Wake Forest MBA soars to The Wall Street Journal top 10

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C.— The Wall Street Journal ranks Wake Forest University’s Babcock Graduate School of Management as No. 7 among the nation’s top regional schools, according to its fifth annual survey of corporate recruiters, conducted jointly by The Wall Street Journal and Harris Interactive.

Wake Forest MBA leapfrogged 10 positions from No. 17 last year, making it the most significant rise of any school in this rankings segment. The survey was published in the newspaper’s Sept. 21, 2005 issue.

Recruiter Keith Harman, a Wake Forest MBA alumnus who is a managing director at Banc of America Securities, was quoted in an article accompanying the ranking. He said that MBA recruits from Wake Forest “brought broad work experience, an outstanding work ethic, and a well-rounded understanding of finance and business fundamentals to the table. They stood out in their ability and willingness to dive into projects and take a leadership role in their assignments.”

The school takes pride in producing graduates who deliver creative and innovative skills to their employers, according to Dean Ajay Patel.

“Wake Forest MBA is where we build future business leaders,” says Dean Patel. “We help sharpen their innovative minds, hone their creative skills for solving problems, and provide them the rigor and discipline needed to commercialize ideas and grow businesses. Their success leads to our success. As our alumni succeed in the marketplace, our recruiters acknowledge their decidedly different contributions.

Wake Forest MBA faculty, staff, students, alumni and recruiters—who helped to make it happen—are pleased with this honor. Irrespective of the rankings, however, we will continue to focus on our primary goal of building the best MBA program for all of our stakeholders.”

The survey is based on the opinions of 3,267 MBA recruiters who hire graduates. Recruiters rated schools where they recruited recently and provided a total of 4,938 school ratings. To be included in the rankings, a school needed at least 20 recruiter ratings. The population of U.S. schools identified for the survey included a list of schools provided by AACSB International, the major business school accrediting organization. The final sample of business schools eligible to be rated included a total of 265 schools (186 U.S. schools and 79 non-U.S. schools).

The primary differentiating factor between national and regional rankings is that the latter category includes schools whose graduates are placed mostly within that school’s geographic area. For example, Wake Forest MBA graduates are mainly recruited by firms in the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic regions. The regional category had the highest concentration of schools, followed by the international category, and then the national category.

Wake Forest offers five MBA programs: full-time, evening and fast-track executive MBA programs in Winston-Salem, and evening and Saturday MBA programs in Charlotte.