MSU’s program is now ranked 18th, when last year the college was ranked fifth.

The regional survey rated 51 schools based on 3,267 MBA recruiters who hire full-time business-school graduates.

“We have gone up and down in the ratings before and it hasn’t changed my perception of the business then and it doesn’t change it now,” Leichtman said, adding that rankings are very subjective.

The program is still one of the best in the Midwest and in the country — the survey is not going to change that, he said. The University of Michigan, which is ranked on a national level, unlike MSU, also fell in the ratings from first to seventh.

Robert Duncan, the Eli Broad College of Business dean, said a reason for MSU’s drop was a smaller 2007 graduation class.

“We had 79 students last year versus our normal 100 graduating class,” Duncan said. “This is problematic for recruiters because they weren’t successful in getting all the students they wanted to hire. This tends to frustrate them a little.”

Cheryl Speier, associate dean of MBA and MS programs, said faculty and staff continue to reach out and work with recruiters to better align the students interests with those of the companies.

“It is an interesting result for us because on the one hand we had a significant drop in the rankings,” Speier said.

“But on the other hand we are in a year where our MBA students had the highest average salary in our history and we placed almost 95 percent of all our students three months after graduation.”

However, Duncan said the survey also rated schools by department and the operation management supply chain was given a fifth place ranking.

Ray said he has seen many improvements within the college.

“There is now a greater variety of students, some being international students, which many recruiters are looking for,” Ray said.

Also, initially the school brought in mainly regional recruiters, but now it is bringing more international companies, he said.

“Just by looking at the survey results, it’s not a good comprehensive picture of what is happening,” Ray said.

Speier said she expects there to be a change in their curricular approach that will help attract students, but also ensure that students will have the capabilities recruiters are looking to hire.

These ranking results allow faculty to look at the program more closely, Speier said.

“When we see a situation like The Wall Street Journal rankings that gives us cause to understand what is the external world seeing that we are not,” she said.