I’m offered Kelley direct admission this year. However, IUB’s ranking is pretty bad, so I wonder how do the companies considered this school? I also get in to UIUC and Wisconsin Madison, so I wonder how is Kelley compared to UIUC, Wisconsin Madison etc. Moreover, the median start salary is very low at IUB (around 38,000$/yr ) Is it a wise choice to go to Kelley? (I want to major in Statistics and Finance)
Kelley is a good business school with strong recruiting. The knock on Kelly is size as it has about 6,000 undergraduates compared to UIUC which has 3,000 or UW Madison which has 2,600. Because of its size, the average stats for students tend to be lower than the UIUC or UW, and since it is hard to place that many graduates, the average placement is not as strong. Many of the lower performing Kelly grads end up working in a warehouse someplace in the rural Midwest. However, top performing Kelly grads will have placement equal to UW or UIUC. A couple of other items:
If you want to work in Chicago after graduating, UIUC is the best choice. Roughly 90 percent of UIUC COB grades end up in Chicago after graduating. It is a little harder to get there from UW or IU.
Kelly’s IB program is very strong but very selective. Only about 70-80 kids enroll in it every year. If you can make into that program, it is probably the best finance option of the three.
Congratulations on the acceptances and good luck!!!
IU’s overall starting salary is relatively meaningless. Look at these salary numbers:
https://kelley.iu.edu/UCSO/Statistics/salaryStats/page40582.html
I’ve heard the statistics department at IU isn’t the greatest, but I think most of that reputation is based on an annoying intro to stats class that Kelley students have to take. It’s also going to take a lot of credits to major in Kelley and something that is not in Kelley. It’s probably not doable in 4 years unless you come in with a lot of credits and/or take summer classes.
Wisconsin has a VERY good statistics program. Like, VERY good. At the undergrad level, of course, it’s a different ballgame.
but it is not so good at finance…
true 
but cheese!
Simply google employer rankings when it comes to business schools and you’ll have your answer
Zinhead:
Not sure where you’re coming from, but your comment “Many of the lower performing Kelly grads end up working in a warehouse someplace in the rural Midwest.” can be interpreted as either humor or sarcasm.
First off, if you look at the average salaries of the grads of most schools in the Midwest, South and other lower income regions of the country you will see that they, generally speaking, lag behind those of most of the coastal colleges, where average incomes are considerably higher for everyone due to cost of living. Most students at most coastal colleges (New York and California areas in particular) come from those areas, AND, are likely to stay in those areas after they graduate. Therefore, graduates of those colleges will tend to earn higher salaries. Hence, a large number of IU grads stay in the greater Midwest region and therefore earn lower salaries in their early years. I’ve seen many salary lists, for new hires and mid-career employees that show this has more to do with regional cost-of-living variations than anything else. (Grads of perhaps the top 15-20 colleges in the nation will, however, generally tend to earn initial salaries that skew a bit higher due to the prestige of their institutions. However, by mid-career at the latest, most graduates of slightly lesser schools (the next tier down) catch up. Of course, incomes will also vary by discipline and choice of career.
Second, I believe your figure of 6,000 students at the Kelley school is far off. I’ve read it is approximately 4,800. It is one of the largest undergraduate business schools for sure, but no institution does a better job of making a large school seem smaller than Kelley. Their student support services, guidance, advising and general coaching and shepherding of students, according to evaluating bodies (such as Poets & Quants, et al), is second to none.
Third, your comment that “…the average stats for students tend to be lower than the UIUC or UW, and since it is hard to place that many graduates, the average placement is not as strong.” Wrong, on both counts! The average SAT scores for the Kelley school leave both UIUC and UW in the dust. It’s not close by a country mile. And, Kelley beats both UIUC and UW in job placement. Check out these sources, brother.
