Financial Times Ranks Smith School's MBA Program No. 17 in U.S.

Smith Also Earns No. 5 World Research Ranking

College Park, Md. January 29, 2007 - The MBA program at the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business is ranked No. 17 in the U.S. in the Financial Times MBA 2007 rankings, published today. The influential rankings also place Smith No. 5 in the world for research, which is based on the number of faculty research articles published in worlds top academic journals.

World-class research is an important measure of any great business school. This is a clear testament to the Smith Schools place among a handful of schools worldwide that are truly leading management education, practice and research, said Howard Frank, dean of the Robert H. Smith School of Business, Our faculty sit at the forefront of the reinvention of traditional business models to create knowledge for todays global, digital economy.

The Financial Times rankings place Smith Schools MBA program at No. 30 in the world and show that Smith has the No. 5 program among public business schools. Smiths MBA program is also ranked No. 2 among the top 20 U.S. schools in the value for money category. And the rankings show that Smith had the second best 2006 MBA placement rate among the top-20 schools. Ninety-five percent of the Smith School grads had accepted jobs within three months of earning their degrees.

The Financial Times rankings are compiled from two questionnaires one for the business schools and the other for the MBA class of 2002. The value for the money criterion is calculated using the salary earned by alumni three years after graduation and course costs. The research rating is calculated by number of faculty publications in 40 international academic and practitioner journals. Points are accrued by the business school at which the author is presently employed and adjustment is made for faculty size.