<p>If you plan to transfer to UCLA, your best major is going to be:</p>
<p>(1) Business Economics (because it covers more than just economics--and microeconomics is the closest thing to a business degree at the undergraduate level anyway offered at UCLA)--especially if you take quite a few Accounting courses</p>
<p>(2) Mathematics--focusing on Operations Research </p>
<p>(3) Public Adminstration (is this offered?)--close to business admin, but focused on government and non-profits</p>
<p>or (4) Psychology--which studies personal and societal behavior--and is a good lead-in to a Marketing career (although not as helpful for the finance career you seem to be interested in).</p>
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For example, E&Y in the Bay area (where I live) recruits for students with 3.2 GPA and above from UC Berkeley, 3.5 GPA and above from Santa Clara and 3.8 GPA and above from San Jose State.
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<p>Interesting calcruzer. Can you provide more schools? Perhaps you can include some So. Cal schools since you included a couple of them in your ranking of business programs.</p>
<p>The University of San Diego has the #4 ranked Undergrad Business School in California, #46 in the country, and is ranked #27th overall by recruiters(According to BusinessWeek) so I'm not sure why it hasn't been mentioned. I would say it's only really behind Berkeley and USC in California.</p>
<p>Sorry, didn't see that you were only looking for CSU's, but I felt that USD was one to mention. If I were you, I'd be looking at SDSU and Fullerton though....both strong undergrad business for CSU's.</p>
<p>His list may be solid, but i haven't a clue where he gets 3.8 as the cutoff for students at sjsu for big 4. I would nudge it down to a 3.3 - 3.2 for all above listed universities</p>
<p>Secondly, sjsu and csuf should be ranked higher than cal poly slo and sdsu specifically because of their recruiting. SLO is to small to attract the number that sjsu does, and csuf has recently been sought after by many start ups in orange county. SDSU has....well they have nothing that any of the other listed schools dont have. This puts them all on an equal playing field and the above listed reasons are what put sjsu and csuf ahead. You cant downplay the fact that sjsu is still the largest by number in regards to silicon valley employees at all the major tech companies.</p>
<p>Secondly, if we must note ucla and ucsb, we need to bring in uci and ucr. UCR i am proud to say is making some strides in its career department. UCLA obviously stands out from the pact, but ucsb has great recruiting for accounting with 40 plus companies coming on campus throughout the year, including a few consulting companies. Otherwise i have not been able to see the latest career fair listings for the business fair only business tech and it looks almost identical to UCI - except they are lacking the profound influence and need for employess at the growing tech and bio tech marketing that is consuming irvine and aliso viejo.</p>
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Who made that list? Is this list just based on your opinion? If so, please provide reasons for your rankings.
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<p>Wallsteetjosh brings up a legitimate question which I don’t think was answered. What is the basis for ranking these schools? Calcruzer uses the gpa requirement for E & Y for No. Cal schools but also includes So. Cal schools on his ranking. Drj claims that his and Calcruzer’s rankings are solid and stand supreme but doesn’t provide a basis for it. </p>
<p>USNWR rankings are definitely flawed, but it has one thing that separate individuals coming up with rankings don’t have, a cross section of opinions coming in the form of peer assessment. It is a ranking based on the collection of opinions from a multitude of deans, administration and faculty from many different colleges. As flawed as it is, it does have that. </p>
<p>There are other factors, such as the success of graduates from a particular school in the workforce, where it REALLY counts, that is very difficult to measure. So we really have to take these rankings, individual or collective, with a grain of salt, esp. for CSU schools were I would venture to say that the difference in academic quality among the better programs is probably marginal.</p>
<p>Go to Stanford and your opportunities in business will be far greater than that of any other California school. Berkeley is close behind but Stanford is up there with Harvard and Wharton for undergrad placement in IB and other prestigious business positions.</p>
<p>Look, I can only go by what the E&Y partner and managers here at my work (and the former Deloitte, KPMG, and Price Watershouse Coopers people I work with) are telling me. I'm guessing that the GPA is a target cutoff for each school. Obviously, if someone already has a great internship under their belt or comes across as especially impressive, they would likely make an exception in the hiring decision. If you want a contact number, I'll ask them--but I'm sure you can understand why I'm not posting their name and contact numbers on here.</p>
<p>As far as southern California schools, I can't tell you what the cutoffs are for the schools, since I'm only dealing with the E&Y people up here in northern California. Sorry.</p>
<p>I failed to mention Univ of San Diego--which is an oversight on my part. But I should say that I haven't met any people who came out of that school at places where I've worked or consulted--so it's hard to rate that program, not knowing much about it.</p>
