<p>what do you think the 10 best undergrad business schools are? i really want to get into upenn, uva, or maybe nyu.</p>
<p>Wharton is often cited as the best undergrad business school. I have also heard good things about Dartmouth, Columbia, Michigan, and Stern (in no particular order).</p>
<p>According to Businessweek, Emory’s Giozueta and Notre Dame’s Mendoza are also top 10.</p>
<p>Yeah, so I’ve heard. I’m still pretty young (sophomore in Sept) but I want to start early. To anyone who is attending any of those schools, tips are appreciated.</p>
<p>Berkeley’s undergraduate business program is ranked #2 in the nation by USNews. It is tied with MIT’s undergraduate business program.</p>
<h1>1 would be Wharton</h1>
<p>You can enter finance or consulting by graduating well from Harvard, Yale, or Princeton. The three schools offer a more meaningful and diverse intellectual and social experience.</p>
<p>Solid top 5:</p>
<p>1 Wharton</p>
<p>slight gap </p>
<p>2-5: Haas, Sloan, Ross, Stern</p>
<p>slight gap</p>
<p>6-10: Kenan-Flagler, McCombs, McIntire, Carnegie Mellon University, Cornell University</p>
<p>Ivan, Columbia & Dartmouth does not have an undergrad business school.</p>
<p>Undergraduate business school rankings are meaningless. The simple fact is that the best undergraduate colleges for placement into prime “business” jobs (investment banking, management consulting, sales & trading, hedge funds, private equity, etc.) do not have undergraduate business schools. If your interested in a career in high finance or consulting, or if you are looking to place into the best management rotational programs then the best undergraduate schools to attend in order to land an interview are (in approximately this order):</p>
<p>Tier 1 (Top Targets): Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Wharton, MIT, Stanford</p>
<p>Tier 2 (High Targets): Caltech, Dartmouth, Columbia, Cornell, Penn (non-Wharton), Duke, Williams, Amherst </p>
<p>Tier 2b (Low Targets): Brown, Northwestern, UCB (Haas), NYU (Stern), UVa (McIntire), UMich (Ross), Swarthmore, Rice, Pomona, Georgetown </p>
<p>Tier 3 (Semi-Targets): JHU, WUSTL, CMU (Tepper), UT-Austin (McCombs), Notre Dame (Mendoza), USC (Marshall), Middleburry, Emory, Vanderbuilt, UCLA, BC</p>
<p>I’m probably forgetting a few good schools here and there, but this is pretty much the pecking order when it comes to the level of on-campus recruiting effort that the top banks/consulting firms make at each school. Outside of these schools placement becomes very regional and will largely be a function of networking and hustle rather than strength of on-campus recruiting.</p>
<p>While one might quibble about some of the tiers, I concur with nearly all of what b-schooler has posted. Unless you specifically want to take business courses, DON"T focus on colleges with undergrad business schools as the prime destination for most competitive employers. These employers go to the most selective colleges because that’s where the talent is, not because of what they are studying. What they majored in can almost be irrelevant. </p>
<p>One good way to identify the selectivity is to look at the look at the SAT scores and take a fairly competitive level, eg, all those with averages of 1400 or above. That cut will give you most of the prime destinations, both for nat’l unis and LACs, and a good idea of what places many top employers will target.</p>
<p>There are about 999 times as many business jobs not in IB and all that which pay good money, don’t require the often nefarious activities virtually required to get ahead in IB and Hedge Funds, and actually make the country work. The undue focus on the get rich quick schemes that are the backbone of those financial industries is misdirecting talent away from actual production that leads to US jobs. Have you already forgotten what got us into this current economic mess?? And the one before that. And the one before that?</p>
<p>barrons,
No argument from me on your point. I would add that highly competitive employers–Wall Street, MC, or otherwise—still like talent and are not focused on the undergrad business schools. Smarts trump choice of major.</p>
<p>“One good way to identify the selectivity is to look at the look at the SAT scores and take a fairly competitive level, eg, all those with averages of 1400 or above. That cut will give you most of the prime destinations, both for nat’l unis and LACs, and a good idea of what places many top employers will target.”</p>
<p>This is a decent suggestion, but I would add one thing. Also consider the size of the school when attempting to use selectivity measures to guage appeal to top employers. For instance a large school like UC Berkeley may have a relatively low average SAT compared to a school like Swarthmore, but the recruiting effort invested by top employers at both schools will be very similar. This is because while the average student at Swarthmore will be stronger, the absolute number of top students will be far larger at UCB. There are more 1500+ SAT scorers in an incoming class at UCB then there are students in a class at Swarthmore.</p>
<p>There is not really an exact formula to figure out what schools are most attractive to top employers, but it is some combination of strength of the average student, absolute number of top student (why Cornell for instance does better than its average SAT would suggest), and level of interest in finance/consulting jobs among the student body (why Dartmouth for instance crushes the comparably selective Brown).</p>
<p>I’m not so sure if I can agree with both B-Schooler and hawkette. </p>
<p>The proportion of students at Haas, Ross, Stern and Sloan getting into IB or MC jobs is higher than that of the schools B-Scholar rank as Tier 2. </p>
<p>For example, of the more than 2k students that graduate from Duke University each year, only about a hundred or 2 of them get into IB or MC. In contrast, almost everyone from Sloan, Haas, Ross or Stern gets into IB or MC or finance jobs. My numbers are probably not accurate, but based on proportion, top business schools are better than Tier 2 schools.</p>
<p>RML,</p>
<p>With the exception of Wharton (which I broke out seperately because there really is a drastic difference), I was refferring to each school as a whole and simply naming the business school at that school in parathesis. Of course the students in a dedicated business school within a good university will place more grads per capital into IB or MC, but the students in these business schools are also several times more likely to apply to these jobs then the typical student at a good university without a business school. From my experiences, while an employer will greatly favor a Stern graduate over a random NYU grad, the Stern graduate will have no advantage over a random Columbia graduate.</p>
<p>b-schooler,
Point well made. There are subsets at the high ranking publics that deserve inclusion. These tend to be housed in either their engineering or business schools. Plus, the large alumni populations of the state schools can be very territorial in their hiring practices and will strive to maintain their school’s presence at a given firm or within a given department. </p>
<p>RML,
I think you’re off on several things. First, Duke graduates about 1500 students annually. </p>
<p>Second, large numbers are hired by highly competitive employers. Maybe someone has current numbers, but my guess is that up to a quarter or more of the class goes to Wall Street or consulting. This is a very talented student body. </p>
<p>Third, I think you’re wrong that “almost everyone from Sloan, Haas, Ross or Stern gets into IB or MC or finance jobs.” In my experience, it’s likely less than half. And frankly, business school deans think that that is too high as they’d like to develop business people, not mercenaries. It doesn’t speak well of business schools if all they do is prepare the next generation of I-banking analysts or grunt-level associates at consulting firms.</p>
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<p>Well, I’m not sure if I can agree with you on this. </p>
<p>There is a culture at a top business school like Stern to send grads to banking and finance jobs, something that isn’t likely true at Columbia in generality. At a top business school like Stern, graduates are trained to position themselves to better secure a job at “tie-up” companies or companies where they regularly hire Stern grads that’s why you see Stern is well represented at such big banks. In short, the thrust of Stern is to send their graduates to banking and finance. Based on the proportion of graduates, Stern has higher than the whole of Columbia.</p>
<p>hawkette, are you saying that about 500 grads from Duke undergrad get into IB/MC jobs each year? </p>
<p>Granted that is true, how is 30% greater than close to 50%?</p>
<p>Well, obviously “smart” is highly overrated.</p>