http://poetsandquantsforundergrads.com/2016/12/14/average-sat-scores-top-b-schools/2/
My son applied to 18 schools (a total of 53 essays and a glutton for punishment!), all of them top undergraduate business schools only (except for a few that are not 4 year programs where he had to apply to the General college) and was rejected by four: Cornell-Dyson (7% acceptance rate!), Berkeley, Michigan Ross and UVA. He was accepted to NYU Stern, UT Austin, Villanova, UW Madison, UIUC, Ohio State, Maryland-College Park, NC-Chapel Hill, Binghamton-SOM, Rutgers, IU Kelley, Boston College (can’t recall the other one). He was placed on GIT’s waiting list. He was admitted direct admit to the schools that offered it (important for him). At several schools he received generous merit scholarships and admission to their Honors Colleges. He was hoping for merit from NYU but got none (their tuition is the highest in the USA at well over $70,000 per year!) Same with Villanova and Boston College–no merit aid. Therefore, he had to rule out those three schools. After his due diligence, and due to information about a few schools that he found out only after applying, he narrowed it down to Binghamton-SOM and Indiana Kelley. Binghamton is an excellent school (it’s considered the crown jewel of the SUNY system) and actually a little harder to get into (we are in-state in NY) but he finally decided on Kelley because it is a better school overall and represented the best value after doing a cost-benefit analysis. Plus, we have neighbors and co-workers who have attended colleges in the Midwest and they ALL have wonderful things to say about that famous Midwestern friendliness and hospitality.
IU Kelley is a great school. IU overall is an excellent university (though, in my opinion, they have to reduce that university-wide acceptance rate, which does not do the university justice), but IU’s Kelley school and their Jacobs Music School are simply outstanding—they are different animals. The music school, like the Kelley school, is among the top 10 in the nation. They also have an outstanding language program, one of the best on the planet. And, in recent years especially, Kelley grads have been doing quite well getting jobs in New York, California, Boston and other major metro areas on the coasts.
IU Kelley has risen in the most important rankings because it is working harder to achieve the highest quality goals. The team running that school is top notch. It’s a school on the move and one to watch. They have achieved top rankings (Businessweek #4, Poets and Quants #7 and US News #9) and they aren’t about to let it slide out of their grasp. Now that they’re in the top 10, they will attract even more applicants, and you can expect their admission criteria to rise even higher in the very near future.
Gosh, I can’t believe I wrote so much (I’m home convalescing and I guess the pain Meds influenced me)!
Good luck, all!
@RamDass I hope you’re feeling better. I’m glad your son is happy at Kelley. After reading your post I felt compelled to respond. Full disclosure, I have a son and daughter who are current business students at UIUC.
Yes, I agree with you about regional differences affecting average salary comparisons. Incoming students should keep this in mind when considering schools and their future employment aspirations. However, @Zinhead made some good points.
First, let’s address the size of Kelley’s undergraduate program. I did a quick search and found this: https://kelley.iu.edu/UCSO/Statistics/ClassProfiles/page41213.html
Under the Class Demographics tab it appears Kelley’s undergraduate enrollment is over 7,000.
– Seniors 1,604
– Juniors 1,930
– Sophomores 2,058
– Freshmen 1,492
Total: 7,084
I have a difficult time believing the size of the classes would not negatively impact the average student’s experience…in class and when seeking leadership and even study abroad opportunities.
Second, I am from a Chicago suburb. I lean toward Zinhead’s perception of the average Kelley student, due in large part to the size of their classes (see above numbers), but also from anecdotal observations. In our area, the students who choose Kelley over UIUC do so for primarily two reasons: 1. they didn’t get into UIUC College of Business and would be forced to take the difficult ICT route, and 2. UIUC gives little financial aid…these same students are ‘Kelley direct admit’ and are often given enough merit dollars to make the COA about the same (or cheaper) as UIUC. This doesn’t mean I believe that the top Kelley students are weaker than the top UIUC business students. I actually believe they’re very similar.
Third, I think it’s misleading to compare average SAT scores…prior to this year, graduating high school students in Illinois all took the ACT…only 4% took the SAT.
https://magoosh.com/hs/act/2016/average-act-score-by-state/
http://blog.prepscholar.com/average-sat-scores-by-state-most-recent
I even question the job placement stats link. I confess I find some of the employment stats confusing, so I could be off base. When I look at Kelley’s site it sounds like the 95% job placement is based upon only 74% of graduating seniors.
