Looking at class profiles from Stanford Business School, Wharton, UChicago, Harvard, and Columbia, a large chunk of their students majored in either Humanities/Social Science as opposed to business/econ/finance.
In general, how does this work? A few more specific questions:
What classes did they take?/What did they specifically study within Humanities or Social Science? What jobs did they get in between undergrad and grad?
Mind you, I’m still a high school senior and know very little about undergrad to graduate connections, so apologies if this is a silly question.
MBA is a degree that was initially created (about 50 years ago) for the employees of some Fortune 500 companies who did not have business training. These employees had diverse education background: engineering, humanities, you name it. As a result, the first year’s MBA education is more about business foundation classes: intro functional courses such as accounting, finance, operations, marketing, etc.
In a nut shell, undergraduate major is not that important. In contrast, there are a few styled facts about elite MBA admission: (1) Their students tend to have strong working experiences, such as employed by Boston Consulting, Blackstone, Goldman Sacks, Google, etc. (2) this of course is highly correlated with their undergraduate institution’s reputation; that is, if you have an undergraduate degree from Harvard, it makes your life much easier getting into Harvard MBA or Stanford MBA. (3) Their undergraduate GPA and GMAT score also play a role.
Also note that the professional path via a business school is quite different from the other professional graduate schools. Most MBA students at elite schools have about 2-4 years’ quality working experience. Of course, there are exceptions as well. There are some programs trying to get the best undergraduate students right out of the gate, such as Harvard’s 2+2 and Yale’s 2+1 program.
One can get into a top MBA program with any background. No specific undergraduate coursework or work experience is necessary. My H went to Wharton for a MBA and his classmates did include people who had worked in business but also there was an air force pilot, on opera singer, engineers, and people with many other backgrounds in his class. The common threads for a top tier MBA program are: high undergraduate grades, high GMAT scores, 2-5 years minimum of meaningful work experience, strong application (including essays, LOR etc.)
But you are a senior on HS. You should be focusing on your undergrad college, not grad school at this point. Don’t get too far ahead of yourself.
When I was at Wharton undergrad there were many MBA students with engineering degrees. Wharton did not encourage business majors to apply to the program. If your undergrad business degree isn’t enough, why go that route?
^^^As someone with a BS from Wharton and a long and successful career in business, I beg to differ. I find the comment above to be inflammatory, untrue, and uncalled for.
And the fact is that many undergraduate business majors do benefit greatly by attending a MBA program. For exaple my H was a CPA (from Notre Dame - a strong undergraduate business school) had multiple years of Big 4 experience and went back to Wharton for a MBA in finance. He found his graduate work invaluable in helping to propel him to CFO roles (which required a greater knowledge of the Treasury function than he previously had.) MBA student who have business undergraduate degrees can typically waive out of some of the intro level classes on material they had previously covered, freeing them up to take more upper level courses in a new area.
“As someone with a BS from Wharton and a successful career, I beg to differ. I find the comment above to be untrue and uncalled for.”
I was unclear (typing while D was driving, bad idea). My comment was merely directed to the OP - why get an undergraduate business degree if you are planning to go for an MBA? Far more useful to branch out into almost anything else. But even with a business degree, an MBA is certainly beneficial, your H makes the case for that.
And what I said WAS true, when I was at Wharton, we were discouraged from applying to MBA programs - after all, what was the point of going to Wharton undergrad? I did a finance concentration and was able to pass the the CPA exam with only 12 hours of accounting. Not many undergraduate schools teach at that depth.
To answer OP: MBA’s want evidence of strong writing, quantitative or abstract thinking, in-depth knowledge of a subject, intellectual engagement.
Unfortunately, MOST business programs are the opposite. Research shows the business majors wrote less, read less, engaged in less difficult /abstract content. The exception is a few top undergraduate business schools, such as Mendoza, Wharton, Stern, Ross,… where the students basically double major in the liberal arts and business, and receive in-depth, fast-paced instruction. These business majors are seen as positively as ‘traditional’ majors by elite MBA 's.
Another reason is that the MBA program doesn’t want to be a repeat of undergrad. In addition, a diversity of profiles (academic and professional) is necessary for a well - balanced class.
What classes should you take in college?
