Wharton MBA program ranked best in world

Sometimes, being number one isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Wharton Business School's MBA program was ranked best in the world for the seventh year in a row by the London-based Financial Times.

But despite retaining the premiere spot, Wharton students, alumni and faculty say that they are unconcerned with the school's rank in this, or any, publication.

Released at the end of last month, the newspaper - which is printed in 23 international cities and boasts a circulation of over 400,000 - judges three main elements: how well a program's students do upon graduation, research achievements and international outreach, FT Business Education Editor Della Bradshaw said.

Columbia University's business school ranked in second place, with the business schools of Harvard and Stanford universities tied for third.

And though Bradshaw said Wharton lags behind in international outreach, that doesn't mean Wharton is in any rush to address its alleged shortcomings - or cement its position at the ranking's top.

"I think the Wharton brand is incredibly strong, and a move from one place to another to another is immaterial," said 1986 MBA alumnus Andy Cohen.

"There's a number of very good business schools, and, on some rankings, some schools do better than others," said Finance professor Marshall Blume, who added that rankings don't provide a complete picture of a given school.

Wharton spokesman Michael Baltes wrote in an e-mail that rankings are not "a good indicator of a program's quality."

But even with this general attitude of indifference, Whartonites still say that they prefer a high ranking to a low one.

"It's nice to be ranked high," Blume said.

Second-year MBA candidate Dean Chen added, "I would look at being in the top three as the most important thing."

In a 2004 article in eNEWSLINE, Wharton Dean Patrick Harker articulated the business school's overall position regarding rankings.

"It is folly to distill all that makes an individual school unique into a simple rank. There is no such thing as a number one school," he wrote.

This attitude prompted a 2004 decision to join Harvard University in its decision to withhold student and alumni information from publications that would like to use their feedback in formulating rankings.

Bradshaw noted that such policies do not impact her publication's rankings, which are based strictly on objective data.

Conversely, Businessweek, which publishes similar rankings of business schools across the country, bases 90 percent of its analysis on student-alumni and peer feedback, Bradshaw said.

Wharton ranked second to the University of Chicago in Businessweek's latest ranking, which was released last October.

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