News > March 22, 2007

By Blake Brittain

Staff writer

The university’s Calloway School of Business and Accountancy made a major jump in the BusinessWeek list of top undergraduate business schools this year, moving up from 24th to 17th in the magazine’s second annual rankings.

The BusinessWeek list is the only major ranking of undergraduate business schools besides the famous US News and World Report rankings.

While the Calloway undergraduate program was ranked 17th this year in BusinessWeek, it was ranked 29 in 2006 in US News.

BusinessWeek uses a different formula for ranking the business schools than US News. While US News polls deans from schools around the country to create their list of top undergraduate business programs, BusinessWeek’s list relies on a number of other factors such as surveys of students and business recruiters, base salaries of graduates and the quality of MBA programs students attend after graduation.

Dean of the Calloway School of Business and Accountancy Jack Wilkerson prefers BusinessWeek’s more data-based rankings to the US News’s list, which is inherently based more on perception.

“I think it’s a more valid set of

rankings,” Wilkerson said. “You could argue with the bases, but I like it simply because it’s based on specific factors.”

BusinessWeek’s top four undergraduate business programs are, in order, Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, the University of Virginia, the University of California-Berkeley, and Emory University.

Duke does not have an undergraduate business program, and UNC-Chapel Hill’s program dropped from 11th to 15th this year.

Chapel Hill’s drop was one of many fluctuations this year, such as Notre Dame’s undergraduate program dropping from third to seventh.

Wilkerson cites the fine-tuning of BusinessWeek’s relatively new ranking system as a possible factor in these changes.

Wilkerson also suggested that a large factor in the university’s seven-position jump in these rankings was due to a bit of misinformation from last year that was corrected.

Wilkerson said that last year the school did not send in the starting salary for Calloway graduates, which brought the school’s ranking down slightly.

Calloway received an A+ grade in teacher quality, and A’s in facilities, services, and job placement.

However, in the survey of current student satisfaction, the university finished number 39.

BusinessWeek cited “grade deflation” as a reason why many students at Wake are unhappy with the Calloway program.

“Does that mean we start being easier graders?” Wilkerson joked. “I doubt Calloway faculty would come down on that side of the issue.”

While Wilkerson is pleased with the new ranking, he still sees room for further improvement.

“There’s a good bit of movement in the rankings this year,” Wilkerson said. “If we care about the rankings, we can’t rest on our laurels. We have the opportunity to move even further.”