<p>Lastly, the boom in Orange County and the Inland Empire is undoubtedly raising recruiting for those who are Business Econ majors (with Accounting courses taken) from UCI and regular business majors from UCR. I think UCR was mentioned--it was just UCI that wasn't. Keep in mind that most of the recruited UCI people are IT majors, though. The school ranks in the top 7 or so for computer degree majors, but their undergraduate business school is not equipped to provide courses in finance, marketing, management, or business law. (The grad school is pretty good, though).</p>
<p>from those i have contacted at sjsu, they have sent people to all big 4 firms with as low as a 3.0. And for UCR, i would have to say those who are active in their search for a job are finding abundant opportunities elsewhere in the state, especially norcal. The recruiting for inland empire companies, especially manufacturing gigs has not picked up. That is something that claremonts grad school is going to exploit in the future though with their new dean.</p>
<p>gravitas, you are correct in stating that there's not much difference among the better programs. i've seen all of them and know faculty at every one of them. what someone wants to do is not measure colleges (ie, major units within universities) but rather cognate areas such as cost accounting, brand management, or information systems security. each college has strengths and weaknesses, based in large part upon academic focus and the expertise of that faculty. yes, almost everything on this site is based upon opinion, and reputations of programs lag behind reality as deans, resources and faculty move around and programs are added, bolstered and even eliminated.</p>
<p>the bottom line is that there is no one criterion or poll that provides the ground truth about program quality. the more specific a potential student is in focus, however, the better clarity you can achieve. i know of certain academic units with glowing academic programs listed in college catalogs but with smoke and mirror shell games wherein students are getting nothing close to what is promised. yes, placement reports are an indicator. but who, for example, has data that shows the major each candidate had when placed? some firms hire english, history and philosophy majors--some of whom had zero classes in business.</p>
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yes, almost everything on this site is based upon opinion, and reputations of programs lag behind reality as deans, resources and faculty move around and programs are added, bolstered and even eliminated.
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<p>Most certainly, it's not an exact science. I think then that a ranking that specifies a top 5 or 10 without any specific number ranking is probably more relevant, especially in the case of CSU. And yes, the reputation of programs do lag behind which is why on another thread, I emphasized that programs which year in and year out are consistently on any list , USNWR for example, are probably more solid than others. </p>
<p>As far as placement data, as southpasadena pointed out, recruiting on campus by accounting firms, particularly the Big 4, is a rather good indicator of the academic quality of a program, in this case accounting. Otherwise, why would those companies continue to recruit from a certain school? Why would they waste their time. Unfortunately, that's probably one of the few areas that can be measured since, as you stated, most companies recruiting from other industries can conceivably hire from any discipline.</p>
<p>agreed, gravitas, and it also should be pointed out that accounting as a discipline can be accredited by AACSB. san diego state, for example, is while many CSU accounting programs are not.</p>
<p>"no they are not up there with harvard and penn for one reason, ib simply isnt as in demand for college graduates on the west coast."</p>
<p>you have any sources to prove that your assertion is anything other than bull****?</p>
<p>If that is true then why does Stanford and Berkeley place just as well if not better than most targets on the east coast? California just doesn't have great undergrad business programs other than Berkeley which is still no match for Wharton and many schools on the east coast.</p>
<p>I'm not trying to slag off California schools I'm just saying that kids who want to do Ibanking, PE, HF etc. and have the stats either go to Stanford, Berkeley or a target on the east coast. I'm sure that in other fields California does very well, Cal does have, arguably, the best public university system in the states.</p>
<p>They are not up there with east coast, and the reason, as I stated, was to me presented clearly. It is not that they cannot compete with those schools, it is the fact that there are less students at those schools that want to enter investment banking. This to me is easy enough to understand. This information comes from BW articles which have interviewed career services and the deans of both these respective schools, and this has then been passed on in the form of articles in their magazine and videos on their website</p>
<p>If you do not believe me, then that is your choice. I have given your my source - businessweek - otherwise you can search for yourself. It is rather common knowledge from my understanding.</p>
<p>Just as a correction to my post #18 above, I wanted to point out that Haas increased the number of UC Berkeley people they took this year at the school. This year (now that the statistics are out) the rate was 59%--270 out of 454 applicants. They took 90 out of 1136 non-Berkeley people who applied (around 8%). Of these 90 accepted, 82 enrolled.</p>
<p>Average GPA for those accepted as transfers this year = 3.91 GPA</p>