The Wall Street Journal recently ranked the Master of Business Administration program at Washington University’s Olin School of Business 32nd, a drop from last year’s 24th.

The rankings are based on a number of factors, including students’ communication and interpersonal skills, quality of past hires by companies and leadership potential.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Olin received good marks from recruiters for its “analytical and problem solving skills, teamwork abilities, and fit with the corporate culture,” but came up short on “entrepreneurial skills and awareness of corporate social-responsibility issues.”

The most recent rankings are part of what seems to be a trend of falling prestige at the business school. Earlier this year, Olin dropped seven spots in the Financial Times rankings of MBA programs.

One reason for the decreases, according to Professor Greg Hutchings, is that it is often difficult for a school the size of Olin to receive national recognition.

“There is a large number of schools that offer full-time MBA programs,” said Hutchings. “It is tougher to gain status as a smaller school compared to the larger establishments.”

Finance Professor Todd Milbourn said that it is difficult for Olin to improve because of the mixed signals that the rankings send.

“Certainly, we are a bit disappointed that our MBA program dropped,” said Milbourn. “Unfortunately, it is difficult to glean much information from this particular study because nearly every mention of our current program was positive.”

“For instance, WU’s MBA program was in a set of 10 schools that recruiters claimed ‘produce[d] excellent graduates but aren’t typically considered top-tier schools,’ referring to these schools as belonging to set of ‘Hidden Gems,’” Milbourn continued.

Hutchings is a little skeptical about the media rankings as well.

“The surveys sometimes give conflicting results,” he said. “Business Week criticized our students’ analytical skills and team work, while the Wall Street Journal praised them,” said Hutchings.

Still, Olin will try to reverse the downward trend in the future.

“To improve in these rankings, all we can do is to continue to enhance our curriculum, seek out the great students, and work them hard while they are here,” said Milbourn.

“The rankings will sort themselves out at the end of the day. The faculty at Olin is proud of both the undergraduate and graduate business school programs, and will continue to work towards greater national recognition for these programs and the university as a whole.”

While some students may be concerned about the effects of the rankings on job placements, Hutchings does not seem worried.

“The drop in ranking has not had a direct effect on our students’ job placement. I believe that companies recognize WU and Olin as high quality institutions,” said Hutchings. “If anything, the tougher problem is in the hard economy.”

At the undergraduate level, the Olin School of Business was recently ranked by U.S. News and World Report as number 14 in the nation, an increase from 16 one year ago. The business school tied with the undergraduate business programs at Ohio State University, Purdue University and the University of Minnesota.

Popularity: 1% [?]

 Print This Post

This entry was posted on Friday, September 20th, 2002 at 12:00 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.