Here’s the link: https://kelley.iu.edu/UCSO/Statistics/salaryStats/page40582.html
UIUC’S job placement stats are a year old, but seems like their number includes a higher percentage of the graduating class at 91%.
https://business.illinois.edu/bcs/recruiters/statistics/ug-stats/
Regardless, I don’t mean to quibble…guess the “in the dust” comment got to me 
…but I feel Zinhead’s post is spot on…especially when it comes to Chicago area kids. A lot of them desire jobs in the Chicago area and UIUC delivers…just compare ‘employment by location’. (the Class Demographics tab on the Kelley link, https://kelley.iu.edu/UCSO/Statistics/ClassProfiles/page41213.html and the Salary by Location header on the UIUC link, https://business.illinois.edu/bcs/recruiters/statistics/ug-stats/). Anyway, good luck to your son and again, I hope you’re feeling better.
@RamDass -
It is neither, but is based on visiting these types of facilities and seeing who works there. There are alot of IU grads working in management or accounting in those large distribution warehouses in Plainfield southwest of Indianapolis, and throughout manufacturing and distribution facilities in the Midwest.
Regarding average SAT scores, Illinois COB reports a range between 1320 to 1460. The midpoint is 1390. This is a very different figure than reported by Poets and Quants, and is similar to the figures reported by IU-Kelly.
https://admissions.illinois.edu/Apply/Freshman/profile
Like @88jm19, I live in the Chicago suburbs. At our HS, IU is generally considered to be a safety school for UIUC. Looking at the Naviance information for our HS, IU gets nearly as many applicants as UIUC, but IU has a a higher acceptance rate than UIUC, and a much lower yield rate from our HS. Most kids who get into both UIUC and IU business schools pick UIUC, and a great many who to go to IU Kelly do so because they did not get a direct admit into UIUC COB.
As for the quality of their students, one of the requirements of a prior jobs was to help out with recruiting new hires. UIUC and IU were the typically the only schools we would visit every six months for a career fair, and we would fill about 10 slots each year from both IUIC and IU, with about 5 to 10 slots from other schools in the Midwest. We found IU grads to be good, solid hires, which is why we went back over and over to the school.
Also, anecdotally, IU grads had the best drinking stories with UW grads coming in a close second.
Alvis888, don’t fall into the trap and get caught up on “which school is best?” That depends. Disclaimer, my son chose UIUC over IU. Kelley is a terrific school, and we are a Chicago 'burbs family, with alums from Kelley and UIUC. Well, first off, part of the reason many students like my son are drawn to Kelley is they cannot be sure direct admit to UIUC CoB will happen, even with stellar creds. Unless a kid’s head is waaaay too big, he better be ready to not get into a first choice business or engineering major at UIUC. So, you look to Kelley,and if you’ve visited in person, how can you not like that school? If we were from Indiana, my son would be there.
You need to look at your choice on a global level-factor in residency, program, outcomes, cost, and yes, overall fit. And, you have a good problem of a tough choice among some schools with excellent programs. It doesn’t have to be about snarky comments on best SAT scores, which for Illinois students, doesn’t mean a whole lot, even if it is now our state-mandated test. For the HS class of '16, at my children’s school, about 5% of students even took the SAT. Not many would-be business majors among them. Not to mention that Kelley/IU superscores…UIUC does not. Anyway, you will end up with colleagues from all of these schools, whether its while studying abroad, during internship programs, home-town friends and co-workers, or once you graduate and have a real job.
Read up on 88jm19’s posts, as they have really good info. I agree with the outcomes comments, and drilling down on that info in my own research last year was a major reason why I strongly lobbied for my son to choose UIUC in the end. Last spring, we were fresh from admission events, and we took every opp to ask questions of school faculty and administrators. 88jm19 has posted many times about the opportunity (and ACCESS to opportunities) at UIUC, and the end game for my student is a Chicago job, like 88jm19’s students.
