New BusinessWeek UG B-School Ranking

College Majors Business Major
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<p>So I’m deciding between Santa Clara U, U of San Diego, & Cal Poly San Luis Obispo for business major next year.</p>

<p>Any insight?</p>

<p>USD is 28th, however it barely has any reputation. Most people think it’s UCSD. However, it was ranked quite high. Great food / dorms. Been improving a lot on the rankings! Catholic - I’m Christian and prefer the Jesuit SCU, but it’s alright that it’s Catholic. New dean is dean from Dartmouth, they seem to be improving a lot. San Diego!</p>

<p>SCU is ranked 39th. Before it was number 3 a lot in CA, but now USD is beating it. However, it’s located in the heart of Silicon Valley. Great connections. Perfect campus in nice area. I like how it’s religious, yet at the same time very relaxed and just stresses compassion and ethics. Good alumni connections. Brand new business building. Great food / dorms.</p>

<p>Cal Poly SLO is ranked 64th. It’s been on an upward trend every year though. It’s ranked 11th by recruiters, and has a higher avg salary and SAT score compared to USD & SCU. Recruiters seem to like Cal Poly kids cus it’s “Learn By Doing”, which fits my learning personality, and they hit the ground running. It’s also A LOT cheaper. Budget cuts might affect the school though… but with the budget cuts, it was extremely hard to get into this year, and all the students will be more qualified compared to USD & SCU where it’s easier and they can just buy in. Sweet town too!</p>

<p>Right now I’m leaning on Cal Poly. But any advice? I think I want to focus on finance, but I’m not sure.</p>

<p>Thanks.</p>

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<p>I agree that Wharton is not slipping in standards, but other business schools have just been improving. Nevertheless, Wharton should still be number 1. Sloan and Haas should be right below it. </p>

<p>ND being number one is insane. It’s hardly even a top 10 school for business.</p>

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<p>I don’t think this is true. Both companies hire from other schools too.</p>

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<p>I know it is a fact:</p>

<p>I have proof. College graduates can only get analyst positions. On silver lake’s own site, every single analyst is from Wharton. They only recruit at Wharton and Wharton alone. That is cold hard proof. Make sure you get your facts right mate.<br>
[Silver</a> Lake](<a href=“http://silverlake.com/content.php?page=team&sortBy=title&sortDir=asc]Silver”>http://silverlake.com/content.php?page=team&sortBy=title&sortDir=asc)</p>

<p>To the top firms, Wharton is in a class in and of itself and I am talking about both business schools and non-business schools here. </p>

<p>In essentailly every single private equity shop Wharton has the most analysts. The same is true for essentially every BB, and essentially any top job you can think of in the financial industry. </p>

<p>But look, i really don’t care anymore. Everyone knows these rankings are tosh. I’m not going to bother even defending the school, its reputation speaks for itself.</p>

<p>Wharton compares itself to Harvard and vice versa, that’s it.</p>

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<p>^^^I agree. BusinessWeek’s ratings are trash. No school’s rating, unless there is a natural disaster, could change that much in one year. It’s totally obvious that their ratings are meant to sell magazines and attract clicks to their website. It’s a ploy that many newspapers are doing now as well trying to stay in business. Print media is dying in this country.</p>

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<p>P.S I am not putting any other schools down. I am merely stating that this ranking is obviously wrong, which it undeniably is.</p>

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<p>You realize for every recruiter from PE/IB who fills out a survey, there are probably at least 30 from Big4…thats also why ND gets so high as well as other respected accounting schools.</p>

