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Northern Illinois University

College of Business - NIU

Rankings & Recognitions

Accreditation

President John Peters, Dean Denise Schoenbachler, and the administration and faculty of Northern Illinois University's College of Business announced in December 2008 that AACSB International -- The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business -- had reaffirmed its accreditation of the college's academic programs (undergraduate and graduate levels) and the college's Accountancy program. NIU's College of Business has achieved continuous AACSB accreditation since 1969 -- just eight years after the school's founding -- and is among the top schools of business accredited for Business and Accounting.

NIU's College of Business Continues to Rank Among the Best Undergraduate B-Schools in the Nation

BusinessWeek's 2009 ranking of best undergraduate business schools continues to place the NIU business college within an elite group of b-schools nationwide. In 2009, the NIU College of Business ranked 73rd nationally out of a very small group of 101 elite business schools that made BusinessWeek's final short-list of programs designated as The Best Undergrad B-Schools in the country. This year, NIU's ranking beats out other nationally known schools such as the University of Iowa (#76), Rutgers (#90), Loyola (#95), and Fox Temple (#99). NIU received high marks from its business students in the areas of Quality of Faculty: B; Quality of Job Placement Services: A; Quality of Facilities and Services: A. NIU's College of Business has been ranked among the best by BusinessWeek since the inception of the publication's undergraduate ranking in 2006.

Rankings

For more than a decade, U.S.News & World Report has consistently ranked The Northern Illinois University College of Business as among the best business colleges in the country. In 2008, the NIU College of Business continued to be ranked as among the nation's best by making the listing of "America's Best Colleges and Programs" (2009), as recently published by U.S.News & World Report. (http://www.usnews.com/)

  • NIU's M.B.A. program continues to be ranked among the very best graduate-level business programs in the Chicago market, as per this year's Crain's Chicago Business ranking (October 20, 2008). The ranking represents the third consecutive year that Crain's placed the NIU M.B.A. program among the very best, out of a pool of 30 competing M.B.A. programs in the Chicago market. This year, NIU's Evening M.B.A. Program, Professional M.B.A. Program, and Executive M.B.A. Program all ranked within the top six best programs.
  • Accountancy Program Ranked Among the Elite by Public Accounting Report. Professors across the nation have once again rated Northern Illinois University's accountancy program among the elite in the nation. The Public Accounting Report's 27th Annual Professor's Survey published in 2008, ranked NIU's Accountancy program 13th in the United States — and one of only four non-Ph.D. programs in the top 15. The NIU College of Business Accountancy program is the highest ranked non-Ph.D.-granting public university program in the country. Inclusion in the rankings places NIU in some highly regarded company including six Big Ten Schools (including Illinois) and Notre Dame.
  • NIU Accountancy students' pass rate on CPA exam among best in the nation. NIU accountancy students' performance on the CPA exam has ranked among the best in the nation for three decades. In January 2009, the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy released pass rates for candidates taking the CPA exam in 2007. NIU Department of Accountancy graduate students placed 12th in the country (out of more than 900 institutions). NIU is the only Illinois university to have student performance ranked in the top twenty nationally. In addition, our students placed second in the country on the auditing section of the CPA exam (with a 90 percent pass rate). NIU accountancy graduate students placed 24th in the nation in 2006, and 9th best in 2004.
    • In 2006, the NIU CPA Review was one of only 16 CPA exam preparation programs nationwide recommended in The Journal of Accountancy for CPA exam prep; NIU's CPA program has the distinction of being the only program on the list that is university affiliated and instructed by university faculty, with the remaining 15 programs listed specializing in test preparation only.
    • Click to read the Northern Today article.

Recognitions

  • KPMG funds first endowed professorship at the university within the NIU College of Business. The excellence of the Northern Illinois University College of Business and its Department of Accountancy has been recognized with the creation of the university's first-ever endowed professorship. Endowed professorships are the most prestigious faculty honor and support into perpetuity the outstanding excellence of specific university programs. Endowed professorships assist the institution in recruiting and supporting the best teacher-scholars in the country and, indeed, the world. On September 28, 2009, the college announced the creation of the KPMG Endowed Professorship in Accountancy. For information on the first NIU business faculty member to hold the title of KPMG Endowed Professor, (click here) . For more information about Endowed Professorships and the long-standing relationship between KPMG and the NIU Department of Accountancy, click here.
  • College Assessment Activities Recognized as Best Practice. The College of Business was recognized at the University's first Assessment Expo for an outstanding 2007 Annual Update Assessment report that focused on the college's Business Administration B.S. program. NIU's first Assessment Expo was held on March 7, 2007. Of the 128 Annual Update reports submitted from across the university to the NIU University Assessment Panel, 10 were selected and given recognition as programs that demonstrated outstanding assessment practices at NIU. The College of Business has a long tradition of assessing all of its academic programs. Since 2000 and through its strategic planning efforts, the college developed a comprehensive assessment framework, the process of which is actively used and continually refined.
  • For more than three decades, the college's CPA Review course ranked in the nation along with the University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Michigan.
  • Northern Illinois University is:
    • a full member of the Universities Research Association (URA), an elite group of top public and private research universities that includes Harvard, MIT, Princeton, and Yale.
    • among only four percent of all U.S. colleges and universities listed in The Carnegie Foundation'smost productive category: "doctoral/research university-extensive."
    • a member of the nation's most prestigious public higher education association: the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges.
    • the home of a new scientific center dedicated to research with Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, one of the world's premier high-energy physics research laboratories.