BusinessWeek‘s second annual Undergraduate Business Programs Rankings came out last night and while many of the schools on the list are familiar names, there are several schools new to the top 50 and some significant shifts within the top 20.
Wharton and the University of Virginia’s McIntire School held on to the number one and two spots, respectively, but the number three spot saw some dramatic shifting – UC-Berkeley’s Haas School skyrocketed from number 12 to number 3 in just a year. BusinessWeek‘s article explaining the rankings says that the key to Berkeley’s rise was a significant increase in recruiter satisfaction – last year the school ranked 41st in this category and this year their rating jumped to number one.
BusinessWeek‘s top 20:
1 University of Pennsylvania (Wharton)
2 University of Virginia (McIntire)
3 UC Berkeley (Haas)
4 Emory University (Goizueta)
5 University of Michigan (Ross)
6 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Sloan)
7 Notre Dame (Mendoza)
8 Brigham Young University (Marriott)
9 New York University (Stern)
10 Cornell University
11 Georgetown University (McDonough)
12 Villanova University
13 University of Texas at Austin (McCombs)
14 Boston College (Carroll)
15 UNC at Chapel Hill (Kenan-Flagler)
16 Washington University (Olin)
17 Wake Forest University (Calloway)
18 Indiana University (Kelley)
19 USC (Marshall)
20 Lehigh University
Since many business schools offer graduate or undergraduate programs, but not both, followers of the MBA rankings may not immediately recognize all of the schools in the top 20. However, with the nation’s top firms recruiting heavily from the leading schools, the bright young graduates of these programs are likely to be the future colleagues and team members of MBA grads.







