Hi all, I need to choose between Babson, UMich LSA Economics (rejected ross), Carnegie Mellon (business), and Rice (business). Location and money are not really a factor for me at the moment. Any insight would be appreciated. Also, is it better to major in Economics or Business?
There is no objectively-correct answer to any of these questions. These are all excellent schools, and any one of them could be the best choice for a particular individual. Likewise, econ is better for some students, and business is better for others. If you want good advice, you have to describe yourself, your interests, your goals, and what kind of learning environments work best for you.
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Tell us more about you. Where are you from? What do you like - size, weather, and more.
What’s your goal for after school ?
I want to go into some sort of consulting, most likely mgmt consulting. I want to have a good GPA first year, at least a 3.7. I’m definitely willing to put in the work for it. I want to have great resources and opportunities. Like I mentioned before, location and weather doesn’t matter for me.
Where are you from - what state or country?
Are you international?
Not CMU. They seem to be placing kids poorly into consulting: Post-Graduation Outcomes - Career & Professional Development Center - Student Affairs - Carnegie Mellon University
I don’t think you are supposed to
pick Babson when you have three other national brands.
I wouldn’t pick Michigan LAS given that you’ll be competing with Ross kids. Econ is ok for banking, but less ok for mgmt consulting.
You can find the rice stuff here
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From PA in the states
OK - it’s really hard to say you want to go into Management Consulting - most 17 year olds don’t even know what it is.
Business or Econ is up to the student. Econ is a liberal art. It’s not a business substitute. In many ways, it’s better than business. What business discipline do you want to study? Finance, marketing, supply chain, etc.? For consulting, Econ might work better. Some consultants come from Art History or Poli Sci or you name the liberal art…
As far as names go - Michigan, Rice and CMU are all top shelf - and Babson is not the known name - but it’s no slouch in the business world. Very well known by top firms. They are four different schools - so you can go any which way. Rice’s B School is new - but it has a long history in MBA. To me, it’s a near perfect school.
I don’t see others on line. I imagine they all get plenty of consultants hired.
But frankly, I’d find the right fit - you can’t just say - I’d be ok at all. You must have preference - big with sports, etc. Being at an IT/engineering school. Being in warm weather with no greek life and traditional disciplines. Or being at a business focused school outside Boston.
All these have different populations, different weather, different environments and will all have successful grads. However, no one can guarantee an outcome.
Good luck.
Consulting/Market Research at Babson
- Advantage Consulting
- Alpha Financial Markets Consulting
- Aon McLagan
- Arrayo
- AT Kearney
- Boston Consulting Group
- Capgemini
- Charles River Associates
- Clarkston Consulting
- Competition Dynamics Inc.
- ConsumerRating.org
- Deloitte
- Fulcrum Consulting Group
- Guidehouse
- Indefi LLC
- JJR Consulting LLC
- Kearney
- Liminal Strategy Consutlants
- Massaro
- McKinsey & Company
- Point B
- Positive Insights LLC
- Publicis Sapient
- PurpleLab
- V2A Consulting
- YipitData
Ross does offer a business minor, but it’s a competitive application process. The minor would allow “you” access to essentially, to the best of my knowledge, every resource available through the Ross community.
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For your career goals, I would put a BBA over a BA/BS in Econ. If you are going into consulting, you should know something about how firms operate, why they operate that way, and what their concerns are.
Econ is the theory, while Business Admin is the practical application. You could think of them as somewhat akin to Physics and Engineering.
In a Business Admin program you are essentially trained to run a business yourself (entrepreneur) or become an executive. You will learn (at least) the basics of Finance, Accounting, Marketing, Org Behavior, System Management, Business Law, International Business, and Operations Mgmt. You may also take courses in topics like Negotiations, Advertising, Public Relations, and IT Mgmt to round out a basic Business education. I would imagine many Business majors also take Micro and Macro. ( I did as part of my MBA work)
Some of these may be available in an Econ program – check course catalogs.
