Business Week Ranks Walton College in Top 50 Public Programs

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Business Week has ranked the undergraduate business program at the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas at 43^rd among the top public undergraduate programs.

In the ranking of the best schools, the Walton College placed 83 ^rd among the top private and public business schools. The Walton College also ranked 2^nd place among the Southeastern Conference schools ranked.

“We are very pleased with this ranking,” said Walton College Dean Dan Worrell. “Business Week has conducted an extensive survey and examined many quality aspects of a business school education. The specific results of the survey give us good perspective of how we are doing compared to peer schools and where we can improve. It also illustrates how nationally competitive the Walton College is.”

Bill Curington, senior associate dean for academic programs and research in the college, said, “We feel that the Business Week rankings validate the rankings from U.S. News & World Report. We rank very favorably in several measures with the top schools.

“For instance, in the student survey, Walton College was given an ‘A’ in its facilities and service to students. We also received an ‘A’ in job placement, which is a tribute to the hard work of our Career Development Center. Within the Southeastern Conference schools ranked, only the University of Florida ranked ahead of the Walton College.”

Business Week uses five sources for the undergraduate ranking:

• A student survey
• A recruiter survey
• Median starting salaries for graduates
• The number of graduates admitted to the top 35 MBA programs
• And an academic quality measure that consists of SAT/ACT test scores for business majors, full-time faculty-student ratios in the business program, average class size in core business classes, the percentage of business majors with internships, and the number of hours students spend preparing for class each week. The information about test scores, faculty-student ratios and class sizes was provided by the school, and the data about internships and hours of preparation came from the student survey.

To be eligible for the Business Week survey, each school had to be accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business-AACSB International, the organization that accredits business schools worldwide, and exceed its cutoff for at least two of these three criteria: university-wide SAT and ACT scores, percentage of applicants accepted and percentage of students coming from the top 10 percent of their high school class. Business Week ranked 101 programs.

Among the 101 programs that Business Week ranked, the top undergraduate business programs are the University of Virginia; University of Notre Dame; University of Pennsylvania, University of Michigan, and Brigham Young University.

In August 2008, Walton College was ranked in a tie for 24^th among the nation’s public undergraduate business schools by U.S. News & World Report’s “2009 America’s Best Colleges.” The college was ranked 43^rd place among both public and private business schools. U.S. News & World Report surveyed business deans and senior faculty and ranked the schools on academic reputation.