The School of Business Administration's MBA program is now ranked among the nation's technology leaders by Computerworld magazine.

In its third annual survey of business schools to discover which are doing the best job of preparing students to be tomorrow's top technology-savvy executives, UConn's program was ranked 23rd in the nation.

Computerworld magazine's rankings, based on responses from recruiters and deans of business schools nationwide, have become one of the most closely watched barometers among the burgeoning information-te chnology community.

"Computerworld's recognition of UConn's MBA program is a significant accomplishment for the School of Business Administration and a giant step forward in our goal to become a nationally recognized, top 50 business school," says Thomas Gutteridge, dean. "It also helps validate our claim of being among the top business schools in New England."

Techno-MBA programs are typically hybrids, combining standard MBA courses in accounting, finance and marketing with integrated information technology courses that together help teach students how to be IT-savvy business leaders for today's technological world.

In nearly all cases, graduates of top-rated techno-MBA programs receive multiple job offers for positions, with starting salaries ranging from $70,000 to $100,000 a year, according to David Weldon, the magazine's senior careers editor.

Computerworld used a variety of selection criteria to measure the quality of graduate-level business degree programs with a strong focus on information technology, Weldon said.

The magazine conducted two surveys. First it polled 1,000 corporate recruiters to list their choices of the top-10 techno-MBA programs, based on the quality of the graduates they had hired and placed within their firms.

Based on those results, the magazine then sent surveys to nearly 350 graduate business school programs. This second survey asked the dean at each institution about the business school's techno-MBA program: the faculty-to-student ratio, education and background of the faculty, internships, career placement, cost of tuition and average salary of graduates.

Computerworld's profile of UConn's full-time MBA program reveals an average student GMAT score of 609; a 1-to-6 faculty/student ratio; 100 percent of faculty with Ph.D. degrees; and all classes with fewer than 25 students, all requiring internships, and all requiring hands-on problem solving.

In addition, virtually all of the techno-MBAs in the 1998 class had multiple job offers and jobs within six months of completing their MBA program, with average annual salaries of $75,000. Tuition in UConn's MBA program is currently $6,230 for in-state students and $14,654 for out-of-state.

Results of Computerworld magazine's 1999 survey were published in the September 27 issue and can be found at the magazines's website.

David Bauman