<p>Here's my dilemma: I wanna end up in business, but I'm unsure of which path I'll take to get there. Currently I'm interested in undergrad business/entrepreneurship/economics, and I know that all of these are great at research universities such as the Ivies/Stanford/UChicago, etc. But what about liberal arts colleges? I really like the community vibe that many seem to have, but I'm not sure about whether it's worth going there to study business/economics. Does anyone have any insight into this? I'm considering top liberal arts colleges, by the way. Thank you.</p>
<p>Top liberal arts colleges are just as great.</p>
<p>“Business” is a very broad field, and you do not have to major in business (or economics) to go into business. What do you mean by business? There are retail businesses, food service, financial services, market research, advertising, technology firms, healthcare corporations, etc. All of those businesses have corporate offices and managers who do that kind of work for them.</p>
<p>The short of it is yes, you can go into the corporate world from a liberal arts college - especially a top liberal arts college. Before the market crash, several of my classmates from my SLAC went to work on Wall Street at Merrill Lynch, Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Lehman Brothers; even after the crash, my freshman year roommate works at JPMorganChase (we graduated in 2008). And I went to a great but mid-ranked SLAC. Top SLACs are often recruiting hotspots for top consulting firms and i-banking firms, and in my experience not just the economics majors go on to do this. I was a grad student at an Ivy (so not a SLAC) but I observed a psychology major go to work at a marketing firm and an English major go work at Forbes.</p>
<p>What you do in college is more important than your major. An art history major could theoretically take classes in mathematical finance and do summer internships and end up working in the financial services department of Christie’s (or on Wall Street). Many CEOs of tech firms (Tim Cook, Melissa Mayer, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Gianni Rometty, Jeff Bezos) majored in engineering or computer science in undergrad. Several others (Sheryl Sandberg, Steve Ballmer, Jeffrey Immelt, Dominic Barton) studied economics and/or applied mathematics. A.G. Lafley (CEO of Proctor & Gamble) got his BA from Hamilton College; Samuel J. Palmisano, former CEO at GE, majored in history at JHU. Kenneth Chenault (CEO of Amex) majored in history at Bowdoin.</p>
<p>You may be interested in Babson College, which is a liberal arts college focused on business located near Boston.</p>
<p>As @juillet notes, business is a broad field. </p>
<p>Many, many graduates of small LACs end up with successful business careers, whether they study business, economics, or something totally different. Really, whatever interests you: English, political science, biology.</p>
<p>The key is to get decent grades and to get a headstart on your post-graduate job by building your resume with internships and summer jobs during and networking with alumni/ae and visiting experts in your field.</p>
<p>Businesses – all of them – hire generalists who have good oral and written communication and presentation skills; good interpersonal, collaborative skills; good analytical thinking and problem solving skills. This is exactly what small LACs excel at. </p>
<p>The other advantage of small LACs is that your professors will know you personally and will continue to write compelling letters of recommendation for jobs and for graduate schools, long after graduation. The alumni/ae networks can be active and supportive and the career counseling accessible and knowledgeable.</p>
<p>Top LACs like Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, Wesleyan, Bowdoin, Middlebury etc., etc., are well represented on Wall Street, at consulting firms and multinational corporations. Though the focus and environments are somewhat different, Williams, Wesleyan and Swarthmore have excellent economics programs.</p>
<p>Have you seen this list? <a href=“Forbes America’s Top Colleges List 2022”>http://www.forbes.com/top-colleges/list/</a></p>
<p>Another LAC with good academics that offers a business degree is Bentley.</p>
<p>holy cross has many ceo’s among its alumni.</p>
<p>What is a SLAC? I know what LAC stands for… but have not seen the S out here before.</p>
<p>^^I would guess “small” but I could be wrong.</p>
<p>If you feel a LAC environment would work best for you then it is worth pursuing. Most LACs have economics but that is different from business. Economics is a liberal arts degree while a business program will have you take a business core with classes like finance, accounting, business law, etc. along with having a business major. It is a matter of what you want to do. </p>
<p>Few LACs have business programs (URichmond, Bucknell are two that I know of offhand which do have business schools) but a number of mid–sized universities such as Notre Dame, Lehigh, BC, William and Mary (to name just a couple) do have business schools and might work for you.</p>
<p>Since LACs are known for their small size, I doubt SLAC stands for a small LAC. </p>
<p>Anyway, Babson is rather famous for its entrepreneurship programs and business focus. Only complaint about it is that it may be too focused on business. However, if you’d like to learn fully the journey of entrepreneurship and maintaining a business, this is a great school for you. They like to brag that they’ve been ranked #1 in entrepreneurship for over, I think, 17 years now. </p>
<p>Another one is CMC, which, while is famous for its Economics, Government, and Philosophy programs, is also more business focused than most other Liberal Arts. It has an Econ-Accounting program, which you may be more interested in. They’re also building a MA finance program, which may or may not be great because it’s fairly new. </p>
