Correction appended.
The Tuck School of Business was ranked first in Forbes Magazine's biennial survey of business schools, the magazine reported on Thursday.
The survey ranks schools according to the return students receive on their investment after five years -- in other words, the total money earned in the five years after graduation less the cost of tuition and forgone compensation. Tuck's median five-year gain was $115,000, $13,000 higher than Stanford, the second-ranked school, and $37,000 more than the Johnson School at Cornell, which was ranked 10th. The survey listed 56 schools in total.
One-year programs were ranked in a separate category; their returns are higher because students do not forgoe as much salary as they do in two-year programs.
Forbes ranked Tuck first in 2005, when it featured a five-year gain of $134,000. The return for MBAs have dropped across the board between since the last ranking period.
Dean Paul Danos, the Laurence F. Whittemore Professor of Business Administration at the Tuck School, commented that the ranking reflects the quality of graduates produced by the school.
"This talks of the success of our alumni in the past five years," he said.
The ranking may help Tuck attract more international students, according to Danos, because it is easily available online for individuals who are researching business schools.
"It certainly does give you recognition in the world, because these rankings become permenant records," Danos said. "It certainly helps with international recruiting."
Danos also noted that the ranking, which only measures students fiscal success, is not the only measure of Tuck's MBA program.
"No one indicator tells the whole story," he said. "Obviously, it isn't completely reflective of the quality of the progam, but being number one is better than any other position, I can tell you that."
To monitor its standing, Tuck tracks the rankings of business schools in six publications: Forbes Magazine, The Economist, the U.S. News & World Report, the Financial Times, Business Week and the Wall Street Journal. Each survey ranks schools based on different criteria.
"Tuck is usually in the top five if you average them all," Danos said. "Right now we have the highest average of any American school."
Tuck's success in these surveys helps the school's alumni, Danos said.
"The better your reputation in the world, of course it leads to our students having better opportunities in the workplace," he said.
With Tuck's graduates receiving a median first-year compensation of $100,000 with a signing bonus of $20,000, the average student takes 3.6 years to recooperate the cost of attending the school, according Forbes' calculations.
Danos attributed Tuck's success to its teaching style and philosophy.
"I think it's a combination of personal attention to students, faculty caring about students, and students caring about each other," he said. "I think that's really key, and it's key in business too. Every great organization is about people, and Tuck is no exception."
Tuck is significantly smaller than many of the other schools surveyed, with an enrollment of only 248, compared to 379 at Stanford and 907 at Harvard, the second- and third-ranked schools respectively.
A story on Friday ("Tuck ranks 1st in Forbes business school survey," Aug. 17) incorrectly identified the Johnson School as part of Columbia University instead of Cornell University.