Calculus 1+2, statistics/applied math/data analytics as much as you can (and/or philosophy); enough foreign language to spend a semester abroad and perhaps intern there; classes or experiences with a diversity focus; a Leadership class, some CS or computational or digital media class. You could major in anything as long as you are really good at it and add a business certificate.
Make sure you attend Career Center Workshops as early as freshman year, have a clean, professional resume, plan your first internship in October sophomore year.
Do not overdo it first semester freshman year - take 14-16 credits and plan on spending at least two hours outside of class for each class period (more if you’re a slow reader - you can help yourself by reading every day every time there’s a line).
Keep partying tobthe weekends, never Sunday-Thursday.
Go to office hours early in the semester - do not wait till two days before midterms. Spend time getting to know your professors, they’re experts in their subject and will gladly help someone who shows interest for it.
Go to Activities Fair and attend the first meetings for any club that sounds interesting, then cull.
“Unfortunately, MOST business programs are the opposite. Research shows the business majors wrote less, read less, engaged in less difficult /abstract content. The exception is a few top undergraduate business schools, such as Mendoza, Wharton, Stern, Ross.”
I would like to know the methodologies leading to such conclusion.
Now I offer a quasi-experiment whose results show quite the opposite. In terms of writing, speaking, and reading in English, which group of students has the most difficulty? In today’s American universities, most administrators and undergraduate faculty members will tell you: “Chinese students.” Note that I do not make a personal judgement here; I simply tell you what they said.
Among all the majors, the graduation rate of Chinese students is the lowest in Business (at least this is what happened in my university). Why? Chinese students will tell you that business education comes with the highest language hurdle for them. For them, the language hurdle in other academic units is lower.
Another example that I can use to challenge the above statement is that in many business programs students are required to take a course called Business Communication. The title of the course makes it quite clear that communication and the use of language is important in business. So we have a course for it. Now, tell me that there is a such required course in say engineering?
MBA is a professional degree. That is, you need it when your professional career is at the juncture that it can enhance your professional prospect. Take consulting profession as an example. After an undergraduate education and 2 years’ working experience, you are not satisfied with the rank of Analyst anymore. You want to be promoted to the Associate rank. Say your company really like you and wants to pay your MBA tuition in exchange for returning back to the same firm and promoting to the Associate rank after your MBA education. This is one of the reasons why people do an MBA. This situation applies to all rising employees regardless whether their undergraduate major is in business/economics or not.
Because MBA is designed for career advancement and promotion, its curriculum is directly related to leadership and management. This differentiates it from undergraduate business education. Therefore, undergraduate business background can benefit from MBA education.
In some MBAs, they are structured in a way such that it is a two-year program for those who do not have a business undergraduate major and a 1-year program (waving foundation courses) for those who have a business undergraduate major.
Actually, any accredited ABET engineering program has required English classes (typically: Composition, Communication, and Applied to Profession).
And Chinese students may not have more trouble in business because it’s harder, but because the weaker students apply to business rather than CS or engineering, or because they’re stronger at STEM subjects than other subjects. In addition, it’d be difficult to compare cohorts of Chinese students majoring in International Relations, Russian, or Philosophy, because there aren’t as many.
Anyway… OP isn’t Chinese, and isn’t asking about executive MBAs, but strictly as to why elite MBAs tend to (relatively) prefer Humanities/Social Sciences majors to Business majors in their admissions. I’d add that they currently really like Math/Applied Math/CS majors, especially Stanford.
Pretty much all undergraduate students are required to take English course(s) from English department regardless of your major. I was talking about a required language/communication course offered from the Business unit (widely required or offered) vs. a required one say from the Engineering unit (I do not think it exists).
You are correct that there is an element of possible self-selection among Chinese students. That was the reason I used the word “quasi-experiment.” Now I give you another piece of weak evidence. In the school where I teach, over the years we have quite a few Chinese students who could not handle our expectation (particularly on the amount of reading and the quality hurdle of writing). I advised many of them transferring to other majors within my university. Many of them improved their performance. A universal theme from their experience is that they tend to do well on those subjects requiring less amount of interdisciplinary applications because they require less amount of articulation. Business education, on the other hand, requires a higher degree of interdisciplinary articulation which imposes difficulties on Chinese students. One clear example of high degree of interdisciplinary articulation can be found in a typical business education: the capstone business class in the senior year. Actually, in many lower-level business classes, interdisciplinary articulation is already an essential element.
