Wharton’s still number one in the eyes of many, despite its drop in ranking.
The Wharton School was ranked number five in Bloomberg Businessweek’s annual ranking of undergraduate business schools this year, which was released March 20. This is a drop from last year, when it was ranked fourth.
The top four schools include Notre Dame’s Mendoza School, University of Virginia’s McIntire School, Cornell University’s Dyson School and Washington University in St. Louis Olin School, which jumped from eighth place to fourth place.
“I don’t think that we dropped,” Wharton Vice Dean Georgette Phillips said. “Something happened at Washington University in St. Louis.”
Businessweek ranked a total of 124 programs using a methodology that comprises of five main factors: student assessment, employer opinion, median salary, matriculation into MBA programs and academic quality.
Phillips attributes Wharton’s ranking to several metrics that disadvantage Wharton but “that we can do nothing about.” One is the way Businessweek does its employer survey and the other is that many Wharton students do not typically go on to a graduate education.
“A third of our students don’t get any other degree, and that’s OK,” added Phillips. “It’s two kinds of artificial barriers that we’re never going to break through.”
Businessweek’s ranking differs from U.S. News and World Report’s ranking of undergraduate business schools, which places Wharton in the top spot overall this year. Other top business schools on this list includes MIT’s Sloan School, University of California – Berkeley’s Haas School and University of Michigan – Ann Arbor’s Ross School.
Related
3/13/13: Penn graduate schools rise, fall in U.S. rankings
9/25/12: College rankings spark debate
“It depends on what conditions they’re using,” 1976 College graduate and Director of IvySelect College Consulting Group Michael Goran said. “They change percentages of how much weight different categories have.”
The drop from fourth to fifth standing in the rankings would not, however, have any impact on whether or not students apply to Wharton, added Goran.
“With rankings in general, I think that there’s value at least primarily as students are trying to become familiar with the schools and become familiar with the consensus as to which schools are better,” Goran said. “That being said, it’s really just a starting point. You’ve got to do your homework by doing everything else — visiting the campus [and] the website, speaking to people.”
Phillips shared similar sentiments.
“I would say to look at [the rankings], get ideas of what different schools do, but you can’t let the rankings guide your decision,” Phillips said. “We’re not for everybody. We’re for the people who want what we do.”
For College and Wharton freshmen Chacha Wang, Wharton’s drop in ranking doesn’t mean much.
“There’s not that many Ivy Leagues that have business schools, so I’ve never actually checked the ranking for business schools,” said Wang, who got a good impression of Wharton from those she’s spoken with. “I think it’s really well-recognized, even if they say it’s number four or five.”
However, she added that she does look at Penn’s overall ranking.
“Penn’s ranking matters because for me I think people know that Penn is not the best Ivy League,” she said. “Penn, even though it’s top-tier, where it stands isn’t concrete. It changes a lot. Wharton doesn’t change that much, at least for me.”
