Best undergrad business schools

<p>I guess the title explains it all. </p>

<p>Which schools, in your opinion, have a strong undergrad business program? I'm looking to major in business/finance with a minor in a foreign languages. I'm also looking for a school that has a strong sciences program along with the business program, however, as science is my other interest in case I decide to not go with business. I'd also prefer a school with a reputation for lots of internship/study abroad opportunities.</p>

<p>Any advice? Thanks!</p>

<p>there's a million threads on this. look at the usual suspects-- penn (wharton), U mich, NYU, gtown, UC-berkeley, harvard, etc.</p>

<p>hope this helps.</p>

<p><a href="http://bwnt.businessweek.com/bschools/undergraduate/06rankings/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://bwnt.businessweek.com/bschools/undergraduate/06rankings/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>those rankings are ridiculous. BYU in top 10? come on.</p>

<p>yes, "come on" is a very educated response to a thought out ranking of business schools by business week, a very respected magazine in the business world.</p>

<p>that ranking is still horrible imho..usnews does a much better job</p>

<p>i agree with jags.</p>

<p>Get both the BW ranking and the U.S. News ranking, take both into consideration.</p>

<p>My personal ranking:</p>

<p>Tier 1
upenn Wharton</p>

<p>Tier 2
cmu Tepper
mit Sloan
nyu Stern
uva McIntire
umich Ross
ucb HAss
utexas McCombs HONORS PROGRAM</p>

<p>Tier 2.5
unc K-F
indiana Kelley
gtown
notre dame
cornell AEM</p>

<p>To the OP, bring this thread to the Business Major sub-forum. People there love to discuss it.</p>

<p>maybe it's just that i don't agree with the playful way they handle it. under wake forest, the comment is "they don't call it wake forest for nothing." o yeah. that's real thought out, jags. what does that statement mean and how is that student comment related to anything business?</p>

<p>BW ranking is very quantitative, that's all I can say.</p>

<p>US NEWS 2006</p>

<p>Best Undergraduate Business Programs </p>

<p>Rank/School Peer
assessment
score
(5.0 = highest)
1. University of Pennsylvania (Wharton) 4.8
2. Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (Sloan) 4.6
3. University of California–Berkeley (Haas) * 4.5
University of Michigan–Ann Arbor * 4.5
5. Carnegie Mellon University (PA) 4.2
New York University (Stern) 4.2
U. of North Carolina–Chapel Hill (Kenan-Flagler) * 4.2
University of Texas–Austin (McCombs) * 4.2
9. Univ. of Southern California (Marshall) 4.1
University of Virginia (McIntire) * 4.1
11. Indiana University–Bloomington (Kelley) * 4.0
12. Cornell University (NY) 3.9
Purdue Univ.–West Lafayette (Krannert) (IN)* 3.9
U. of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign * 3.9
Univ. of Minnesota–Twin Cities (Carlson) * 3.9
Univ. of Wisconsin–Madison * 3.9
Washington University in St. Louis (Olin) 3.9
18. Emory University (Goizueta) (GA) 3.8
Ohio State University–Columbus (Fisher) * 3.8
Pennsylvania State U.–University Park (Smeal) * 3.8
University of Arizona (Eller) * 3.8
22. Michigan State University (Broad) * 3.7
Univ. of Maryland–College Park (Smith) * 3.7
University of Notre Dame (IN) 3.7
University of Washington * 3.7
26. Arizona State University (Carey) * 3.6
Babson College (MA) 3.6
Georgetown University (McDonough) (DC) 3.6
University of Florida (Warrington) * 3.6
30. Boston College (Carroll) 3.5
Case Western Reserve Univ. (Weatherhead) (OH) 3.5
Texas A&M Univ.–College Station (Mays) * 3.5
University of Georgia (Terry) * 3.5
Wake Forest University (Calloway) (NC) 3.5
35. Brigham Young Univ.–Provo (Marriott) (UT) 3.4
Georgia Institute of Technology * 3.4
Southern Methodist University (Cox) (TX) 3.4
University of Colorado–Boulder * 3.4
University of Iowa (Tippie) * 3.4
40. Boston University 3.3
Syracuse University (Whitman) (NY) 3.3
Tulane University (Freeman) (LA) 3.3
University of Arkansas (Walton) * 3.3
University of Pittsburgh * 3.3
Univ. of South Carolina–Columbia (Moore) * 3.3
Virginia Tech (Pamplin) * 3.3
47. Bentley College (MA) 3.2
College of William and Mary (VA)* 3.2
CUNY–Baruch College (Zicklin) * 3.2
Florida State University * 3.2
George Washington University (DC) 3.2
Georgia State University (Robinson) * 3.2
Miami University–Oxford (Farmer) (OH)* 3.2
Univ. of Missouri–Columbia * 3.2
University of Oklahoma (Price) * 3.2
University of Tennessee * 3.2
* denotes a public school.</p>

<p>(The list goes on to #141 but I don't want to take up too much space.)</p>

<p>The specialty rankings are here:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/rankbusiness_brief.php%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/rankbusiness_brief.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>You should also look at the BusinessWeek rankings here:</p>