Good luck in your decision!
Zinhead and IL2023,
Both of you bring an in-depth knowledge on these Midwest schools, and prevalent attitudes among the local populace toward them, that I find interesting. Such attitudes, cultivated over time, usually hide a good deal of information about the reputation of these schools that has been learned by Midwest folks about those schools. This is another way of saying you may know more about these schools’ true characteristics that the national rankings and reviews show. Or not.
We are from New York and I can assure you that we have similar stories about the relative merits and shortcomings of northeast schools as you have about Midwest schools. I have found that the commonly held perceptions and assumptions—about schools in our region—are not always accurate. Anecdotal stories from neighbors and colleagues, comments by high school guidance counselors, gossip heard here and there, incomplete snippets of data about certain schools all mesh into varying opinions of different schools. I would assume that this is true for every region of the country. That is why I think it is wiser to put more trust in objective, reputable, third-party evaluations. This is not to say that our (any) local “herd” information does not have merit or validity, just that it needs to be taken for what it is and compared to professional, in-depth evaluations of schools by reputable agencies.
Of course, there are many rankings and evaluations and some are better than others. US News rankings, for example, the most popular perhaps, is almost entirely based on the OPINIONS of college presidents and deans. That is stunning yet true, and well-known. Now, there is no doubt that people within an industry have an in-depth “knowledge” of factors within their domain, but it is still only based on OPINIONS, largely unsupported by various, objective metrics. Moreover, we are, unfortunately, fallible human beings, no matter our station in life, and subject to (often subconscious) biases and motives in our opinions. That is why, in my opinion, I find US News—despite its relative value—to be among the least reliable sources for school quality. (I have actually spoken, by phone, with the man who is in charge of compiling the US News data, twice. He was incredibly difficult to ferret out, and I admit I resorted to stealthy methods to finally get to him, but get to him I did. A nice fellow, it was difficult and time-consuming speaking with him because he obviously has a severe speech disability, I learned that he has lately been incorporating some limited and basic metrics into their rankings, such as class size, etc.) I have evaluated the various ranking methodologies and, in my opinion, the most comprehensive, professional, in-depth and reliable are those by Poets and Quants. The only “limitation” is that their specialty is business schools, undergraduate and graduate; that is all they evaluate and rank. Some rankings by other organizations are laughably flimsy and of such poor quality as to be worthless.
As to quality of the university OVERALL, I agree that UIUC and Wisconsin-Madison are better schools than IU in terms of admission profile. I really think IU administrators are “asleep at the wheel” when it comes to improving their “acceptance rate,” which is something like 75%. This is a turn-off for many would-be competitive applicants, and it certainly gave us pause when considering the university. They really MUST lower that acceptance rate. That said, as guidance counselors have told us for generations, you pick your college based primarily on the strength of the academic department you want to major in, not the overall university profile. In that respect, IU Kelley SOB is an outstanding undergraduate business school, ranked among the best of the best by multiple rankings. Their objective metrics are unassailable and commendable.
As far as “party” schools, there is partying going on at EVERY school, from Harvard, Columbia and Yale on down. I would suspect that the more academically rigorous the school the less there is, but this is only conjecture. And no where is there more partying than at all the sports conference schools with the hyperactive, whipped-up school spirit (football, basketball, etc. ), such as the big ten, and others. UIUC, Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana and many, many others are all culprits in this regard, and I think that splitting hairs on which school does more or less is an exercise in futility. I wish this partying culture were not so prevalent, and I can’t believe it has gone on for so long. I’ve had neighbors tell me, when I mentioned in casual conversation that my son was considering some Midwest (and other regional) sports conference schools, “Think twice about that, those schools are big party schools.” I, as a parent, take some comfort in the fact that our son will be in the honors college dorms, which, by all accounts I’ve read and heard, are more academic and studious in nature, with less distractions.
No one ever told me navigating the college admissions and selection process would be so fraught with anxiety and peril!
