Thursday, February 4, 1999
Anderson School ranks with best
BUSINESS: UCLA places 10th in top management program research
survey
By Natasha Behbahany
Daily Bruin Contributor
The Anderson School at UCLA was ranked the 10th-best business
school in Europe and North America by the Financial Times of
London.
Released late January, the Times picked their top 50 full-time
MBA programs, naming Harvard Business School as No. 1.
"It is wonderful to see this school grouped with such great
institutions," said John Mamer, interim dean of Anderson.
Rankings were based on questionnaires received from 1995 alumni
and the business schools.
Part of the assessment included current salaries of 1995 alumni.
While Harvard alumni make an average of $132,874, those who
graduated from UCLA’s Anderson School are making an average of
$105,566.
Other factors involved in the rankings were the number of job
offers and patterns of employment.
MIT ranked 5th and averaged 3.3 job offers per student. In
comparison, UCLA business students received an average of 3.2 job
offers.
In addition, Mamer said the study asked each school to nominate
research papers for evaluation.
"This makes it a semi-novel survey," he said in reference to the
study’s emphasis on research.
Professor Michael Darby agrees. "Some ratings are popularity
contests, but here they actually evaluate research more
substantially."
Darby has been a professor of business economics at the Anderson
School since 1987, and he has noticed continuous efforts to make
improvements in the faculty and the program.
"It is a constant struggle because we are competing for
faculty," Darby said.
According to the study, 99 percent of the faculty at the
Anderson School have a doctoral degree.
But Mamer believes the research emphasis at the Anderson School
will automatically attract strong researchers.
The study rated research based on three criteria: articles
published in three leading business magazines, case studies and
academic research that was assessed by a committee of deans and
academics.
Despite numerous categories used to determine the rankings, J.
Dow Covey, a third-year student at the Anderson School, believes
that they are slightly biased.
"I don’t know of any other ranking that has placed the London
Business School so high," he said, adding that the Financial Times
is a London-based publication. The London Business School was
ranked as the eighth-best business school.
Despite this, Covey believes the rankings will help UCLA
business students, because the Financial Times has an international
readership.
"This indicates that the Anderson School is on the rise," Covey
said.
Despite these successes, the study found only 1.44 percent of
those questioned recommended the MBA program at UCLA.
Paxton Helms, a second-year MBA student, said these rankings are
slightly arbitrary.
"When choosing a school, it is more a question of what you want
out of the experience," Helms said.
Covey said the experience at the Anderson School creates high
quality students who are innovative
"One day we will have a Bill Gates come out of the Anderson
School," he said.
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