For the fourth consecutive year, UB's School of Management has been ranked by the Wall Street Journal as one of the top business schools in the country, which officials said will help both draw more attention to the program and attract more students.
Jacqueline Ghosen, director of communication for the School of Management, said the Wall Street Journal changed its rankings this year to categorize schools in a more useful way for students and college recruiters.
"In the past, all of the business schools were ranked as one group, leading to some apples-and-oranges comparisons," she said.
UB fell into the publication's regional category because of the size of its MBA program and the reach of the recruiters, Goshen said. UB's full-time MBA program has about 300 students. Larger programs have about 500 on average.
Despite its smaller size, UB ranked 15 out of all 44 regionally ranked business schools in North America, and was placed first in the eastern region.
According to the rankings, University of Rochester is ranked second in UB's region, and University of Pittsburgh is third. In other categories, UB also finished in front of the University of Southern California, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Villanova University.
"We are very pleased with the placement in the ranking. It puts us in good standing with peer schools," said David Frasier, assistant dean of the school and administrative director of the MBA program.
Jason Harris, a first year graduate student in the MBA program, said he was also pleased with the rankings but questioned their accuracy.
"I am a little skeptical on how they come up with the numbers, but I think we are going in a great direction," he said. "It's nice to be ranked with as high of schools."
According to Goshen, Harris' skepticism is exactly the reason the Wall Street Journal has been experimenting with its ranking procedures.
"They are really trying to put out a ranking that is valuable to students and recruiters," Ghosen said.
Both Ghosen and Frasier stressed that the rankings are decided entirely by recruiters' opinions.
"The fact is that the rank is based on recruiter reaction. In the end, they are consumers of our product," Frasier said. "There are two consumers - the students and the recruiters. This is a very positive endorsement from the recruiters of our program."
In addition to ranking first overall in the region, the School of Management also ranked second for highest percentage of female enrollment and fourth for international diversity.
Frasier said the management school is diverse because it already has MBA sister-programs available in foreign countries, such as the executive MBA program at Renmin University in Beijing, China.
Since the university's name is recognized abroad, that helps to draw international students into UB, Frasier said.
"Also, it's a very economical program for international students. The cost of tuition is very low compared to the quality of the MBA programs," he said.
Looking towards the future, Frasier anticipates the rankings will have a positive effect on the School of Management.
"Ideally, it will lead to improve the overall quality of students coming into the program," he said.
