Wall Street Journal rankings:

Full-Time MBA Program 21st overall,
8th among publics

The Wall Street Journal released its annual business school rankings today, placing the Eli Broad Graduate School of Management Full Time MBA program at 21st overall. The Broad School MBA program was also ranked highly on several other dimensions:

• 4th in Academic Excellence in Operations Management
• 8th among public schools
• 10th among small MBA programs (those with less than 500 students)

Robert B. Duncan, the Eli and Edythe L. Broad Dean said, "We can be proud of these excellent results. They validate the hard work of our students, faculty and staff over the past year in a very difficult job environment. Because the Wall Street Journal rankings are based on the views of corporate recruiters, they provide an indication of how key clients perceive the quality of our students. While we should celebrate these results today, we must return to our focus on continuous improvement of our programs." The dean noted several initiatives at the Broad School that would better prepare students for their future employment success:

1. New curriculum builds MBA skills faster
This fall, the Broad School introduced a new flexible curriculum. The new curriculum gives students an opportunity to take more electives and to take them earlier in the program. Since electives are usually taken in the areas that MBA students most want to develop, the new opportunities being offered will help boost the professional expertise of first-year MBAs, improving that crucial first impression they have on their prospective employers.

2. New labs and better access to labs develop real-world competencies
The Broad School continues its commitment to giving students effective, real-world experience by constantly enhancing its lab facilities. This year, the Team Leadership Lab has been remodeled and made more accessible to students. The Financial Analysis Lab, with its real-time financial data feeds, as well as extensive historical databases, now supports a student-managed, $2 million, real-money portfolio. The newest lab in the Broad School's suite is the IBM Center for On-Demand Supply Chain Research, a leading-edge electronic environment to study, simulate and demonstrate effective decision making in an end-to-end supply chain.

3. Expanded placement initiatives
The summer 2003 internship placement rate of Broad School MBAs was at nearly 100 percent, an encouraging sign for next summer's graduates. According to Duncan, this success can be credited to a variety of factors, including student treks to visit corporations in Minneapolis/St. Paul, Chicago and New York City, coupled with strong support from alumni and friends of the college. This fall, the new Broad Career Coach program, linking students with alumni volunteers, is the newest of the Broad School's placement initiatives.

For more information about this ranking, visit (http://online.wsj.com/) (you must be a paid subscriber to access this information) or see the Wall Street Journal edition for Wednesday, September 17, 2003, special section, "The Top Business Schools."