<p>Is getting an undergraduate business degree from the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business enough (assuming good grades and good GMAT score) to get an MBA from an amazing school and thus, a great job? Would getting an undergraduate computer science major be better to get an MBA from a great school?</p>
<p>Also, is there realistically much of a difference between someone with an undergraduate business degree and computer science minor and someone with an undergraduate business degree and computer science major?</p>
<p>B-schools care about your work experience. Almost no one goes straight from undergrad. Ross does give you the opportunity to get a good job.
As for the CS major, it depends on what you do with it.</p>
<p>What’s a good GMAT score? What are good grades? And what do you consider to be a “great” school for an MBA?</p>
<p>Business school admissions are pretty transparent. There is no difference between a comp sci major and a comp sci minor if the kid does not do well in comp sci. There is no “boost” to having a second major if it doesn’t demonstrate a different skill set from the major.</p>
<p>And to echo Purple Titan- get a job and then worry about Business School. But there is no need to have an undergrad business degree to get into a top 10 (if that’s the goal) B school. My B school classmates included poets, several actors, a bunch of philosophers, and dozens of literature and history majors. If a kid is majoring in business solely for the sake of getting into b-school- that’s just not necessary.</p>
<p>GMAT scores track SAT scores pretty well (unlike LSAT’s and MCAT’s). But taking a sample test is a good way to recalibrate if your scores are “off” from where you need them to be.</p>
<p>Can a superstar get into Booth or Wharton with bottom decile GMAT scores for the published range? of course- that’s why they are the bottom decile- someone else has already gotten in with those scores. But typically those are people who have started companies, done something extraordinary already so the school is prepared to be generous with the test (and they are frequently 32 years old so they’ve got a long track record to evaluate.) For the typical 24 or 25 year old- you’ll need scores closer or higher than the median.</p>
<p>Thank you guys! Would getting just a BBA from Ross with good work experience and a good GMAT score ensure an amazing job or would a CS minor/major along with the BBA help me out way more?</p>
<p>No employer hiring from Ross undergrad cares about your GMAT score (with consulting firms being the only thing I can think of which might be even a possible exception).</p>
<p>As for CS, that depends on the job. Find out where your interests lie first. </p>
<p>If you want high pay straight out of undergrad a CS major is what you want. If you just want an MBA you can do pretty much anything, it doesn’t matter much. </p>
<p>Nothing will guarantee you an amazing job. Nothing. Having good grades, challenging yourself intellectually, learning to read critically and write a terse, persuasive paragraph will help. Having skills which are in demand will help (but frankly, nobody knows what next year’s job market or economy is going to look like). Being flexible geographically (i.e. Dayton Ohio, Louisville KY and not just Seattle, SF, Boston or NY/DC corridor) will help. Having EC’s and/or internships which demonstrate leadership skills OR a facility organizing or budgeting OR programming OR writing and public speaking… all of these will help.</p>
<p>but if you are asking for a prescription for being “set”- it doesn’t exist.</p>
<p>Major in something you love; take enough quantitative courses to demonstrate a facility with numbers (stats, macro, Valuation/CF) push yourself. These are all good.</p>
<p>Nobody will care about your GMAT score before you actually need to apply to B-school. Even my company (which asks GMAT scores) really won’t care about an undergrad’s score unless the SAT’s were troubling and we’d like another datapoint to confirm. But don’t waste time worrying or taking them now for an event which won’t happen for several years (i.e when you actually apply to B school.)</p>
<p>Do a CS minor if you love CS and can fit it in. But undergrads seriously over-weight how important a minor is to an employer. If you’re majoring in Victorian Poetry and have a minor in statistics- yes, that will help you get a job requiring a good facility with quant concepts (even if they are not relevant to statistics). But don’t mess up your schedule with a bunch of CS courses that you’re not interested with the expectation that this will insure that you get an “amazing job” (your words- I have no idea what that even means). CS majors get jobs in CS. Finance majors get jobs in finance; your CS minor may or may not help.</p>
<p>This. If there was a recipe for ensuring an “amazing job” or living a “fabulous life,” then there would be no unemployment, poverty, or unhappiness. Listen to us old people - there are no guarantees in life.</p>
<p>If you have the right qualities to do a great job, you can go a long ways with a BBA from Ross. Ross can position you to understand the business world and prepare for a career in it, and they can line you up for interviews with great companies. But after that it is up to you. You don’t NEED an MBA to do really well in the business world, you can do that with just the Ross BBA IF you have the other qualities it takes to succeed (but if you don’t have those, no MBA will help you, either). Get the Ross BBA, work for a few years, then decide if you really need an MBA to get to where you need to go. I can tell you as a Ross BBA with an MBA, the MBA was pretty repetitive with Ross coursework… and the additional MBA work has made very little difference in my career over the past 30 years.</p>
<p>You have to take life one step at a time. And nothing ensures/guarantees you get the outcome you desire. But if you do very well at Ross, get some good internships and interview well then you should have the opportunity to find a good job. If you do well at the job and get strong work experience and ace your GMATs you will have the opportunity to attend a top grad school (the top grad schools do require significant work experience). If you do very well at that grad school and interview well you will have the chance to get a great job.</p>
<p>If you can get into Ross as an undergrad (which isn’t easy), then you will have some terrific potential job opportunities - because on-campus recruiting is rich. I say “potential” because the interview is what you make of it. After that, only you can decide if you need the MBA someday.</p>
<p>I think there still are significant elite firms that when hiring analysts from UG do look at SAT scores–esp the math score and have a cutoff in mind (650-700) usually.</p>
<p>I doubt anyone in Ross has under a 650 SAT. And the GMAT score – not all undergrads take it, I don’t see how it makes any sense for an employer to ask for it. Get yourself into Ross if you can, that is the hard part.</p>
<p>One step at a time. If you want your bachelor’s in business from Michigan you need to get into Ross first. After that there’s plenty of time for an MBA. As I tell the kids, what you do with what you got is going to determine the future trajectory. </p>
<p>Thank you for the advice everyone! To clarify, I am in the Ross School of Business. The reason why I was thinking of getting a CS minor/major is so that I can stand out as a business major. What I don’t quite understand is how some people are more successful than others with the same business degree. What are some things that can help someone with a business major stand out compared to all the other people with business majors? </p>
<p>Social skills and being articulate and able to talk on your feet are a huge part of getting jobs. Proof points are another. Interviewers assume you have the background if you have the degree, but proof points are great. If you are a great writer for instance, having editorials or articles is a proof point. If you have bookkeeping skills, being able to say you kept the books for a small business or a college organization is a proof point. If you “say” you are a leader, being a leader of an active student organization is a proof point. If you say you have the experience in the industry you are seeking to enter, having an internship or a paid job in some capacity in that industry is a proof point. </p>
<p>Another thing to understand is you might get a foot in the door but so will other graduates of other undergraduate business schools so the social skills and proof points are the differentiating factors. The university alone will not secure the job, it’s the whole package. Think about it this way, you got into Ross, an accomplishment in and of itself, but other smart, industrious kids did not get in and perhaps went to a different B-school. When you all graduate you’ll all be chasing the same jobs, much like you were all chasing the same colleges and if you recall it was the whole package that mattered, not just your SAT score and GPA that got your acceptance to Ross. Ross is one piece of what needs to be the whole package when you’re ready to find that first job.</p>
<p>Thank you for the advice! What I still don’t understand is how useful a CS minor/major would be in order to stand out among all the other people trying to get great jobs. Is there something I should specifically minor/major in that companies are looking for?</p>