IMPORTANT note to business majors and prospectives regarding new BW ranking

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Southern California
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<p>As you all know, BusinessWeek recently ranked undergraduate programs for the first time (<a href="http://www.businessweek.com/pdfs/2006/0619_top50b.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.businessweek.com/pdfs/2006/0619_top50b.pdf&lt;/a&gt;) and Marshall, in contrast to US News where we are top 10, is ranked #21. </p>

<p>Obviously, this comes as a surprise to many as we all know we are not #21. I'm posting becuase, as a student who works for the business school, I know first hand that it is being investigated if numbers were grossly misrepresented and therefore misreported. If you'll notice in the rankings, what hurts marshall the most is student to faculty ratio - 1:62 where other b-schools are in the teens. The reason for the discrepancy is because many believe that, in reporting the faculty count to BW, Marshall only reported the number of professors actually INSTRUCTING undergraduates... whereas other business schools reported the number of faculty on their payrolls - whether they were only doing research, have only adjunct status, or what not. For instance, Wharton lists its faculty as being above 250... but do you really believe over 250 individual faculty members are instructign undergraduates? If anything, Marshall was too honest, and is now paying for it. If the school deserves any negative attention, it shouldn't be for it's "low" ranking, but for failing to successfuly report the numbers in a strategically advantageous way.</p>

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<p>when i saw 1:62, i was like: ftw.</p>

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<p>The 40k median starting salary also seems like it was misrepresented. I don't think it can be that low.</p>

<p>Good luck to you guys in clearing that up.</p>

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<p>Yes, I know our own PR reports it at $45-57k, as the 25-75 percentile.</p>

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<p>The above points definitely need to be cleared up with BW. This bogy rating can have serious long term effects on both the school and its graduates. Recruiters and major businesses are going to take this rating seriously. BW definitely needs to print a correction of the faculty ratio and starting salaries at the very least. I would argue for a printed interview with the school's management.</p>

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<p>themegastud, will these corrections only take effect for the next issue of the rankings? (presumably next year)</p>

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<p>If Marshall's PR reps/administrative officials were to ask now for corrections now explaining their misrepresentation in the rankings, then I'd imagine that these corrections would appear in the next issue or the one after that. Publications, especially a prestigious one like Business Week, take corrections very seriously IF they're alerted to the mistakes by reputable sources. At any rate, I doubt that BW wants to risk any possible libel lawsuits-libel insurance is there for a reason!</p>