The College’s Mason School of Business placed second among U.S. business schools for marketing in BusinessWeek’s 2008 Undergraduate Business Program rankings.
The ranking, based on students’ opinions, places programs from one to five in 11 academic categories, including marketing, microeconomics, business law and corporate strategy.
The Johnson School of Business at Cornell University placed first. Graduates of the program also placed among the top 10 of public universities for median starting salaries.
The magazine placed the College fifth in public U.S. business schools and 29th among all U.S. business schools.
“I like all the good rankings and hate the bad ones,” Lawrence Pulley ’74, dean of the College’s business school, said. “This year we have focused our efforts on gaining increased visibility for the many new initiatives and innovations we have undertaken in our undergraduate and graduate programs, and we are pleased with the progress.”
In addition, Mason was ranked as one of the “Elite Eight” in BusinessWeek’s 2008 rankings, released in February.
“One improvement that absolutely delights me is The Financial Times ranking of faculty research productivity,” Pulley said. “We moved up eight places, which is a very commendable achievement and reflects much hard work by our faculty over several years.”
The faculty is now ranked 63rd for research productivity. The College’s overall rank by The Financial Times moved up from 79 to 71 from 2007 to 2008, although it was placed at 51 in 2006.
The 2008 Princeton Review’s Best 290 Business Schools placed Mason as third in the “Best Professors” category last October.
“We take great satisfaction in the fact that [BusinessWeek’s marketing ranking], as well as The Princeton Review’s ranking of our faculty, is based on survey responses from our students,” Pulley said. “Like the other schools and departments at William and Mary, we have a talented faculty that is fully committed to our students’ education and personal progress.”