Best undergrad business schools

<p>mollie,</p>

<p>while i am impressed by the amount of courses offered and such, i am somewhat dubious to the fact that all these undergrad sloan students are taking the same classes graduate sloan students are. </p>

<p>why would mba students be taking classes which fufill undergraduate requirements. while i am only just hypothesizing, i would be the majority of people in the required classes for ugrad sloan courses are infact ugrads - and not mba students.</p>

<p>of course i could be completely wrong.</p>

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why would mba students be taking classes which fufill undergraduate requirements.

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Uh, because the same classes also fulfill the graduate requirements.</p>

<p>Look, you don't have to believe me -- it's all on the web. Here[/url</a>] is the page with Sloan's undergrad requirements; if you click on "core subjects" or "areas of concentration" it will take you to the page which lists the individual classes, and if you click on the individual classes you will see that most of them are marked "G" for graduate. (List of symbols is [url=<a href="http://student.mit.edu/catalog/symbols.html%5Dhere%5B/url%5D">http://student.mit.edu/catalog/symbols.html]here</a>.)</p>

<p>It's not really such an unusual thing at MIT -- undergrads are pretty free to take graduate classes in any department if they choose to do so.</p>

<p>Did William & Mary really not make the B-Week undergrad business rankings this year? I'm amazed since W&M wins all of the tax challenge competitions sponsored by the Big 4 and is one of the most recruited b-schools in the DC area.</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>Sakky, an alum of a prestigious university, and a frequent poster on an Internet forum, reallllly knows the truth. How nice!</p>

<p>There's a difference between "best undergraduate business school to go in order to get in an ibank/consulting firm" and "best undergraduate business school to go to receive quality education in finance/accounting/marketing..."</p>

<p>"Did William & Mary really not make the B-Week undergrad business rankings this year? I'm amazed since W&M wins all of the tax challenge competitions sponsored by the Big 4 and is one of the most recruited b-schools in the DC area."</p>

<p>W&M isn't that well recruited compared to the ivies, top private schools or other top undergrad business programs. The students there are VERY smart, though.</p>

<p>mollie,</p>

<p>i know, i looked through it. i was just saying how i was a little surprised that the majority of the classes are marked G. it would just seem to me that they would most likely still be all undergrads in the course. </p>

<p>anyway, my point wasn't to rip on mit, or any school - i was simply making an observation that many, not all, schools have completely separate grad business programs from ugrad business courses.</p>

<p>The only reason people think that the BW rankings are "bad" is because they've been paying attention to the USNWR rankings forever. Now that a new ranking has come out, people refuse to accept the fact that the BW rankings may be true. Who are we to say that BYU doesn't belong in the top 10? Have you been there and judged for yourself?</p>

<p>I think the answer to your question is that many students in business school have a liberal arts degree, and thus have not taken those courses that students in the undergrad business school are taking with them. That's the only way to explain why grad school students take so many classes that should have been completed during their undergrad years, unless they just have to completely retake such classes, which would seem like nonsense.</p>

<p>dvlfnfv5, you said it perfectly.</p>

<p>if the BW ranking came out first, and US. News suddenly releases the first ever undergrad business ranking, people WILL loathe the US.News ranking (why are emory,BYU and Notre dame ranked sooo low??! Why's Berkeley so high) and there will even be people who say "US.News isn't even a business magazine, it has no credibility". But, the opposite happened, and now people are dissing BW.</p>

<p>Neither is completely accurate. But we shouldn't diss either. Because we know NOTHING compared to the editors of US News and BW.</p>

<p>William & Mary apparently didn't make the BusinessWeek undergrad b-school rankings this year because they didn't participate in the student survey. They plan to participate in the 2007 survey.</p>

<p>W&M placed 7 or 8 graduates in Deutsche Bank's investment banking analyst program last year, the most of any school. JP Morgan, Lehman, Booz Allen and the Big 4 are also heavy recruiters at the school.</p>

<p>"W&M placed 7 or 8 graduates in Deutsche Bank's investment banking analyst program last year"</p>

<p>probably because they can't get offers from better firms. No offense, I LOVE w&m. But the truth is: placing the most people into DB isn't really significant. I'd rather have 4 in DB and 4 in better firms. I still respect W&M a lot.</p>

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

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</p>

<p>And you are? </p>

<p>
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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.

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</p>

<p>These are not the topics of discussion. The relevant question is, do you honestly think that the undergrad business program at Notre Dame is better than that at MIT? Yes or no? </p>

<p>You say that the Sloan students couldn't take the heat from the calculus taught in Economics? Well, let me ask you, do you think that the students from Notre Dame can? Be honest now. Do you honestly think that North Carolina is a better school than Berkeley? Those are the questions at hand. </p>

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

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</p>

<p>So why is it that both of these schools have barely 60% yields whereas HBS can boast a yield of 90%? Why is it that HBS beats both Chicago and Northwestern in cross-admits? Are these people who turn down Chicago/NW for HBS being stupid?</p>

<p>
[quote]
Sakky, an alum of a prestigious university, and a frequent poster on an Internet forum, reallllly knows the truth. How nice!

[/quote]
</p>

<p>We all have our versions of the truth. </p>

<p>
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There's a difference between "best undergraduate business school to go in order to get in an ibank/consulting firm" and "best undergraduate business school to go to receive quality education in finance/accounting/marketing...

