In a recent ranking of top graduate business schools in the United States published by U.S. News & World Report (March 10, 1997), data were provided on a number of attributes of 25 recognized graduate programs. Specifically, the following variables were considered by U.S. News & World Report in establishing its overall ranking: each program’s reputation rank by academics, each program’s reputation rank by recruiters, each program’s student selectivity rank, each program’s placement success rate, the average GMAT score for students enrolled in each program, the average undergraduate grade-point average for students enrolled in each program, each program’s recent acceptance rate, the typical starting base salary for recent graduates from each program, the proportion of recent graduates from each program who were employed within 3 months of completing their graduate studies, and the out-of-state tuition paid by affected full-time students in each program. The data are in the file P2_8.XLS.

a. Indicate the type of data for each of the ten variables considered in the formulation of the overall ranking.

b For each of the categorical variables in this set, indicate whether the identified variable is nominal or ordinal. Explain your reasoning in each case.

c. Construct a frequency table and histogram for each of the numerical variables in this data set. Indicate whether each of these distributions is approximately symmetric or skewed. Which, if any, of these distributions are skewed to the right? Which, if any, of these distributions are skewed to the left?