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<p>Wharton is certainly not in a league of its own. To your silver lake argument, anyone with a basic knowledge of statistics (a prerequisite for success in the business world) will tell you that looking at only one firm provides a biased sample. Furthermore, upon examining the list closer, I was interested to find that wharton grads are far more scarce among the higher ranks (not a single director graduate from wharton). This either means that the amount of analysts joining wharton in that one year is a fluke, or wharton is not preparing its students to succeed, take your pick.
Your argument regarding number of billionaires makes no sense. Billionaires are typically made by a breakthrough that has a significant degree of luck involved. To examine 20 out of the tens of thousands of graduates, it seems difficult to conclude anything about the quality of a program. Finally, these billionaires have all graduated at least 15 years ago, which does not reflect the quality of the program over the past 15 years.
SAT statistics are not a reliable measure of the quality of a program. HYPSM regularly rejects 2400s, they could easily accept all of them and destroy wharton in this regard.
Finally, I know someone who got into Wharton EA. She “self studied” BC calculus and 6 other APs last year and got a five in all. She is know in my AP physics and BC calculus class and she is not doing well at all, she clearly does not understand the concepts, and I am outperforming her by 10% in both classes. If she got in, it can’t be that great a program</p>

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<p>^ not quite right, i see silver lake managing directors who are wharton grads</p>

<p>in any case, i remember when the head of barclays capital came to a presentation and told us that when they recruit, their first stop is the university of pennsylvania</p>

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<p>^ I was only looking at people with the title of director, didnt really have time to look through all ~50. And again, your example of barclays is only anecdotal evidence which can not be used to establish a base for the industry as a whole.</p>

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<p>Is the economic recession and the collapse of Wall Street enough of a “natural disaster?” :wink: That seems to explain why Wharton’s rankings have dropped and so has NYU.</p>

<p>Anyways, this ranking, while flawed, does boost the reputation of several schools that are other than Wharton. That I am happy about, although I must say this. If Wharton is truly the best, it either 1) wouldn’t really care about these rankings, or 2) improve other aspects of its program instead of putting most of its eggs in the IB basket. It would be very wise for the program to choose the latter, as IB isn’t as strong as it once was.</p>

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<p>Anil Ambani didn’t become a billionaire because he went to Wharton. He became a billionaire because his father (Dhirubhai Ambani) left him and his brother (Mukesh Ambani) a fortune. And guess what, most of Anil’s money is tied up in infrastructure based things like telecommunications, power plants and some retail. He isn’t tied up with the financial industry too directly. Moreover Anil is a Wharton MBA, not a Wharton BBA.</p>

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<p>Except Buffett transferred out to UNebraska for his Bachelors and got his MBA from Columbia. Buffett attended UPenn for only 2 years.</p>

<p>That said, I believe Wharton is a fantastic institution.</p>

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<p>Wharton does not have an EA program, so your personal anecdote is obviously a lie and is irrelevant. We have no way to verify that you are telling us the truth. Stop being so bitter and apply to transfer or something. </p>

<p>As for your SAT argument, Wharton rejects many people with 2400s if they accepted them all they could easily destroy HYPSM in this regard, obviously a stupid argument. The SAT is not the only indicator of academic strength, but it remains an indicator none the less. Wharton has a higher yield rate than all of HYPSM (which is very indicative of whether it is in a league of its own or not) and an acceptance rate on par with all of HYMPSM. You can’t say that about these other schools. And, sorry to burst your bubble, but Wharton out places HYPSM in the financial industry, at the undergraduate level particularly. Many Whartonites turn down YPSM in particular to go to Wharton, it is an even split with Harvard. </p>

<p>Wharton is reflected in the higher ranks, just look through the list more carefully. And Wharton has more kids in essentially every firm I just did not bother to show them all, here are a few others to satisfy you (as you can see Wharton is very well represented at all ranks, can’t say the same for any of these other schools. As has been proven, Wharton has alumni at all ranks and in all industries. Silver lake only recruits at Wharton. That is a fact, i cannot beleive you are so desperate that you even try say facts are down to pure chance:</p>

<p>[The</a> Team](<a href=“http://www.blackstone.com/cps/rde/xchg/bxcom/hs/businesses_aam_privateequity_team.htm?chunksize=10&chunk=1&teambios=&sortedby=Rank&sortorder=&displayArrow=false]The”>http://www.blackstone.com/cps/rde/xchg/bxcom/hs/businesses_aam_privateequity_team.htm?chunksize=10&chunk=1&teambios=&sortedby=Rank&sortorder=&displayArrow=false)</p>

