Behind the BusinessWeek Rankings

We found our top undergrad business programs using a variety of measures, including student surveys and post-grad salary comparisons

by Louis Lavelle

To identify the top undergraduate business programs, BusinessWeek uses a methodology that includes nine measures of student satisfaction, post-graduation outcomes, and academic quality.

This year, we started with 127 programs that were eligible for ranking, including virtually all of the 123 schools we ranked in 2007 plus eight new schools that met our eligibility requirements. In November, with the help of Cambria Consulting in Boston, we asked more than 80,000 graduating seniors at those 127 schools to complete a 50-question survey on everything from the quality of teaching to recreational facilities. Overall, 22,905 students responded to the survey, a response rate of 28%.

We also surveyed students at one institution that declined to participate in the ranking: University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. Wharton, which has long maintained that media rankings of schools suffer from methodology flaws, declined to supply e-mail addresses for our student survey. Using publicly available sources to locate the addresses, we attempted to contact 720 Wharton business majors. Of those, 203 students, or 28%, completed the survey.

In addition to surveying students, BusinessWeek polled 618 corporate recruiters for companies that hire thousands of business majors each year. We asked them to tell us which programs turn out the best graduates, and which schools have the most innovative curricula and most effective career services. In the end, 244 recruiters responded, a response rate of about 39%.

The Best "Feeder Schools"

To learn which schools' students land the best-paying jobs, we asked each institution to tell us the median starting salary for their most recent graduating class. In addition, we drew on our 2002, 2004, and 2006 MBA surveys to create a "feeder school" measure showing which schools send the most grads to the 35 top MBA programs identified in previous BusinessWeek rankings.

Finally, we created an academic quality gauge of five equally weighted measures. From the schools themselves, we obtained average SAT scores, the ratio of full-time faculty to students, and average class size. The student survey supplied the percentage of business majors with internships and the hours students spend every week on school work.

Before determining the final ranking, we first had to review each school's response rates on the student and recruiter surveys. Of the 127 programs that were eligible for ranking, 12 were eliminated for low response rates in the student survey: Auburn University, Florida International University, Hofstra University, Loyola Marymount University, Pace University, St. Joseph's University, Texas Tech University, University of Cincinnati, University of Oklahoma, University of South Florida, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, and Worcester Polytech Institute. Another 13 were cut for low response rates in the recruiter survey: Chapman University, Elon University, Georgia State University, Iona College, John Carroll University, Seattle University, State University of New York at Geneseo, University of Akron, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, University of the Pacific., Trinity University, Clarkson University, and Rutgers University at Newark. An additional six schools were eliminated due to low response rates on both surveys: Creighton University, Drake University, East Tennessee State University, Pacific Lutheran University, University of Tulsa, and Mercer University.

For the 96 schools remaining, the student survey counted for 30% of the final ranking, with the recruiter survey contributing 20%. Starting salaries and the MBA feeder school measure counted for 10% each. The academic quality measure contributed the remaining 30%.

Lavelle is an associate editor in the Corporations Dept. at BusinessWeek .