I plan to study finance undergrad. I’m from New Jersey so Im OOS at Kelley. I am a DA to Kelley and have not yet heard my RD at Lehigh. Taking cost out of the equation, I’d like to go to the best business school I can Any thoughts between these two schools?
They are both good options, but very different. Neither is clearly superior; you will have to figure out which is “the best business school” for you specifically.
Kelley is a very large business school (~ 6250 undergrads) at a huge university (~ 38,000 undergrads). For comparison, Lehigh has only ~ 5100 undergrads total, with only about 1300 in the College of Business. So there are more students in Kelley alone than there are in all of Lehigh. Very different campus atmospheres, which you should compare by visiting (if you haven’t done so already). IU undoubtedly has more activities, including big-time sports, and Bloomington is a fun college town. Lehigh is a much smaller, but perhaps more intimate, campus community, and it will obviously be much closer to your family and friends in NJ.
Since Kelley is much larger, and also has large graduate programs, they probably offer a greater variety of specialized courses. On the other hand, Lehigh probably has smaller classes and more personal attention from professors. Lehigh does not have a large MBA program; the business school is primarily oriented towards undergraduate teaching.
Lehigh has a strong regional reputation in the mid-Atlantic area, including NJ; in fact, more of their students come from NJ than any other state (even PA). If you plan to work in NJ or NYC, then Lehigh is a great choice. Kelley is obviously better known in the Midwest, and undoubtedly has a much larger alumni network nationwide, so it might be a better choice if you plan to ultimately relocate outside of the northeastern US.
Lehigh, as an institution, is more selective and prestigious than IU (as reflected by the significant difference in USNews ranking, 44 vs 86). However, Kelley is one of the most selective and prestigious parts of IU, so for business specifically this difference is not necessarily applicable.
Lehigh’s small size facilitates interdisciplinary study. If you wanted to declare a dual major or minor outside of the business school, in the school of arts & science or the school of engineering, there would probably be less red tape and more inter-school cooperation at Lehigh. For example, the business and engineering schools offer highly-regarded joint degree programs in business+computer science and business+engineering.
I think the most significant difference is going to be in the test scores of the students are quite a bit higher at Lehigh. I would also suspect that Lehigh graduation rates and placement rates are higher.