Business Week Ranks Walton College Managerial MBA in Top 26 Public Programs

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Business Week has ranked the Managerial Master of Business Administration program at at the University of Arkansas 26^th among the top public M.B.A. programs. The Managerial M.B.A. in the Sam M. Walton College of Business attracts students from vendor companies and other corporate offices in a multistate region. 

In the ranking of the best schools, the Walton College placed 59^th among the top private and public business schools. The Walton College also ranked first among the Southeastern Conference schools.

“We are very excited about this ranking,” said Walton College Dean Dan Worrell. “Business Week has conducted an extensive survey and examined many quality aspects of a managerial M.B.A. education. The detailed 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.”

Marion Dunagan, assistant dean for graduate programs in the college, said, “We are excited that the M.B.A. program is starting to get the recognition it deserves. For instance, in the student survey, Walton College was given an ‘A-plus’ in the caliber of classmates. We also received a ‘B’ in both teaching quality and curriculum, which is a tribute to the hard work of our faculty and staff.”

Business Week rankings are determined for the part-time M.B.A. program by three measures:

• A student survey

• An academic quality measure that consists of average GMAT score, average work experience, the percentage of instructors in the part-time M.B.A. program who are tenured faculty, average class size in core business classes, the number of business electives available to part-time M.B.A. students, and the program’s completion rate.

• The post-M.B.A. outcomes, which determine if the program was “completely” responsible for them achieving their goals.

To be eligible for the Business Week survey, each school must 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: universitywide 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 99 programs.

Among the 99 programs ranked, the top part-time M.B.A. programs are Worcester Polytechnic Institute; University of California, Los Angeles-Anderson; University of California, Berkeley; University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the University of Michigan.

In August 2009, 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 “2010 America’s Best Colleges.” The college was ranked 42^nd 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. In addition, the college’s supply chain management/logistics specialty was ranked in ninth place among the public undergraduate schools offering that specialty, up from 11^th in the 2009 ranking.