Hi - am from Midwest and want to go to best business school I can. I have a 4.2 weighted (3.93 unweighted) gpa and a 35 ACT composite after one sitting. I like the Midwest but am open to any suggestions for solid business school options for undergrad. My parents have enough saved for wherever I want to go although they’ll likely want to ensure it’s money well spent etc. thanks in advance.
U Michigan, Indiana and Notre Dame represent some obvious choices based upon your indicated preference for the Midwest. Penn, Cornell, Babson and U Richmond offer a range of other environments that might be of interest to you.
Thx. Have been to IU and like it.
What size school do you want?
@DG There are a lot of great undergrad business programs and if you do well at any of the really good programs you will have lots of good choices of internships and jobs upon graduation. Besides the obvious Michigan Ross and IU Kelley and OSU Fisher and Minnesota Carlson in the Midwest, and Penn Wharton and NYU Stern and UVA McIntire, have you considered Bentley and Babson in the Boston area? Both of those are very highly ranked with sole focus in business. I know several students at Bentley who are doing very well. Checkout https://www.bentley.edu/undergraduate
Babson is noted more for entrepreneurship. Checkout http://www.babson.edu/academics/
Re size. It’s a great question. Am probably too focused on rankings. Go to a private high school. Am fine with either but obviously a balance. Need to visit some schools. Have seen Indiana osu Texas SMU TCU Ohio state and Baylor.
Am going to visit ND and Michigan. What’s hard is all these elite schools are a reach regardless of scores. Maybe visit uva and unc also. Perhaps Emory and Carnegie Mellon.
Many schools (small, medium, large) have been listed but you need to determine which schools “fit” you. Are you planning on getting your MBA? If so, you might want to consider a less expensive undergraduate path. And from what I’ve read, top MBA schools pull much more weight than undergrad B schools.
Totally agree. MBA likely over time. And agree re MBA school being more important.
South Carolina has the #1 International Business School and #1 Public Honors College.
It does. My parents liked it. We visited there last summer. Perhaps worth consideration. Ranking isn’t as high as IU OSU Texas etc. but again maybe that’s short sighted. Interested in finance or accounting.
Rankings are important but outcomes are more important. Darla Moore is a pretty solid business school. Check with the school to see what type of jobs grads secure. With stats like yours, you could qualify for merit aid and possibly Honors College. South Carolina is also generous with AP credits which allow you to take more classes of interest and less core.
Note that undergraduate colleges without business majors are highly represented among those that disproportionately graduate future MBA candidates:
Amherst
Bates
Claremont McKenna
Columbia
Cornell
Dartmouth
Duke
Georgetown
Hamilton
Harvard
Middlebury
Northwestern
Pomona
Stanford
Chicago
Michigan
Penn
USC
Yale
Yeshiva
Source: College Transitions
Also consider UIUC. UTA probably warrants reinforcement among schools you’ve already considered.
I also recommend you research Gies at UIUC. When our family was looking at Midwest business schools, we chose Gies for its quality and value. We are in-state and would be full-pay before merit at schools like Michigan, Indiana, etc. If you are in Illinois I suggest taking a good look at it.
When comparing schools for fit and outcomes, we included the following factors:
- size. Faculty to student ratio was less important to us than incoming class size. Of the undergraduate business schools we visited, Michigan Ross had the smallest, followed by Illinois Gies and lastly the very large Indiana Kelley.
Why was size important to us? Well, we know each of the schools have high quality opportunities for personal and professional growth. (Looking into business frats and other organizations might prove helpful.). However, we believe access to those opportunities can be compromised by the number of students vying for these positions.
- **outcomes**. Starting salaries after graduation is interesting, but if you’ve spent time on College Confidential, you understand how regional cost of living and other factors can impact those figures.
For our family, the strong preference was post-graduation employment in Chicago…not Indianapolis, Milwaukee, etc. You may not have the same desire, but I would look at job placement statistics.
- **AP credit**. If you plan on taking the CPA exams you’ll need 150 hrs. Check how many credits you can obtain for your high school work. My son is graduating in 4 years with a double major of Finance and Accounting and a minor in Technology and Management. He just signed up for his first 2 CPA exams.
- **study abroad**. Both of my Gies kids did a semester in Europe. They had so much fun and they would say it was helpful during the recruiting process.
Great insight. We are in Missouri. So out of state either way. Illinois definitely worth a look I agree. Thanks for your feedback.