Looking to go into the Carroll School of Management at BC or major in Economics at Colby. The financial aid package is similar enough for both schools that it really isn’t a factor. Must make a decision by the end of the week!
Reasons for going to BC:
Incredible alumni connections
Top ranked undergraduate business school
Right outside of Boston, always things to do
Football, basketball, and hockey teams are exciting to watch- great tailgates
Reasons for going to Colby
Outdoorsy person, so Maine feels like home away from home
Small campus, everyone knows each other, close knit community feel
Close to ski mountains (love to ski)
Great economics program
Do I go to BC where I will have an abundance of internships in Boston and where the undergraduate business program is highly acclaimed or do I go to a school that isn’t near any sort of major city but has that “good feeling” that certain students get when they walk on campus. Any advice is greatly appreciated!
I think getting the ‘good feeling’ from a school is an important indicator of whether or not you will be happy there, so in your case, I would choose Colby
To me you are considering two very different schools (mid-sized Jesuit v secular LAC), different locations (Boston v Maine) and two different courses of study (b-school v liberal arts). Nobody here should answer this for you.
I would look carefully at the programs to be a finance and an economics major. You should be able to find the courses you need for each major at each school online. Finance in a b-school such as Carroll would include a business core curriculum including intro classes in subjects like accounting, b-law, management, IT, finance, etc. and then you will major in one of those disciplines. Economics is a liberal arts course of study and gets pretty theoretical at the higher levels. One is not better or worse than the other, but they are different paths. If one set of courses looks more up your alley than the other, that should be one consideration. You should also look at the core curriculum at BC as Jesuit colleges traditionally have a strong liberal arts core.
Other than your course of study, consider what you want in terms of the the size/location of the two schools. Think about what attributes you want in your college experience (ex. big time sports, outdoor etc.) You have two fine schools and it should come down to a matter of YOUR personal preference.
@prezbucky Many of the schools you mentioned don’t offer undergraduate business.
Also, you are right its not Ross, NYU, etc because in the most extensive survey of employers BC is ranked 5th in the country, far ahead of Ross and just ahead of NYU. Marshall did not make the top 114.
BC ranked 3rd overall and 12th in starting salary.
@flowerpen6 Econ is much harder than business curriculum. The toughest Math you will encounter in business classes you learned in 8th grade.
To major in Econ you will need to be proficient in calc, multi-variable calc, linear algebra, advanced probability and statistics. You can basically double major in Math with just a few more courses. Intermediate Micro is a meat grinder class.
@prezbucky The Bloomberg Survey is the most comprehensive and most precise ranking of business schools. BC is 3rd overall and 5th by just employer rank. 12th in starting salary. The 2016 Survey just came out.
Wall Street placement? Good luck this year. Goldman cut comp by 44% this year and may lay off 20% of staff. Morgan Stanley the same.
Wall Street is gone…two or three banks don’t make an industry.
Financial Services has moved out, gotten smaller and is much different than it used to be.
1)Undergraduate b-schools require a semester of calculus at a minimum (I needed 2 semesters), so one needs more than 8th grade math to get through the curriculum.
2)Economics is not by definition easier or harder than a business program – to some extent depends on how a person’s mind works --I know people who whizzed through an econ major but barely made it through accounting 1 as well as people who had no problem in a b-school curriculum but had trouble with upper level econ courses). Again, I suggest that the OP look at the coursework in both majors to see if one seems to be a more appealing path for him/her.
Having worked in business in NYC for over 30 years, IMO the Bloomberg Survey does not reflects the perception of the schools in the business community (Villanova #1 and Wharton #16 ??). I also prefer USNWR if I have to pick a ranking. HOWEVER, any discussion of b-school rankings is not especially relevant to the OPs decision between a LAC and a b-school program at what is by all accounts a very good program.
It’s not exactly the same, but in some ways Econ:Business Admin as Physics:Engineering.
Except, of course, Econ is not the only soft science that affects business strategy: Psychology and Sociology do also, as well as humanities fields like Linguistics, English and Communications.
I did not mean to demean BC’s undergrad Business program – if grads get good jobs, it can’t just be due to the career services department.
If OP wants a BBA, he or she should check Colby’s course catalog for courses other than Econ. You want to see courses like Marketing, Org Behavior, Accounting, Finance, Business Law, Operations Management, and International Business. An Entrepreneurialism course would be helpful too. If you find courses like those, you might be able to get a BBA-like broad Business education there.
@happy1 Your view is total biased by the fact you live and work in NY. The US News Rankings are completely based on Dean and faculty opinions. Not one input is industry-based, not one. They are totally detached from what companies are thinking and doing across the country. So in my opinion totally worthless for ranking business schools.
Since companies do the hiring, I would listen to them first. The Bloomberg survey uses 600 different companies.
As far as Econ goes, the OP should know that Econ is far more difficult than business curriculum. Maybe the same work load but difficulty is much different.
@onthebubble From many other posts I see that you like to engage another poster in discussions/arguments that are not relevant to the OP. I won’t engage other to say that yes I do live and work on the east coast, yes I do think the Bloomberg ranks are bad, and yes I think what companies pay graduates of different colleges is more reflective of the value companies deem the people to be worth than a survey that who knows who fills out. We will have o agree to disagree. I would prefer that you do not reference me again on this post as I think the OP has all of the useful information that I can give him/her.
You and the other poster are giving the OP completely false information and I am sorry being corrected upsets you. Read the thread and you will see. No business cares what US News thinks. Industry uses the Bloomberg survey and industry is not just a handful of companies in NY.
I’ve worked in business in NYC for over three decades as a CPA at a Big 4 firm and in the finance industry. I’ve also helped with college recruiting for a Big 4 firm and for my departments with international and national companies. Never once in my career have I heard the ranking of a school mentioned. People like to talk about rankings on this site, but in my experience, corporations does not use rankings (be they USNWR, Bloomberg, or any others) to make hiring decisions. Not sure what the above poster’s business background best about everything, but I imagine he/she will feel the need to get in the last word.
ANYWAY, APOLOGIES AGAIN TO OP FOR MORE OFF TOPIC COMMENTS. I HOPE YOU FIND A WONDERFUL HOME FOR YOUR UNDERGRADUATE STUDIES.