<p>[KKR:</a> Team: Private Equity: Senior Executives: Kenneth Mehlman](<a href=“http://www.kkr.com/team/team_senior_members.cfm]KKR:”>http://www.kkr.com/team/team_senior_members.cfm)</p>

<p>And the fact that there is a significant amount of luck involved in becoming a billionaire is irrelavant because if the process is so random, but still certain schools produce a large number of billionaires, then all that shows is that that school is so good that it is able to produce graduates that achieve the impossible, not that 27 people became billionaires by chance and it had nothing to do with Wharton. </p>

<p>It is not like Wharton does not have the strongest programs in all the other fields as well, from finance to managment to accounting. It is just that Wharton graduates choose not to take the accounting jobs, though some do, because they have better options. It is not like ND is going to give you a leg up to get into an accounting job compared to Wharton. Wharton is also the strongest in: VC, PE, Hedge Funds (particularly), Consulting, and S&T among these business schools. It is an across the board kinda thing. Other business schools are good but Wharton is Wharton. You’re basically arguing that because Wharton grads take the top jobs instead of the average jobs that everyone can get, that makes their program weaker than another program that sends its kids onto average jobs ? If i said that McDonalds training program is better than ND because it sends more kids to Mcdonalds, and for every 1 acounting job there are 50 000 mcdonalds jobs, you would think I am crazy, the same applies here - just higher up the scale. Great logic. </p>

<p>But you guys are right, everyone knows this list is BS, why bother defending an institution as august as Wharton ? Kinda a waste of time and energy.</p>

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<p>I agree that ND is probably not a #1 BBA school. However, I do not believe in the argument that Wharton is in a league of its own. Sloan and Haas are just as good as Wharton. And the other top 10 schools (Michigan, Texas, Cornell, UVA) are solid top 10s. The top graduates from those top programs are just as good as Whartonites, some just choose to go in-state. I know plenty of McCombs Business Honors Program students who turned down a Wharton acceptance to go for the MBA styled BHP program at Texas for a fraction of the cost of UPenn, and arguably a better education.
One problem with Whartonites that lowers its ranking among recruitors is its elitism and air of arrogance. It is this attitude of “all other school are below us and I crap gold nuggets” that kafkareborn has that makes Wharton an unpleasant place to recruit at, despite the intellectual ability of the students.</p>

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<p>My father went to Wharton and I believe he does crap gold nuggets. My mother and sister both when to Penn and they too, crap gold nuggets. I went to Temple U. (I was lazy in H.S.) and it turns out my crap is just crap. ;)</p>

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<p>The whole financial industry is full of elitism. The recruiters themselves probably went to Wharton and other ivy schools. HYPSM kids also think that they are better than everyone else, it is not just Wharton. It is at any institution of high caliber. When you are at such schools, it obviously does get to your head. I never said sloan and haas were not great schools, they are. I was considering MIT Sloan and HYPSM when I was applying. What I was saying, which is undeniable, is that in the incredibly elitist world of finance, Wharton is number one with Harvard right behind, and then YPSM, and then other ivies, and then some of these BBA programs like Haas. That is a fact; there is no point deluding ourselves pretending it is not. Does williams provide a superb education? Of course. Will you have close interaction with your professors at Williams? ofcourse. Is Williams as good as Harvard in recruiters eyes? No. It is just a fact. Whether forbes ranks Williams above Harvard, or businessweek ranks ND or Sloan above Wharton. The fact remains that Wharton is Wharton and Harvard is Harvard and the ultra elite firms only recruit at these schools. More doors are open, smarter peers, etc. That is of course not to say that all other bba programs suck, they do not. But, like it or not that is the pecking order and it remains that way.</p>