<p><a href="http://bwnt.businessweek.com/bschools/undergraduate/06rankings/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://bwnt.businessweek.com/bschools/undergraduate/06rankings/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Average the BW and USNews rankings together and you get a more accurate list.</p>

<p>(Had to edit to fix broken links.)</p>

<p>I hate to break it to you guys, but Business Week is probably a lot more qualified to be ranking business schools than US News...Business Week actually knows what they're talking about.</p>

<p>
[quote]
I hate to break it to you guys, but Business Week is probably a lot more qualified to be ranking business schools than US News...Business Week actually knows what they're talking about.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>You would think so, right? But BW has some rather odd rankings. I mean, seriously, Notre Dame over MIT? I don't know about that. Berkeley Haas ranked only #12? That's pushing it. </p>

<p>Granted, USNews isn't perfect either. But in my opinion, USNews is a lot closer to the truth than BW is.</p>

<p>I think what's even more egregious are the BW graduate MBA rankings. I mean, really, having Chicago and Northwestern ranked over Harvard Business School is pretty dubious because the fact is, few students are going to choose Chicago or Northwestern over Stanford and HBS. I think that not even Chicago and Northwestern students seriously believe that they are really better than Stanford or HBS. Let's be honest - a lot of MBA students at Chicago or Northwestern would rather be going to HBS or Stanford but didn't get in, but not too many students at HBS or Stanford would rather be going to Chicago or Northwestern, but didn't get in. Cornell and Michigan over MIT? Come on, really now.</p>

<p>Oh, right, because you're an expert on college business departments.</p>

<p>Get real. Just because MIT and Haas are talked about more and appear more prestigious, it doesn't mean you're going to get a better education there. The business school at MIT is good, but it's definitely overrated. Half the people in it are people who couldn't take the heat from the calculus taught in Economics (word from people who attend the school). Haas at Berkeley is a competitive mess where you don't get personal attention, which probably WOULD make BYU a better choice.</p>

<p>I don't know enough about Chicago or Northwestern's graduate programs to have an opinion...but I think Business Week does.</p>

<p>what i find to be terrible is that if i was a prospective business major, i could slack off in high school, get like a 3.2-3.3 gpa, not do well on the SAT (1100-1200), and then go to a top 10-12 business school (Indiana).</p>

<p>It seems to me you chose a good handle to describe yourself because you seem awfully confused to me. Anyone who calls MIT "overrated" is simply out of their mind. I invite you to look at the recruiting list of the top banks, consulting firms, pe shops etc. Surely you will see there are many many more grads of MIT, Berk, Mich than Emory, Notre Dame or BYU.
I also invite everyone to take a look at the FT MBA rankings of global MBA programs here <a href="http://rankings.ft.com/rankings/mba/rankings.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://rankings.ft.com/rankings/mba/rankings.html&lt;/a>
Of course there will be disagreement with any ranking but to me it seems as though the people at businessweek simply threw darts at names of business schools to form their ranking (ok prob not but the list looks that funny).</p>

<p>the point is that this is undergraduate and not mba. </p>

<p>another point is this - mba programs don't necessarily "trickle down" to the respective undergraduate programs as they do in other programs.</p>

<p>At UVa for example, Darden (the grad school) is completely separate from mcintire (the undergrad). that being the case - its hard to say that "because the grad is great, the undergrad is equally as good."</p>

<p>i was not indicating that the mba programs have anything to do with grad programs. sakky mentioned mba programs so i provided a source</p>

<p>
[quote]

the point is that this is undergraduate and not mba.</p>

<p>another point is this - mba programs don't necessarily "trickle down" to the respective undergraduate programs as they do in other programs.

[/quote]

At MIT, Sloan undergrads frequently take grad classes, and indeed, many classes in the school are joint grad/undergrad classes in the first place.</p>

<p>If you look at the course</a> catalogue, you'll see that the overwhelming majority of classes are marked "G" (for "graduate-level"). This doesn't mean that undergrads have very few courses to take; it means that they take most of their classes with MBA students.</p>

<p>Indiana molds average students into top business prospects. Not everyone at Indiana can get into Kelley, you have to have a 3.0 minimum and take many prerequisite classes at a public school where there is no grade inflation. In fact, 25% of the kids who apply don't make it, and we aren't counting the kids who don't bother to apply knowing they won't get in. The only way around that is getting in Direct Admit, which isn't for slackers. You need a 3.5 and a 1300 SAT, which would make you a competitive applicant at most universities.</p>

<p>Same could be said for schools like BYU. They receive great education while they're there, not everyone can get into Mariott. It's not the SAT score of the entering individuals that businesses look at and say "this is a good school, I want to recruit here!" It's the end product after 4 years of education at a university. Business Week judges this, they put out surveys to employers, students, and ask them about the educational quality. US News is solely peer assessment, which although is a good thing, like the regular US News rankings you have to ask who's doing the surveys.</p>