Poll puts Wharton at No. 18

Despite the Wharton School's generally prestigious reputation, a Wall Street Journal survey of the top MBA programs worldwide from a recruiter's perspective ranked Wharton a disappointing 18th place. The survey, conducted in conjunction with market research company Harris Interactive, asked 1,600 recruiters to judge business schools based on 27 different attributes. Dartmouth College's Tuck School of Business was ranked as the best business school by recruiters, followed by Carnegie Mellon and Yale universities. Dartmouth was ranked by the Journal as the most collegial -- versus competitive -- of all business schools and had "the best scores of any school for interpersonal and communication skills and teamwork abilities." But Wharton came out near the top among competitive schools. According to recruiters, Wharton had the second most competitive environment, after Harvard University. "We believe that recruiters' insights are crucial because of recruiter's in-depth knowledge of the schools and their graduates," Journal Managing Editor Paul Steiger said in a statement. Overall, while Wharton dropped to 18th place, it did place first in accounting and finance, third in international business and fourth in quantitative analysis. Surveys conducted by other publications, including the Financial Times and U.S. News and World Report, usually rank Wharton among the top five in the nation. Wharton officials, however, were not alarmed about the results of the survey. "We're not concerned about it," Vice Dean of Executive Education Bob Mittelstaedt said. "Surveys are all constructed differently and you get different results depending on what you look at." While the survey ranked Wharton's MBA program lower, the survey also did confirm some aspects of Wharton's solid reputation. Wharton was an often-mentioned school when recruiters were asked about where they would hire an MBA. Wharton graduates' salaries were also ranked as among the highest. The survey ranked Wharton high among schools with an international perspective. Wharton has a new campus in San Francisco and recently partnered with French business school INSEAD, along with several other global initiatives. Wharton, however, was not alone in receiving a lower ranking than many historically give the school. The two most comparable business schools, Harvard (8th) and Stanford University (45th) were also ranked much lower in this survey than in other surveys. The survey asked recruiters "to identify school and student characteristics that recruiters consider most important when they make decisions about which schools to recruit from and which students to recruit."