Now back to OP’s question. As I stated earlier, elite MBAs do not really prefer any group in term of undergraduate major. For example, business/economics majors account for about 15% of Ivy league students (most ivy leagues do not have a business school). If you look at the student profiles of elite MBAs, you will notice that the percentage of MBA students who have an undergraduate business/economics major is actually higher than 15%. I believe it is somewhere around 25-35%.
@ollie113 To clarify, the comment I found offensive was not yours, but rather the comment calling undergraduate business majors “a dime a dozen.” But when I was at Wharton we were not encouraged or discouraged from looking into MBA programs when the time was right – hopefully each person can figure out for him or herself if a MBA would be truly beneficial to a career. H chose to pursue that route, I did not go to grad school and it worked out well for both of us.
@prof2dad: I find the comments you referenced to from university administrators and faculty members and your own university to be stereotyping Chinese and to some extent, Asians. Also, I find these comments to be borderline racist. If you had stated foreign born Chinese, I can buy into it. However, these are comments said and does not appear to be published from some study, which is why I believe the comments are somewhat white racist comments.
As for American born Chinese or Chinese raised in the US, this is not the norm. In the West Coast, the top undergraduate business schools or business programs have a significant number (at least 25%) of Chinese and Asians. These undergraduate business schools I am referring to are: UC Berkeley’s Haas, USC’s Marshall and the University of Washington’s Foster. Also add UCLA’s business economics to the list (UCLA does not have an undergraduate business school). All these schools require business communications to graduate. In addition they require the calculus which many engineering or health science majors take. Many business schoos do not require that or some watered down calculus call business math. In these top West Coast schools, many international Chinese and Asian are in STEM programs. Some US born or US raised Chinese and Asians are also in STEM programs and many are in business programs. Chinese and Asian students who are admit to UC Berkeley, USC, UW and UCLA are from the crème of the crop or the high achievers (I am not including Stanford or Cal Tech). Some chose STEM and others chose business. Many who chose business strive in that area. Many go on to work at prestigious firms and subsequently top MBA programs.
I know a few US raised Chinese/Asians who chose business because the money, from getting hired into investment banking (Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Blackrock, etc.) without an IVY League MBA, is greater than the money from health professions or STEM professions. Many others are hired into consulting firms, the Big 4, etc.
You mentioned low business graduation rate for Chinese at your university. It must be a lower ranked school in the Midwest that does not attract the smartest Chinese students, whether from an international country or domestic.
@prof2dad: I find the comments you referenced to from university administrators and faculty members and your own university to be stereotyping Chinese and to some extent, Asians. Also, I find these comments to be borderline racist. If you had stated foreign born Chinese, I can buy into it. However, these are comments said and do not appear to be published from some study, which is why I believe the comments are somewhat white racist comments.
As for American born Chinese or Chinese raised in the US, this is not the norm. In the West Coast, the top undergraduate business schools or business programs have a significant number (at least 25%) of Chinese and Asians. These undergraduate business schools I am referring to are: UC Berkeley’s Haas, USC’s Marshall and the University of Washington’s Foster. Also add UCLA’s business economics to the list (UCLA does not have an undergraduate business school). All these schools require business communications to graduate. In addition, they require the same calculus which many engineering or health science majors take. Many business schools do not require that and instead require some watered down calculus called business math. In these top West Coast schools, many international Chinese and Asian are in STEM programs. Some US born or US raised Chinese and Asians are also in STEM programs and many are in business programs. Chinese and Asian students who are admit to UC Berkeley, USC, UWash and UCLA are from the crème of the crop or the high achievers (I am not including Stanford or Cal Tech, which do not have undergraduate business schools). Some chose STEM and others chose business. Many who chose business strive in that area. Many go on to work at prestigious firms and subsequently top MBA programs.
I know a few US raised Chinese/Asians who chose business because the money, from getting hired into investment banking (Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Blackrock, etc.) without an IVY League MBA, is greater than the money from health professions or STEM professions. Many others are hired into consulting firms, the Big 4, etc.
You mentioned low business graduation rate for Chinese at your university. It must be a lower ranked school in the Midwest that does not attract the smartest Chinese students, whether from an international country or domestic.
