The Ross School of Business's MBA program is slipping, at least according to 4,430 business company recruiters who took a survey published in The Wall Street Journal yesterday.

Last year, the survey ranked the University's program first in the nation. The school ranks seventh in this year's rankings.

Dartmouth College's Tuck School of Business took the top spot this year.

Recruiters rated 86 business programs on roughly 20 different attributes like students' previous business experience, basic knowledge of the business world and faculty and curriculum.

For a school to be ranked, it must gain 20 ratings from survey-takers who have recruited there in the past.

According to The Wall Street Journal's article about the rankings, the recruiters who took the survey were disappointed with the University of Michigan program's career services office. The article also quoted a recruiter who said students from the school "weren't as prepared for interviews and were somewhat more arrogant than in the past."

Business School Dean Robert Dolan said the University's decline in the rankings may have been because students offended some recruiters when they turned down their offers for other jobs.

"I think two things happened: The job market got better. Our students had a lot of offers," Dolan said. "It was a great year for students and a tough year for recruiters. There were a lot of recruiters who got 'no thank you's' from Ross School students this year."

Dolan also said that because the school's facilities are undergoing renovations, presentations that would have normally been held in the business school were instead held at restaurants,

possibly leading some recruiters to feel as though they had been taken for granted.

The displacement might have come off as condescending to recruiters, Dolan said.

"I think the construction exacerbated the situation," Dolan said. "We're really trying to minimize the number of off-campus events this year. We went from doing 100 percent on campus to 30 percent on and 70 percent off, and this year we're flipping back."

Despite the critical feedback from the recruiters, Ross students said they still value an education from the school.

"I mean, it was excellent to be number one last year and I like what the theory is behind it in terms of what recruiters look for," MBA student Jeremy Sharff said. "But Michigan is a name, and it's been top ten forever, and I think it will continue to be."

Like Sharff, Dolan says that The Wall Street Journal rankings are just one of many, and prospective students will remain interested in Ross because it ranks in the top ten in most of those rankings.

"I think when you talk to prospective students they'll say 'Well you're in the top five of BusinessWeek,'" Dolan said.

The University's MBA program was ranked fifth in BusinessWeek magazine's most recent rankings. Its bachelor's of business administration program was also ranked fifth by the magazine.

Sharff said the drop will push the school to improve.

"If you drop from number one to number seven, I would expect Ross to do things to come back," Sharff said. "So you can spin it to be a good thing."

Ross plans to react to the rankings, according to Dolan.

"I will be in touch with the people who did the survey and ask them for information on what we're doing and what we need to do," he said.