Do any of you know anything about Bentley University? I’m really torn between Kelley and Bentley. They’re both the same price for me. I want to work in the Boston area after graduation
@RamDass your paragraph on USNWR is entirely FALSE. USNWR publishes their criteria:
The 2017 U.S. News Best Colleges rankings, published online on Sept. 13, 2016, are based on up to 15 key measures of quality, outlined in the table below. U.S. News uses these measures to capture the various dimensions of academic quality at each college.
The measures fall into seven broad areas: undergraduate academic reputation (including peer assessment and, for the National Universities and National Liberal Arts Colleges categories only, high school counselors’ ratings); graduation and retention rates; faculty resources (class size, for example); student selectivity (for example, average admissions test scores of incoming students); financial resources; alumni giving; and graduation rate performance.
The indicators include both input measures, which reflect the quality of students, faculty and other resources used in education, and outcome measures, which capture the results of the education an individual receives.
Scores for each measure are weighted as shown below to arrive at a final overall score. A more detailed explanation of the ranking indicators and methods follows the table.
Ranking Indicator Weights
This table shows the relative percentage weights assigned to each of the ranking indicators and subfactors for the variables used in the 2017 Best Colleges rankings of National Universities, National Liberal Arts Colleges, Regional Universities and Regional Colleges.
Ranking Indicator National Universities and National Liberal Arts Colleges Indicator Weight Regional Universities and Regional Colleges Indicator Weight
Graduation and retention rates
22.5%
22.5%
Average graduation rate
80%
80%
Average first-year student retention rate
20%
20%
Undergraduate academic reputation
22.5%
22.5%
Peer assessment survey
66.7%
100%
High school counselors’ ratings
33.3%
0%
Student selectivity for the fall 2015 entering class
12.5%
12.5%
Acceptance rate
10%
10%
High school class standing in top 10%
25%
0%
High school class standing in top 25%
0%
25%
Critical reading and math portions of the SAT and composite ACT scores
65%
65%
Faculty resources for 2015-2016 academic year
20%
20%
Faculty compensation
35%
35%
Percent faculty with terminal degree in their field
15%
15%
Percent faculty that is full time
5%
5%
Student-faculty ratio
5%
5%
Class size
40%
40%
Financial resources
10%
10%
Financial resources per student
100%
100%
Alumni giving
5%
5%
Average alumni giving rate
100%
100%
Graduation rate performance
7.5%
7.5%
88JM19,
Thanks for the well wishes. Life is not without a few bumps in the road along the way!
You raise all valid points. I recall visiting the IU web page you cite, concerning their SOB size, and my memory may be wrong. I’ll have to check. However, my due diligence included many sources, including federal sources as well as third-party ones. I did have concerns about the size of the school and the possible negative aspects that could have, and I’ve made multiple calls to different administrators at IU about this and other topics. Their explanations I found to be credible and convincing. The bottom line: their student-faculty ratio is 17 to 1 (I believe the national average is about 15 to 1) which is about the same as the schools we are speaking about. Giving me more assurance in this regard were the stellar student and alumni satisfaction ratings pertaining to numerous factors of overall student experience at IU.
Believe me, I’ve spent much more time than I ever wanted to—or expected to—in this college search process, as I’m sure you have. So has my son, but trying to get certain candid information from colleges directly, or indirectly, is like trying to herd cats. They play it close to the vest and, I’m convinced, fudge and massage some of the numbers to their benefit.
We had serious concerns with some of the schools our son was accepted to, and in these cases we didn’t find out about some issues untill after he applied. For example, that NYU Stern students are viciously cutthroat (not the only school like this). Personally, I think this is because NYU has THE highest number of international students in the nation (that is one way they “goose” their stringent admission numbers: when you are cherry picking the best students from around the world, you can pump your numbers, which burnishes their “prestige.”) I think the downside of this is that when you have a very high number of students from different nations and cultures packed into a class, they bring certain expectations, habits and historical concepts of what college should be, and all to often, among these hyperconpetitive students (many from the Asian nations), it is about unsavory, perfervid, ethically-challenged competition. That is a hell of a lot of mental and cultural baggage clashing within a school. IU and some other schools, on the other hand, consciously incorporate in their campus culture the opposite of this: collaboration and cooperation, which is needed for the teamwork businesses rely on every day.
