The recent events in the financial markets have motivated some pundits to question the inherent efficiency of the market and its outcomes. Like most of my colleagues in management education, I have great confidence in the market and the resulting efficiency of the outcomes it produces. I recall a statement attributed to Milton Friedman in which he said that capitalism is both a profit and a loss system. He advocated that we respect the losses that occur in the market as much as we respect the gains. Efficiency is a hard but essential taskmaster.

Recently, the Marriott School received evidence that the market also recognizes and rewards investments in quality. BusinessWeek conducts a biannual survey of MBA students and MBA recruiters. The results of the surveys are combined with faculty publications to rank MBA programs. The 2008 ranking was recently released, and I am elated to announce that the Marriott School’s MBA program is now ranked twenty-second among the hundreds of MBA programs in the country. A ranking among the top twenty-five programs is nothing short of astounding. We join a select group of nationally recognized and well-known management schools.

This ranking validates not only our strategy to hire talented faculty and slowly ratchet up the quality of our students but also our commitment to unflagging values.

We continue to invest in topflight teachers. The school’s various academic departments—finance, accounting, business management, etc.—have set high expectations for the faculty they will ask to become colleagues. Consequently, the Marriott School continues to benefit from faculty members who have been trained at the best graduate schools, who teach exceptional classes, and who make significant contributions to academic literature.

Student preparation has also increased. The average GMAT score for MBA program applicants has increased from 653 to 673 during the past five years, and average work experience has gone from 2.8 years to 3.8 years. Each student admitted to the MBA program is carefully reviewed and personally interviewed by a faculty member. As a result, students arrive confident they can succeed and flourish in our demanding program.

Finally, companies continue to place a high value on our students’ strong work ethic, commitment to integrity, and academic training. MBA starting salaries have increased by nearly 35 percent in the past half decade.

Other Marriott School programs have received similar feedback. Our undergraduate program is ranked seventh by BusinessWeek. Our undergraduate information systems program landed in TechRepublic’s top ten. And after twelve consecutive years of having both our undergraduate and graduate accounting programs ranked second or third in the nation, our graduate accounting program has made it to number one. More than 1,500 accounting professors weighed in on the 2008 Public Accounting Report survey. Many people said we’d never be number one without a PhD program, but faculty innovations such as our award-winning accounting PhD prep program placed our Master of Accountancy program at the head of the class.

All our programs benefit from the increasing quality of our faculty and students. It is reassuring to have the market validate the Marriott School’s long-term strategy including our adherence to deeply held values.

Sincerely,



Gary C. Cornia
Dean