The Financial Times of London ranked the Executive MBA program 27th in the world, up from 33rd last year. The program is 16th among all U.S. programs and tied for second among U.S. schools in percentage of women enrolled. This is the third year the Financial Times ranked executive MBA programs and the third time they have identified UW-Madison's Executive MBA as being among the world's best. UW-Madison was the only Wisconsin school to make the Financial Times top-75 ranking.
Executive Education
Executive Education has made the Financial Times' annual list of the world's top executive education providers for the second consecutive year. UW-Madison was ranked 17th in the U.S. (34th in the world) in the overall ranking. For open enrollment programs, UW-Madison was ranked 19th among the top providers in the U.S. and 31st in the world. For custom executive education programs, UW-Madison was ranked 18th among U.S. schools and 42nd in the world. Executive Education also was ranked among the top 18 executive education programs in the Midwest by BusinessWeek.
Full-time MBA
A number of publications produce MBA rankings:
U.S. News & World Report |
46th in the U.S. |
Financial Times |
69th worldwide (49th in U.S.) |
Wall Street Journal |
Not ranked |
The Economist Intelligence Unit |
72nd worldwide (38th in U.S.) |
BusinessWeek |
30-50 range (U.S.) |
Forbes |
38th (U.S.) |
Rankings are for 2003, except for BusinessWeek, which last ranked MBA programs in 2002. The next BusinessWeek ranking will be in October, 2004.