Last modified: Monday, September 17, 2007
Kelley School's MBA program moves up to fifth in Wall Street Journal rankings
The Godfrey Graduate and Executive Education Center at the Kelley School of Business
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Sept. 17, 2007
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Indiana University's Kelley School of Business is the fifth most favorite regional program among corporate recruiters surveyed by the Wall Street Journal and Harris Interactive.
The Kelley School -- which ranks second among public programs -- jumped 10 places in the newspaper's seventh annual survey of regional schools from 15th a year ago and made the strongest improvement of any Big Ten school in all of the rankings and most other schools rated by the newspaper.
The Wall Street Journal today (Sept. 17) also ranked all of the business schools by industry. Kelley's programs in consumer products, and energy and industrial products and services were second, marketing was third and accounting, eighth.
This year's results came from 4,430 recruiters who took an online survey between Dec. 19, 2006, and March 23, 2007, and rated full-time MBA programs on 21 attributes, including students' leadership potential and strategic thinking, their previous work experience, the faculty and curriculum and the career services office.
"Recruiters noted that students are more polished and sharper, especially in their marketing skills, and that the career services office has become more responsive," the Wall Street Journal reported about Kelley. "The survey respondents awarded Indiana higher scores this year for incorporating experiential learning into the curriculum, faculty expertise and course content, and overall recruiting value."
The newspaper quoted Scott Kleman, a survey respondent and senior financial analyst at Johnson & Johnson's Ethicon Endo Surgery unit in Cincinnati.
"Indiana's graduate career services office is increasingly partnering with corporations such as Johnson & Johnson to identify high-caliber students that meet the company's needs," Kleman told the paper.
The school promotes "real-life projects that allow companies and students to work together in a 'pseudo-internship.' The companies have another channel to meet and evaluate talent, while students are able to apply their learning to a practical problem and make a good impression on a potential employer."
Kelley School Dean Dan Smith expressed pleasure with improvements at the school and the paper's recognition of them.
"We are certainly happy with the improvement to No. 5 overall and No. 2 among public schools. Our improved position in the WSJ ranking is consistent with improvements we have seen in our internal metrics and reflects the dedication of our career services staff, faculty and of course, our students," Smith said. "The regional categorization is always a bit perplexing to us given that our students come from around the world and across the nation. Likewise, we have a geographically diverse set of companies that hire our graduates. "
"A large part of our success in helping recruiters find ideal hires for their specific companies is due to the unique Kelley MBA Program, industry-focused academies that give students the practical experience recruiters look for," said Pam Roberts, director of graduate career services.
"We have companies from all areas of the nation -- coast to coast -- coming to find talent at the Kelley School of Business, including Sabre Holdings, Scotts Co., Bank of America, Microsoft, Intel, Abbott Laboratories, Discover Financial Services, Citigroup, Hewlett Packard and more," she added. "We are delighted that our recruiters recognize our high-caliber recruits and career services."
Several Big Ten schools lost ground in the WSJ ranking this year, including the University of Michigan, which fell to seventh from No.1 in the national rankings, and Northwestern University, which dropped from sixth to 12th in the national rankings. Among regional schools, Michigan State University went from fifth to 18th, the University of Iowa went from 16th to 31st and Purdue University fell to 12th from fourth last year and from first the year before. The Ohio State University ranked third, Pennsylvania State University, 24th; and the University of Minnesota, 38th among regional schools. The University of Notre Dame was ranked 14th.
The newspaper differentiates schools as "national" and "regional" according to where it determines that their recruiters are coming from. National schools more heavily draw from large national and multi-national firms than regional schools, the paper said.
For interviews with Dan Smith, dean of the Kelley School, or Pam Roberts, director of the Graduate Career Services Office, please contact Anne Auer at 812-855-6998 or aauer@indiana.edu; or George Vlahakis at 812-855-0846 or gvlahaki@indiana.edu.