<p>Babson is a good suggestion. You might also take a look at Claremont McKenna as a lot of those econ students are business oriented and they reportedly have good placement, but you are in a great liberal arts consortium. If you look at Chicago closely, yes there is a large research uni, but the undergrad college is relatively small (pop 5,600( nd liberal arts based. Also small undergrad focused Ivies such as Dartmouth in particular seem to send a lot of students into business, and look at Brown’s BEO program where you will can get a rich liberal arts education but the entrepreneurship program has some coursework in the engineering dept.</p>
<p>I don’t see U of Chicago, even with recent changes, as a great pipeline into business.</p>
<p>I’m currently looking into Babson, Williams, Bowdoin and Pomona. Thanks for the CMC suggestion, as many seem to agree with you, Woandering. I’m also considering Amherst and Carleton. What is the job placement like for these seven colleges? Carleton in particular seems a bit isolated from business hubs.</p>
<p>@Lindisfarne Seeing as they’re all top colleges, I’d assume they have excellent job placement. </p>
<p>LACs in general prepare you to a “life of learning” and critical thinking, which will theoretically help you in most situations and career paths. What are you looking for exactly? The skills of a manager/accountant/banker or just a path to a successful career in general business? If the latter, LACs fit your goal, but if it’s the former, you’re better off looking for mid-size universities, although larger ones would usually be better. </p>
<p>LACs in general are not known for teaching technical skills, and you don’t have much of a choice when you attend one. (CMC and Babson are notable exceptions, as are a few others.) If you want to learn how to prepare accounting documents, the best ways to market a product, or other similar skills, most LACs don’t have the courses. You’ll definitely need a larger school, and schools like Wharton are the best here.</p>
<p>If you want to learn how to be a leader, how to motivate others, how to solve problems, an LAC will do just as well as a larger university. In this case, it’s down to fit, but you won’t be learning as much technical business skills such as accountancy and marketing. </p>
<p>S in SLAC generally means Selective.</p>
<p>What about Villanova? They are about 6500 students,have both Liberal arts school and a Business school. They offer an Economics degree in both the Business school and the Liberal Arts school.</p>
<p>Washington and Lee has a separate business school with a good reputation. Even without separate school, know l lots of kids there that have had great internships in business. Interesting spring term class in entrepreneurship where one group explored idea of using 3D printer for prosthetics (and then got some grant $ after graduation to actually do that abroad).</p>
<p>Babson and Holy Cross were over-represented among Boston area companies. Holy Cross has a long tradition of great alumni network-from Wall Street to corporations.</p>
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All of the colleges on your list excel at placing their students in summer jobs and internships. The name of the college or the presence of recruiters alone will not guarantee a good job. You have to build your resume and network with alumni/ae in your area of interest.</p>
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There are no shortage of businesses in the midwest. 
All small liberal arts colleges are somewhat regional in internships and name recognition, but the top rated, academically rigorous schools like Carleton are known well enough by HR departments on both coasts.</p>
<p>@intparent & @ConfusedMorninMA & @Woandering - yes, the “s” in SLAC stands for “small” or “selective.” When I use the term I usually use the “s” to mean both to a certain extent. LACs are known for their small size, but the “s” is still descriptive. A lot of academics use the term and I picked it up from them.</p>
<p>I think the way @Woandering put it is important.</p>
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<p>While most (S)LACs will have information on their website and at meet and greets about their job placement rates, the career services office, where their alumni are, etc - because they know that parents and prospectives want to hear it - the main focus during your 4 years of education isn’t going to give you specific skills to tackle specific business problems. The focus, instead, is to get you to think critically and in an integrative away about problems; to teach you how to teach yourself; to motivate you to approach problems from multiple angles, synthesizing large amounts of information from different, diverse fields. The advantage to this is that business leaders must use this kind of thinking in order to be successful. And this is what businesses want - graduates who can think critically, who have excellent written and oral communication skills, who can collaborate and communicate with people who didn’t share their major or broad field. So you won’t learn to balance the books directly at most LACs, but you’ll learn the more abstract “soft skills” that used to be the cornerstone/point of a college education everywhere.</p>
<p>Ah… so a “less selective” liberal arts college (say, college 100 on the USWR list) doesn’t do those things? And they are pretty much all ‘small’. Doesn’t seem like it adds anything useful to put the S on the front… My kid works for a higher education consulting company (has for a few years) in their research division. She has never heard the term.</p>