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(5-22-06) BOSTON, Mass. – Northeastern University’s College of Business Administration announced that its undergraduate business program is ranked 37th in the United States by BusinessWeek. In its first ranking of the top 50 undergraduate business schools, BusinessWeek reports that students give the College an A+ rating for job placement and cite the tremendous value of its co-operative education program. BusinessWeek’s ranking and the positive feedback of the College’s students reinforce its reputation as a school that delivers a “real-world” business education through close partnerships with the business community.

“Students and recruiters alike recognize the strengths that make us unique, including our one-of-a-kind international and co-op programs, and the top-flight quality of our faculty,” said Peggy Fletcher, Associate Dean of undergraduate programs at the university’s College of Business Administration.

The five-year program includes four years of study and up to three, six-month professional work (co-op) experiences. This combination of academic study and work produces an overall learning experience that gives greater meaning to academic studies and direction to career development. Students develop an understanding of the connections between classroom theory and professional work experience, and fine-tune their career objectives before committing to a career path.

“Our students tell us that the co-ops make them better business school students, and the businesses that recruit here tell us that the hands-on business experience makes our graduates more successful business leaders,” said Thomas Moore, Dean of Northeastern University College of Business Administration.

To succeed in the BusinessWeek undergraduate business school ranking, which incorporates five measures of student engagement, post-graduation outcomes, and academic quality, schools must be firing on all cylinders. Small classes, talented faculty, top-flight recruiting, and a format that allows ultra-competitive students to delve deeply into business fundamentals were also common denominators of the best schools.

In ranking the best business programs in America, BusinessWeek teamed up with Boston’s Cambria Consulting and identified 84 colleges that met stringent quality criteria, then surveyed nearly 100,000 business majors, asking them to rate their programs on everything from curriculum and faculty to facilities and grading policies. To find out how students fared after graduation, the team surveyed 2,000 recruiters and studied starting salaries and conducted a third survey of the business programs themselves. BusinessWeek also tapped into its storehouse of data to determine which schools send the most students to top MBA programs. BusinessWeek’s complete rankings of the Top 50 Undergraduate Business Schools is available in the May 8, 2006 issue of BusinessWeek and on BusinessWeek Online at http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/undergraduate/index.html.

About Northeastern University College of Business Administration:
Northeastern University College of Business Administration, established in 1922, provides its students – undergraduate, graduate and executive – with the education, tools and experience necessary to launch and accelerate successful business careers. Among many external measures of success, U.S. News & World Report ranked the College’s bachelors program in international business 13th in the US and Forbes ranked Northeastern the 4th most entrepreneurial campus in the US. The College credits its success to a close partnership with industry; rigorous academics combined with the opportunity to apply learning in the workplace for students; and faculty research focused on business application. For more information about Northeastern University’s College of Business Administration, visit http://cba.neu.edu.

About Northeastern: Northeastern University, located in the heart of Boston, Massachusetts, is a world leader in practice-oriented education and recognized for its expert faculty and first-rate academic and research facilities. Northeastern integrates challenging liberal arts and professional studies with the nation’s largest cooperative education program. Through co-op, Northeastern undergraduates alternate semesters of full-time study with semesters of paid work in fields relevant to their professional interests and major, giving them nearly two years of professional experience upon graduation. The majority of Northeastern graduates receive a job offer from a co-op employer. Cited for excellence four years running by U.S. News & World Report, Northeastern has quickly moved up into the top tier rankings-an impressive 35 spots in four years. In addition, Northeastern was named a top college in the 2006 edition of the Princeton Review’s annual “Best Colleges” issue. For more information, please visit http://www.northeastern.edu.