Wharton's status as the top business school in the world has been affirmed once again.
The Financial Times has ranked Wharton's MBA program the number one full-time MBA program in the world for the second year in a row.
For the past four years, the British financial newspaper has ranked the top 100 MBA programs in multiple categories, including how much a school's degree helps its graduates in their careers, the nature of a school's curriculum and the quality of each institution's research. It also examines the gender and international composition of the students and faculty.
Harvard Business School, which took the top spot two years ago, was ranked second. The business schools at the University of Chicago and Stanford and Columbia universities all tied for third place in the rankings.
Of the 100 schools on the list, 56 are American -- including eight of the top 10 -- and 27 are European.
While Wharton is consistently ranked highly in many publications, the FT ranking is notable because the paper is read across the world.
University President Judith Rodin sees the ranking as a testament to Wharton's international renown.
"And, of course, we think it's very well-deserved," she added.
According to the FT article, Wharton has maintained its number one ranking largely due to the research that is done at the school. It is at the top of the FT's lists for both the research rating and the doctoral rating and admits the most international students.
The newspaper also reports that Wharton MBA alumni get many of the best jobs and receive the third-highest salaries of students who attend graduate business schools, after students from Harvard and Stanford.
Despite the school's success, Wharton Dean Patrick Harker is skeptical about taking the rankings too seriously.
"The Financial Times rankings, like other rankings, vary in both form and methodology," Harker said in an e-mail statement. "Thus, one has to be careful not to read too much into such rankings and potential students must always look carefully at what is measured. That is, students should use rankings as a guide, not a definitive statement of what school is best for them personally."
At the same time, Harker said that innovation is the key to Wharton's ability to remain at the forefront of business education.
"Wharton began as an innovation in 1881, and the spirit of innovation is alive and well today," Harker said. "Thus, what got us to this point is the same thing that will help us stay as the global leader in management education: innovation in research, innovation in curriculum design and innovation in learning methods."
Harker attributed Wharton's high ranking to the hard work and cooperation of its students, faculty and administration, pointing to the work of the Wharton Undergraduate Advisory Board students' collaboration with faculty and board members to create the new Entrepreneurship concentration as an example.
"This innovation is not just driven by the faculty and administration," Harker said in his e-mail statement. "We have a truly unique culture of co-production, where faculty, administration and students work together to challenge what we do in order to continually improve.
"Students actively work to improve the school; the results of these efforts can be seen every day in new majors, new courses, and new co-curricular activities," Harker added.