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</p>

<p>Sure, and do you really think that BW more accurately represents that than USNews does? That's the question at hand. </p>

<p>
[quote]
if the BW ranking came out first, and US. News suddenly releases the first ever undergrad business ranking, people WILL loathe the US.News ranking

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</p>

<p>I don't think that's true. Keep in mind that BW releases GRADUATE rankings before USNews did, but that doesn't mean that BW is, in this case, more accurate. Far from it, in my opinion. Again, every BW ranking in history has placed NWKellogg over HBS, yet the fact is, HBS consistently beats Kellogg in cross-admits every year. That indicates that either BW has it wrong, or all these people who prefer HBS over Kellogg are being stupid. Which is it? </p>

<p>On year, BW ranked Stanford #11. Do you believe it? Twice, BW ranked the MBA program of MIT Sloan #15. Do you believe that? </p>

<p>I believe that revealed preferences is a far more useful proxy for the quality of a school. If students revealed that they consistently prefer one school over the other, I think it's safe to say that that school is probably better. Why would students consistently prefer the worse school?</p>

<p>sakky, i think you put too much weight into the preference of students.</p>

<p>i'm sure you're familiar with stanford's "revealed preference" survey of colleges. If not, here it is.</p>

<p><a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=601105%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=601105&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Anyway, this survey basicly answers the question "given admittence into school x and school y, which would you go to?"</p>

<p>Now according to you, just winning cross admit battles is one way to distinguish how good the school is. looking at this survery though, we see that schools like georgia tech will beat johns hopkins in cross admit battles, or schools like Furman will beat out Vanderbilt in cross admit battles. As you can see, you have schools that generally have worse reputations than other schools winning cross admits. I don't really think that "winning cross admit battles" determines how good a school is.</p>

<p>I don't think business week is right - but I think its better than USnews. Business weeks methodology is at least more involved than simply the average of "what do you think of this school on a scale of 1-5."</p>

<p>Gourman Report ranking for undergraduate Finance:</p>

<p>U Pennsylvania
Indiana U Bloomington
U Michigan Ann Arbor
UC Berkeley
NYU
U Texas Austin
U Illinois Urbana Champaign
U Wisconsin Madison
Purdue U West Lafayette
U Washington
Michigan State
UVA
CUNY Baruch
Washington U St Louis
Case Western
USC
U Houston
Penn State University Park
Texas A&M
Notre Dame
Ohio State
U Florida
U Arizona
U Utah
Emory U
Louisiana St Baton Rouge
U Mass Amherst
U Minnesota
Southern Methodist
U Oregon
U Maryland College Park (score=4.31)
Lehigh
Arizona State
U Misouri Columbia
George Washington U
Syracuse U
Geoegia State
U Colorado Boulder
Templu U
U Iowa
U Denver
U South Carolina Columbia
U Nebraska Lincoln
U Georgia</p>

<p>Gourman Report rankings for undergraduate accounting:</p>

<p>U Penn
Indiana
Michigan
Berkeley
Texas Austin
NYU
Notre Dame
Illinois
Purdue
Wisconsin
U Washington
Michigan St
UVA
CUNY Baruch
U Minn
washington U St Louis
Case Western
USC
U Houston
Penn St
Ohio St
Texas A&M
Utah
Lehigh
Florida
Southern Meth
U Mass Amherst
U Arizona
Louisiana St
Temple
Maryland (score=4.27)
Georgia St
South Carolina
Oregon
George Wash
SUNY Buffalo
Missouri
Colorado
Arizona St
Iowa
Emory</p>

<p>Gourman Report ranking for undergraduate marketing:</p>

<p>U Penn
Indiana U Bloomington
U Michigan Ann Arbor
UC Berkeley
NYU
U Illinois Urbana Champaign
Michigan State
Purdue U West Lafayette
U Washington
u Wisconsin Madison
UVA
CUNY Baruch
U Minnesota
Washington U St Louis
Case Western
U Houston
Penn State UP
USC
Texas A&M
U Florida
Ohio State Columbus
Notre Dame
Southern Methodist
Lehigh
U Utah
Emory
Louisiana St
U Mass Amherst
U Oregon
U Arizona
U Maryland College Park (score=4.30)
U Iowa
Georgia State
Arizona St
Syracuse
George Washington U
U Colorado Boulder
U Denver
U South Carolina Columbia
U Georgia
U Nebraska Lincoln</p>

<p>"So why is it that both of these schools have barely 60% yields whereas HBS can boast a yield of 90%? Why is it that HBS beats both Chicago and Northwestern in cross-admits? Are these people who turn down Chicago/NW for HBS being stupid?"</p>

<p>they are not stupid, they are just prestige whores.</p>

<p>maybe northwestern/chicago DOES offer a better education, but people like to tell others that they got MBA from HAVARD. "IT"S HARVARD, bi**h!"</p>

<p>and maybe harvard's recruiting is stronger, and people are in it for jobs. Sometimes, better education doesnt equal to better recruiting.</p>

<p>Can you fault them for being "prestige whores" as you call them? Let's truly be honest...we talk about going to get an MBA for a "better education" While that may be true for someone looking to get a PhD in finance or accounting or something it is usually not the case for people who have left the industry who go back for an MBA as a springboard into something better (PE/VC/HF/IB upper levels)...what it comes down to is recruitment..thats all that matters. So yes you may be able to get a better education at Chicago or NW if you think so, but in the end the goal is to get recruited and HBS/Wharton/Stanford are recruited from more heavily...thats why more people choose these schools.</p>

<p>
[quote]
and maybe harvard's recruiting is stronger, and people are in it for jobs.

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</p>

<p>And for MBA students, that would be the smart thing to do. If you're in it for the academics, go for a PhD.</p>

<p>Please reconsider quoting the Gourman Report. The data is way stale in that publication and the editor is like 100 years old.</p>