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Does this mean the net costs to attend all of these schools can be paid by your family for four years? If so…I would suggest you choose the college where you feel you will be the happiest…because happy kids do better in college than unhappy ones.
Do research the curricula…and make sure that you are heading in the right direction.
Congratulations on your acceptances.
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Can your parents afford to pay without borrowing for you?
If you compute (tuition, fees, room, board) - (scholarships, grants) =…
what do you get for each of the 4?
This way we can discuss value and ROI.
All 4 will have a very different environment so “fit” would be essential - what would your “ideal” college be like?
This information will help us match you to the colleges that best match your preferences.
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If you are aiming towards MBB firms, Michigan is in the top tier of target schools. It is not at all necessary to be in Ross or an Econ major, either. When my daughter was going through recruiting with 2/3 MBB firms last summer, the majority of the students were — like her — non-Ross/non-Econ students with interesting backgrounds and quantitative aptitude.
Rice isn’t far behind on the list of MBB target schools, so any advantage from Michigan in general is probably mitigated a bit and puts Michigan non-Ross and Rice on similar footing. While MBB firms aren’t specifically recruiting Ross undergrads, I am betting that those kids do have some access to resources that help in the process that other Michigan kids might now.
I am not a big fan of undergrad business for non-finance or similarly specific interests, but if your goal is a business program, I would choose Rice.
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Got it, does CMU compare to these two choices or what do you think about CMU?
Choose the school that’s right for you and where the opportunities are many. As mentioned above you may change your mind on consulting.
If you’re targeting MBB firms, this table gives a pretty good idea of their target schools, but even a Harvard or Wharton degree does not translate into a MBB job. You’ll have to be at the top of your class to get a look, and then you’ll have to excel in their interview process. Below are some stats from the 2022 Wharton class.
McKinsey: 28 - 25 of those were double major/concentration or dual degree students
Bain: 18 - 17 of those were double major/concentration or dual degree students
BCG: 27 - 21 of those were double major/concentration or dual degree students
Keep in mind that mgmt. consulting goes well beyond MBB, also.
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Go back to my point on the environments. You can say you can be anywhere but for most that’s not true.
So Babson is focused. Places into consulting. I sent u the career list.
CMU is more STEM, but not totally, focused.
Rice is a full university but no Greek life. It has the residential college system.
Michigan is your full fling sports, Greek large public.
You can get to a similar place from all I believe.
What is the right environment for you ?
Ah! Sorry, I forgot that CMU was in the mix…and I am a CMU alum who went into management consulting after undergrad, lol.
Okay, here would be my order given the little I know about what you want and your interests: 1. Rice, 2. Michigan, 3. CMU, 4. Babson.
I went to CMU and I have a student at Michigan, so really Michigan is my favorite of these schools, but that’s because SHE loves it there and is flourishing. That doesn’t mean it is the right space for you. You really, really need to choose a place where you will succeed. As others have said, to get an offer from MBB you need to be academically excellent and stand out in other ways from your classmates. To some degree, that will be true for any management consulting recruiting process. If you think you will best succeed at Babson and be a star there, that’s far more important than looking at the target charts for management consulting recruiting.
(Why are you targeting a 3.7 your first semester? Are you hoping to transfer? When I attended CMU, there were a lot of weed out classes and a 3.7 might have been tough for a lot of kids to achieve. I am not sure if that’s still the case, but worth looking into for each school.)
Yeah the gpa part was just in the potential case if I wanted to transfer. Also, my only concern about mich is that I heard that Econ majors are just known on campus as the people who got rejected from Ross and get overshadowed by Ross people. I’m also not completely sure if I want to major in economics or business. From what I understand, economics is more theoretical and business is more of the stuff where you apply what you learn so I’m liking business more.
If you want to major in business, then definitely take Michigan off the table. While it is possible that you could be accepted to transfer in from LSA, minor, take courses, or do one of their certificate tracks, there is absolutely no reason to major in economics when you have three other excellent options where you are directly admitted to the business program.
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