Northwestern University President Henry Bienen and Kellogg School Dean Dipak Jain announce the good news to the Kellogg community.

Kellogg earns No. 1 ranking—three times
Kellogg School MBA ranked best in world, United States: Three prestigious surveys name Kellogg as the No. 1 management leader

Kellogg School of Management students already were flying high Oct. 10 from news that their MBA program had been rated the best in the world by The Economist Intelligence Unit, affiliated with The Economist magazine. Buoyed by one success, students gathered before projection screens around the school to chart the progression of another ranking — BusinessWeek magazine’s online countdown to its top program choice.

Packed shoulder to shoulder in several large rooms of the Donald P. Jacobs Center, students cheered and bit their fingernails as the magazine ticked off its top 20 schools, inching closer to the No. 1 pick. Would BusinessWeek also place the Kellogg School at the head of the class? Indeed, it did.

After being ranked No. 2 in three of the last four surveys by the magazine, Kellogg reclaimed the No. 1 ranking for the first time in a decade, thanks to rave reviews from students and recruiters. According to BusinessWeek, Kellogg’s “go-to-any-lengths culture” was key to elevating it to the top spot.

The magazine also cited Kellogg’s commitment to the “nuts-and-bolts of management education” and its effort to maintain “vital links to companies in a broad swath of industries, never losing sight of the recruiters’ role, even when students were in hot demand.”

Recruiters gave the school a nod for producing well-educated graduates. The survey ranked Kellogg a leader in marketing, finance, general management, global scope and technology. BusinessWeek cited the Kellogg Career Management Center as having the best placement percentage of any business school.

Dean Dipak C. Jain, who was meeting with a corporate partner when BusinessWeek revealed its top pick, attributed the Kellogg School’s success to its overall culture, as well as its partnerships with students, faculty, staff, alumni, recruiters and corporations. “These rankings are simply two measures of our success,” Jain said. “The Kellogg School is unique in that it achieves excellence while maintaining a culture of caring and a commitment to mutual respect and trust.”

Of course, that respect and trust was years in the making. Since assuming the role of dean in July 2001, Jain has worked tirelessly to maintain the school’s commitment to its constituents. His worldwide travels have included thousands of meetings with alumni, recruiters and corporate partners. The resulting exchange of ideas has allowed, and will continue to allow, Kellogg to evolve and remain a leader in graduate business education, the dean said.

Likewise, Jain and Associate Deans of Academic Affairs David Besanko and Robert Magee have worked closely with students on several initiatives that resulted in the “go-to-any-lengths culture” that BusinessWeek notes.

The EIU rankings cite Kellogg as the best program because of its “ability to deliver the most important elements that students look for when taking an MBA.” The rankings, which include 100 of the top global full-time MBA programs, were based on a survey of more than 18,000 MBA students and alumni, as well as original data provided by the schools.

In addition, another ranking conducted by The Economist surveyed the top five polls of business schools to produce a cumulative “Poll of Polls” that also placed Kellogg in the No. 1 spot internationally.

EIU is the business intelligence arm of The Economist Group, publisher of the respected magazine The Economist, as well as Which MBA?, a guide that is now in its 14th year of publication. This is the first year the EIU ranked the world’s graduate business programs.