BYU Undergrad Program is No. 12 in New Businessweek Rankings

PROVO, Utah – Mar 20, 2013 – Brigham Young University’s undergraduate business program soared nine places to No. 12 in Bloomberg Businessweek’s Best Undergraduate Business Schools 2013 rankings. The Marriott School of Management also ranked No. 3 in employer satisfaction and No. 12 in student satisfaction.

“BYU is one of the few schools that does very well in both of the main ranking measures — the student and employer surveys,” says Geoff Gloeckler, Bloomberg Businessweek staff editor.

BYU was the only school from Utah in the Top 50, and the second-highest rated school in the west behind No. 11 University of California, Berkeley. Notre Dame was No. 1 for the fourth consecutive year. Rounding out the top five were Virginia, Cornell, Washington University-St. Louis and Pennsylvania.

Only 145 colleges met Businessweek's rigorous criteria to be considered for the undergraduate business rankings. Schools must have an accredited undergraduate business degree program that meets criteria for program size, age, test scores, and grade point averages for business majors and number of full-time tenured faculty, among other things.

Colleges were ranked according to five weighted sets of data: a survey of more than 85,000 students; a survey of 519 corporate recruiters; median starting salaries for graduates; the number of graduates admitted to MBA programs; median starting salary for the most recent graduating class and an academic quality measure that consists of SAT/ACT test scores for business majors, full-time faculty-student ratios in the business program, average class size in core business classes, the percentage of business majors with internships and the number of hours students spend preparing for class each week.

“We’re very excited to see the school in Businessweek’s top tier,” says Gary Cornia, Marriott School dean. “We’re proud of what our students and faculty are doing to build the school’s reputation for talent and integrity around the world.”

Bloomberg Businessweek has been ranking the best undergraduate schools since 2006. The complete 2013 rankings can be found here.

The Marriott School is located at Brigham Young University, the largest privately owned, church-sponsored university in the United States. The school has nationally recognized programs in accounting, business management, public management, information systems, and entrepreneurship. The school’s mission is to prepare men and women of faith, character and professional ability for positions of leadership throughout the world. Approximately 3,000 students are enrolled in the Marriott School’s graduate and undergraduate programs.