Undergrad Business Program Rankings

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How is the recruiter survey conducted?

The recruiter survey, like the student survey is also conducted online. Starting with e-mail addresses supplied by the programs, BusinessWeek creates a list of companies recruiting from the programs and identifies a single high-level recruiting contact at each company. This means that not every recruiter supplied by every school will be contacted. Then, with the help of Cambria Consulting, BusinessWeek contacts the recruiters and directs them to a site where they can complete the survey. BusinessWeek sends out several reminders or calls recruiters to ensure an adequate response rate.

Every company tells us how many undergraduate business majors it hired in the previous two years and which schools it actively recruits from, and it ranks up to 20 top schools.

To calculate each school's recruiter score, we first use the rankings to determine each school's recruiter points, awarding 20 points for every No. 1 ranking, 19 points for every No. 2 mention, and so on. We then calculate a numerator, which consists of the sum of each school's points from each specific recruiter multiplied by the number of undergraduate business majors hired by that specific recruiter. We then calculate a denominator, which is the sum of the number of times each school is identified as a recruiting location multiplied by the number of undergraduate business majors hired by each recruiter who mentions it. Finally, for each school, we divide the numerator by the denominator.

We then combine the recruiter survey results with those from the two previous rankings for an overall recruiter survey score. The most recent year's survey counts for 50% of the school's overall student survey score; the two previous years count for 25% each.

How do you calculate starting salaries for undergraduates?

We ask schools to supply median starting salaries—excluding signing bonuses and other compensation—for students who are employed at graduation. This information is then corrected for regional economic differences, when necessary. To prevent low salaries for graduates who enter nonprofit or other low-paying occupations from skewing this number downward, we ask schools for the median starting salary, not an average.

How do you determine which schools give graduates a better chance of getting into a top-ranked MBA program?

In the student survey used for BusinessWeek's MBA rankings, we ask students to indicate where they received their undergraduate degree and their undergraduate major. We also ask them which MBA program they're attending.

To determine which undergraduate programs give students a better chance of getting into a top-ranked MBA program, we first examine the data from our most recent MBA student surveys. We isolate only those students attending 35 MBA programs (those that received a top ranking by BusinessWeek at any time since 1994) who also received undergraduate business degrees from one of the undergraduate programs we're ranking. We then determine how many survey respondents from each undergraduate program are enrolled in those MBA programs as a group. We then adjust this number for the size of each undergraduate program's graduating class. This number is then used as the basis for the "feeder school" measure used in the ranking.

How do you measure educational quality?

BusinessWeek uses five equally weighted sets of data: average SAT/ACT scores for business majors, the full-time faculty/student ratio in the business program, average class size in core business classes, the percentage of business majors with internships, and the number of hours students spend preparing for class each week. Test scores, the faculty/student ratio, and class size information are provided by the schools; the internship data and class preparation information are derived from the student survey.

For each measure, we split the data set into quintiles, awarding five points for schools in the top quintile, four points for those in the second quintile, three points for those in the third, etc. Schools that fail to report data in a category are placed in the lowest quintile and receive one point. Each school's academic quality score consists of the sum of the points earned in each of the five categories. The highest score is 25; the lowest score is five.

How is each of the factors weighted?

The combined student survey score counts for 30% of the final ranking. The recruiter survey score counts for 20%. Starting salaries count for 10%. The feeder school measure counts for 10%. And the quality measure counts for 30%.

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