Last modified: Wednesday, March 21, 2012
IU's Kelley School of Business climbs higher among elite schools in Bloomberg Businessweek rankings
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 21, 2012
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Indiana University's Kelley School of Business continued its upward movement in new rankings of undergraduate programs done by Bloomberg Businessweek, moving up two positions to 16th overall.
Kelley remains second among all Big Ten schools and was fifth among such programs at public universities, in rankings that the magazine announced through a webcast late Tuesday, March 20. Kelley's undergraduate program has always been ranked in the Top 20 throughout the six-year history of the survey.
The school also moved up in surveys done with corporate recruiters, who this year ranked Kelley as their fourth most favorite program nationally (up from eighth a year ago). They gave Kelley an "A-plus" grade.
In terms of starting salaries, the median salary for Kelley graduates increased by 10 percent over last year to $55,000, well above the median for all schools, which rose only by 2.5 percent to $48,558. Ninety-one percent of students reported full-time job or graduate school acceptance within three months.
"I'm not sure if it came through in the rankings themselves, but I've read through a lot of student comments over the past few weeks, and the student sentiment is much more positive and optimistic than it has been the past few years," Bloomberg Businessweek editor Geoff Gloeckler said during the live chat. "That helps with student satisfaction, no doubt. Also the number of students who had received a job offer is up."
Top industries at Kelley were financial services, consumer products and accounting.
"We track a wide range of internal performance metrics," said Dan Smith, dean of the Kelley School. "Given our improvements in student quality, faculty-to-student-ratio, and the quality of the career opportunities that our students earn, the positive move in the Bloomberg Businessweek rankings comes as no surprise.
"There are over 3,000 business schools in the U.S., and to be among the top 20 places us among the nation's elite programs," Smith added. "We are particularly proud of the high level of satisfaction of the recruiters who hire our students, as this reflects the commitment to excellence by our students, faculty, career services team and program staff.
"The school has a strong positive momentum that we expect to continue as we launch a new curriculum and complete the plans for new facilities that will transform the school."
Munirpallam Venkataramanan, associate dean for academic programs, noted that Bloomberg Businessweek also gave Kelley "A" grades for teaching quality and for resources offered students.
"The rankings are testament to the efforts of our faculty and staff in attracting outstanding students to the Kelley School of Business and providing them with a world-class education and experience," Venkataramanan said. "Year after year, our students rise up to the challenge and excel, as evidenced by employers' continued high regard for the talent they get from Kelley. It is gratifying to see the ranking is consistent with our internal assessment of continuous improvement in multiple facets of students learning, development and accomplishments."
Student interest is up 20 percent from last year's all-time high in terms of applications, from both standard and direct admit students. The average SAT score for all undergraduate students at Kelley is now 1,304.
With an enrollment of nearly 4,700, the Kelley School has the largest undergraduate enrollment in Bloomberg Businessweek's Top 20. However, the student-to-faculty ratio continued to improve, from 21.8-to-1 to 19.6-to-1.
Overall, 28,060 college seniors at 124 schools participated in the survey.
In its most recent ranking of MBA programs, in 2010, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked Kelley's MBA program 19th.
To rank the programs, Bloomberg Businessweek used nine measures, including surveys of both senior business majors and employers, median starting salaries for graduates and the number of alumni each program sends to top MBA programs. A calculation of academic quality is also included in the methodology, combining average SAT scores, student-faculty ratios, class size in core business courses, the percentage of students with internships, and the number of hours devoted to class work.
More information about the rankings is available online at Bloomberg Businessweek's website.