I knew this might come up. To be clear, I meant international undergraduate students from China whose first language is not English. The reason I only mention one nationality is because the number of Chinese students far exceeds the number of all other international students from different countries. The low graduation rate of undergraduate Chinese students has been widely discussed in popular press, such as USA Today. (In contrast, graduate Chinese students have very high graduate rate.) I think you are aware of it, right? I also mention in my earlier post that I was simply telling you what administrators and faculty members were saying. It did not entirely represent my view.
I am a Chinese (I hate to disclose my ethnic identity because it should play no role in sharing information). English is not my first language (you should be able to spot typos and grammar errors here and there from my earlier posts). I did not receive my undergraduate education in the U.S., either. Because of my nationality and my language proficiency in Chinese, I have been the lead academic advisor for our international undergraduate students, most of them are Chinese.
My university is a top 100 university by the US News and World Report. The location is not in the Midwest, either. The way you put it: “your university. It must be a lower ranked school in the Midwest that does not attract the smartest Chinese students, whether from an international country or domestic.” It is quite stereotyping, isn’t it?
Now, what is wrong with stereotyping. I am a liberal, but I am not interested in being politically correct because I like to think I am a well-trained social scientist and think independently. Stereotyping is about an average phenomenon; thus, by construction, we should not over-generalize it to every person/subject. Stereotyping is wrong per se only if the average phenomenon it tries to describe is simply not true. As a matter of fact, we all use stereotyping in our daily life because it reflects our experience or perception.
I love my Chinese students and many of them graduated with a good job and even more of them went on to a graduate school. But at the same time, it cannot change the reality that on average they perform at a lower level at many U.S. universities for whatever reasons. My students knew it. We (administrators and faculty at my university) also work very hard to address the issue.
PrimeMeridian, there are more than one school of thoughts on business education, or more generally higher education. The article you quoted came from a more traditional liberal arts school of thought. I am personally very fond of this school of thought. My S is attending a liberal college housed in a national university. The reality, however, is pushing away higher education from this traditional school of thought for a couple reasons.
One reason is that professional educations, including engineering and business, have became more and more specialized and required earlier exposure at the undergraduate level. If you are fine with the idea that an engineer spend about half of his/her undergraduate study in engineering subjects, then you should also consider the possibility that an aspiring business person will need to spend about half of undergraduate study in business subjects. A by-prodcut of this specialization in business is that more and more students obtain a master of science degree in business instead of a more general MBA today.
Another reason is that some employers have found that an undergraduate degree is sufficient (MBA is fine but not really needed). For example, some investment banks have abandoned their expectation of a MBA degree toward various levels of promotion. Even in the consulting business, some firms are willing to promote someone with an undergraduate degree. Things are changing. As some people may tell you, “MBA is dying.” Of course, this is not entirely true since elite MBAs are doing very well, if not better. At the same time, the reality is that at lower levels, MBA recruiting is much more difficult today.
Perhaps the most important reason is that undergraduate business education is not 20% “glut.” Overall, undergraduate business placement has been very steady and strong over the past many decades. That is the reason why business enrollment has been strong; business students are on average far smarter than you thought and do not make their professional decisions lightly. If you go to any university, you will surely find quite a few students change their majors into a business one after they had a better understanding of the potential placement of their initial major; but rarely the other way around.
Finally, I am not saying a business major is a better choice. It is one of many choices that one can make and it is not “glut” in terms of the societal need.
PrimeMeridian I would suggest that the WSJ includes lines that should not be quoted out of context.
The crux of that article you cited is that b-schools are recognizing that its undergraduates also need to also have strong liberal arts backgrounds and that many b-schools are adjusting the curriculum to insure that this happens. I agree that this should be the case. Nobody wants a b-school graduate that can’t read or write well. As noted in the article, my alma mater Wharton has about 50% of the undergraduate classes in the liberal arts and my S studied business at a Jesuit college where he also received an extensive liberal arts education. Over the course of a 4 year college experience, there is time to have both a liberal arts background and a strong b-school education – that (not that undergraduate b-school majors are useless) is the crux of what the article you cited is saying.
My H, my S and I are all doing quite well as part of the “20% glut” thank you. However, students who do poorly at low level programs will not find the same success (hence the “glut”) – but isn’t that true of virtually any type of program/major.