Dear Alumni and Friends,

The London-based Financial Times ranking for MBA programs hit the newsstands yesterday. In assessing our performance in this ranking, it is important to recognize that the ranking is based largely on the career progression of students who attended our program from 2001-2003. While there were many outstanding individuals in that class, we did not feel our program was meeting the needs of most students. To address this, we redesigned and launched our new MBA program in 2004.

As the data below indicates, we continue to see great progress in student quality, student satisfaction and placement outcomes. We feel confident that these upward trends will be reflected in future rankings. Unfortunately, based on the Financial Times’ current methodology, this progress won’t be recognized in their ranking until 2010.

In this year’s Financial Times ranking, the UW-Madison program is ranked 57th among all business schools in the United States. In 2006, we were ranked 51st in the U.S. The ranking is based on three major categories:

• Alumni career development and salary purchasing power
• Diversity
• Research capabilities

To view the entire Financial Times report, visit: http://www.ft.com/businesseducation/globalmba2007

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

• Student quality as measured by average GMAT score was 661 for students who enrolled in 2006, up from an average of 623 for students surveyed who enrolled in 2001.
• Student satisfaction with academic program quality was at 94 percent for first-year students in the program in 2006-07, compared with 81 percent for first-year students in 2005-2006.
• Career placement is at 95 percent for the class of 2006, up from 70 percent for 2003 graduates. The average salary for 2006 graduates was $82,917, compared to $68,852 for 2003 graduates. We achieved a higher percentage increase in salaries (11.5%) over national averages (9.5%-9.7%) in 2006.

We value the significance of the Financial Times ranking as a relative measurement of how we compare to other business schools nationwide at a point in time. We remain committed to consistently improving on our fundamentals and sustaining excellence in everything we do in order to deliver outstanding educational experiences. We are confident that our focus on these areas will continue to strengthen the value of our programs.

My thanks to all — our faculty, staff, alumni and advisory boards members— who play key roles in the continuing success of our programs. I welcome your feedback on this and any topic.

On Wisconsin,

Mike

Dean Michael M. Knetter
School of Business
University of Wisconsin-Madison
5110 Grainger Hall
975 University Avenue
Madison WI 53706-1323