<p>“I was trying to get at the idea that even though the academic type does not think much of business schools, employers beg to differ.”</p>
<p>“Employers” are not a monolith. There are employers who value selective schools and don’t care about the major, there are employers who value selective schools and DO care about the major, there are employers who are indifferent between less selective and more selective schools. </p>
<p>^I do not disagree with you. What happen if I want to maximize my chances of getting the most offers with the best pay? I would try to get into the most selective school with the most selective business program, no?</p>
<p>I think you have to distinguish between short and long term pay. Higher short-term pay in fields that “flatten out” rapidly versus lower short-term pay in fields that have higher potential. </p>
<p>^^Do you have data for that statement? All I know is that students starting out slowly in establishing a career have a hard time catching up financially, if ever. There is evidence for that. I have no information on how a business major would do after 30 years vs how a fine arts major would do, assuming neither has gone on for further studies.</p>
<p>There’s actual research backing this, yes, but I don’t have it… The difference in career is that liberal arts majors tend to putter around after college, trying to find their footing. Some find excellent jobs right away (especially those from well-known colleges), others need time. </p>
<p>However, because general business majors (NOT “Wharton/Stern/Kelley” majors) read much less, write much less, have fewer quantitative or gen ed requirements, are expected to do less, and expect less of themselves intellectually, seeing college as a sort of continuation of college-prep classes in high school with professional preparation thrown in, their careers don’t progress as much once they hit a threshold where all these writing/reading/synthesizing skills become necessary. Those who do progress hit a ceiling and tend to go on to MBA’s. (I was surprised to see that even at some Jesuit schools with a strong core curriculum, business students get a “pass” on what’s required of their Arts&Sciences counterparts.)</p>
<p>You can’t discount graduate degrees: Another effect is that most strong liberal arts majors from top schools (and many strong liberal arts majors from non top schools) do get graduate degrees directly (a few) or after starting out professionally, which helps them career-wise, some may go to med school, law school, business schools (MBAs only admit about half business majors on average, and the more selective the business school, the fewer business majors it admits - and while this information isn’t available, I’m willing to bet that at the top MBA programs, the business majors admitted actually are the “liberal arts PLUS rigorous business classes” graduates, not the “regular” business majors.)</p>
<p>The fine arts major may be in a different situation depending on whether they graduated from Williams or Princeton, or from Northern State School. (That’s why school brand <em>can</em> matter, depending on what the student plans on doing. Essentially, more “esoteric” majors would do better at the most prestigious schools, be they universities or LACs, whereas students who plan on going to med school or enroll in accredited programs in STEM will see no appreciable difference in outcome depending on brand alone, but rather only on grades.)
The fine arts major with a 3.8 from Princeton or Williams may well find themselves working in banking or advertising in NYC, whereas both the business major and the fine arts major from Northern State will not - but depending on their school, may be likely be hired locally or in a big company; the fine arts major may have to take a less-well paid job, but the business major will have a definite edge while the fine arts major will be very limited. Now if the 3.8 business major from Northern State also has lots of internships, s/he’ll be in competition with Princeton students and the Princeton students may not at all come out on top. The difference will be in “fit” between the student and the firm, plus, depending on the firm, “habitus” (Wegman’s vs. Walmart for instance.) </p>
<p>Re: <a href=“Is "entrepreneurship/business" the new "art history" major? - #65 by MYOS1634 - Parents Forum - College Confidential Forums”>Is "entrepreneurship/business" the new "art history" major? - #65 by MYOS1634 - Parents Forum - College Confidential Forums;
<p>Seems that most of what is described in the post above indicates that, for both business majors and liberal arts majors, your school’s prestige matters a lot.</p>
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<p>The implication of the above post is that business versus liberal arts matters less than the prestige of the school for someone majoring in either of those areas.</p>
<p>No, not necessarily, which is what I was trying to say above. What matters more is how well a student succeeds at their chosen school, but there are majors in which it matters, and future careers in which it matters (ie., being a strong student from a top school will OBVIOUSLY help you get into grad school, which is what the second line highlighted above refers to. Being a strong student at a non-top50 school will help you get into grad school too and is probably to be expected, too, which is what followed.)
In addition, the schools I listed weren’t for prestige, but for quality of the academics.
However, the answer was in comparison to Canada’s situation, which is very different from the American situation, both in admission requirements to the business majors and in attitudes toward them vs. other majors.</p>
<p>After all that is said and done, it still comes down to the student. The Manzi article I posted in another thread said the following:</p>
<p>“A GPA-plus-major screen is not about IQ, as much as it is a quick screen to see who is capable of figuring out how to succeed in a new environment, and of doing at least some sustained work.” </p>
<p>Google also said:</p>
<p>“For every job, though, the No. 1 thing we look for is general cognitive ability, and it’s not IQ. It’s learning ability. It’s the ability to process on the fly. It’s the ability to pull together disparate bits of information. We assess that using structured behavioral interviews that we validate to make sure they’re predictive.”</p>
<p>When is “figuring out how to succeed in a new environment”, “the ability to process on the fly”, “the ability to pull together disparate bits of information” etc. not IQ?</p>
<p>Doublespeak aside, research is clear. What makes a good employee is very much what makes a good student- cognitive ability (.5) and conscientiousness (.2). The prestige of the university may offer you different opportunities, but how far you get in life is still ability and conscientiousness. That is how I interpret the Dale and Kreuger study anyway.</p>
<p>I think the biggest problem for students in Canadian universities is the grading system. Here is one student’s perspective:</p>
<p><a href=“Why Do Students Hate The University of Toronto? | The Mike Online”>http://themikenewspaper.■■■■■■■■■■■■■/2011/02/02/why-students-hate-the-university-of-toronto/</a></p>
<p>That is for regular Arts and Science. For “limited enrollment” programs like business (Rotman School), students must complete a first year with specific pre-requisites (5 year long courses- accounting, economics, calculus and linear algebra, half course in computer science and the last 1.5 courses are electives) and then try to compete for a spot for the second year on grades. I know because I have a sibling who did just that.</p>
<p>Once you are in you are competing with a higher quality of classmates and thus a tougher curve. It is a policy here to restrict “A” grade to 20% of the students in any given class, regardless of the quality of the students. They may have eased up a little in the 3rd and 4th years but I am not certain.</p>
<p>My sister graduated with a gpa of 2.9, but scored in the 92 percentile on the LSAT without taking a prep. Fun, isn’t it?</p>