At UW, that (pardon my politically incorrect comment) crazy 1% governor they have has single-handedly done great damage to a once great (still excellent) university, with rampant and indiscriminate college budget slashing. We’ve read the articles in the general interest press about what he has done and how it has negatively affected the quality of education and morale of the faculty there—and what it portends. My wife, an educator, receives the teacher’s union literature from various organizations such as the NEA and UFT, etc., and what we’ve read there, from the horse’s mouth so to speak, about how the faculty at UW is leaving in droves (and other things not widely publicized) searching for jobs elsewhere, caused us to cross UW off our list (sorry UW fans). Too many headwinds there, and with Trump and the republicans in charge, too much risk.
Gotta cut my comments short right now, I have an appointment to keep. I’ll be back.
@Drizzy248 - I don’t know anything about Bentley. Boston College is reputed to have a very good business school with many ties to Wall Street.
CU123,
Yikes! Boy, did I goof. I’m (mostly) wrong and you are right. You win the cigar. Thanks for catching that. I don’t know how in tarnation I did that. Now that I’ve read what you posted I DO recall reading their methodology on their website probably in the last year or so, but I plumb forgot. A quick google search would have cleared that up. All I can say is that I HAVE read, many times–in articles, not forums–that the USNWR rankings were largely based on opinions of college administrators (and nearly a quarter of their current methodology does in fact use those opinions as well as those of guidance counselors), and these have been criticized as being not much more than subjective “beauty contests.” Perhaps they have changed their methodology, to include more metrics, over the last several years in light of the previous criticism, I don’t know. I earned myself the bonehead award of the day for that one. And I won’t blame my pain Meds for this.
88JM19,
To continue, I think of all the schools I’ve mentioned (that offered acceptances) in this thread’s posts, not just Kelley and UIUC and UW, we are making small distinctions when it comes to their undergrad business schools. Each will have minor pros and cons, but, in my opinion, any one of them would be a fine school. Each one is very selective and has an excellent reputation.
I’ve read a number of times that there are different tiers of schools; I recall that most experts put it at 3 to 5, and I most often have read 5 as being the most common. I’ve read that the top tier is the smallest and represents about the “best” 15-20 institutions (some might extend this to the top 25 at the most). The next highest tier, the second, is typically estimated to be much larger, representing about 100 schools give or take.
The schools we’ve mentioned would be considered Tier 2 schools. Considering there are approximately 2,500 four year colleges, you can see that the majority of schools are in the lowest three tiers.
Each school will have some regional job placement variations, but I think in the end the quality of the school shines through and a graduate (especially those higher in the graduating class) will place well anywhere.
@RamDass I agree that a student can get a very good education outside a Tier 1 school.
Our family was less concerned about prestige/rankings and more interested in opportunity, fit and outcomes. UIUC had a distinct advantage for our children.
Opportunity: strong academics, large, well-established study abroad, strong Chicago networking, strong, diverse student-run organizations, etc. Kelley has a lot of similar opportunities, but we believe the size of the classes (nearly double) would have a significant, negative impact on some of those opportunities. Plus we liked the strong engineering presence on the UIUC campus. We felt it would draw more companies looking to hire.
Fit: academically strong student body that seems more collaborative than cutthroat, favorable class size, a strong Chicago-area presence, familiarity, strong emphasis on campus involvement, job focused, etc.
Outcomes: strong placement in good Chicago area companies…as I shared in a previous post, approximately 75% of graduates end up employed in ‘Chicago’. Some might not see that number as a good thing, but I assure you, a lot of the students think it’s a great statistic…it’s my general impression (I could be wrong) that Chicago is a more favorable destination over Milwaukee, Indianapolis, Columbus, St. Louis, etc.
After saying all that, I still think Kelley is a very good school. My children really like the IU students they know. But for them UIUC has/is delivering the desired experience.