<p>P.S the “league of its own” comment is not one I made up, its one that i’ve heard from people all over the industry use. Go to a bb bank and ask around, you’ll hear that corroborated. And I do not crap Golden nuggets, that is so ancient Egypt; I crap platinum rims.</p>

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<p>Kafka is right. Recruiters recruit from their Alma Matter. Most in Wall Street come from those “top ranked” schools, so that is where they go to recruit. It’s what they are familiar with. </p>

<p>If you’re in a regional school then you will get recruited by companies in your region. In Philadelphia they recruit from Wharton, Penn State, Temple U., Villanova, SJU, La Salle, etc. You have a chance at a fotrune 500 company after Temple U. because a lot of F500 company’s have their HQ’s in the area. Companies like Vanguard recruit from Temple.</p>

<p>Don’t give up because it appears that the stakes are against you. Some of the companies recruit only at elite schools because only students from those schools apply. If you give up without trying you’ll never get hired. They don’t want to hire someone who gives up so easily anyway. The business is hard. VC’s, PE’s, IB’s, etc. have more projects that fail than succeed and if you give up before you even get to school then they all know you’ll give up in practice. No one want to work with a looser when the pressure is on.</p>

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<p>You really need to check your facts. First off, wharton does have an early action program, [Penn</a> Admissions: Applying Early Decision](<a href=“http://www.admissionsug.upenn.edu/applying/early.php]Penn”>http://www.admissionsug.upenn.edu/applying/early.php) .
HYPSM clearly rejects more 2400s then wharton, that is shown by how harvard received 30,000 applicants this year while wharton only received 5500 applicants. You have not produced any data relating to cross admit at HYPSM.
As for your silver lake argument, if they only recruit at silver lake then why are there non-wharton grads in their senior ranks?
Your links do not prove anything for wharton grads in these companies. In the first one, looking at the first page there is only one wharton grad out of 10 senior managing directors. Your argument that top companies only recruit at top schools is not supported by the fact that there is a senior managing director who got his BS in finance from the university of buffalo [Our</a> People](<a href=“http://www.blackstone.com/cps/rde/xchg/bxcom/hs/firm_ourpeople_3793.htm]Our”>http://www.blackstone.com/cps/rde/xchg/bxcom/hs/firm_ourpeople_3793.htm) . Again for the KKR team, there is only one wharton grad out of nine directors… not an indication of dominance and certainly an indication that they recruit at other schools.
I will also repeat the link that you have ignored in stating the amount of billionaires that upenn as a whole has produced. [In</a> Pictures: Billionaire University - No. 3 University of Pennsylvania - Forbes.com](<a href=“http://www.forbes.com/2009/08/02/billionaire-study-harvard-stanford-business-billionaires-colleges-09-wealth_slide_4.html]In”>In Pictures: Billionaire University). Again, this is by no means a reliable measure of the strength of a program as you are looking at the success of people who graduated 15+ years ago, many went to grad school not undergrad, many inherited their money etc.
I can not believe you would have the audacity to say that finance jobs are as far above accounting jobs as accounting jobs are over mcdonalds jobs. Accounting is a fully respectable and needed business profession. You seem to be assuming that people will always choose finance jobs over accounting jobs because they pay more. Some people like accounting more then finance, so they will choose to enter this field. Its not like the top accounting majors regularly take finance jobs.
You honestly need to check your ego. I did not and will not apply to wharton, because I am choosing to develop my critical thinking schools to enter quantitative finance through a math degree. Another reason I am not going there is because I do not want to deal with people like you who ignore arguments and provide insufficient arguments with a mask of supreme ego and elitism.</p>

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<p>You are childish. Wharton has an early decision program not an early action program, so I was right about that. There is a difference, look it up. </p>

<p>By your logic, NYU with 40, 000 apps rejects more 2400s than Harvard and that makes it a better school because if NYU wanted they could fill their classes with 2400s. Clearly that is ■■■■■■■■. By all academic measures from SAT scores,to acceptance rates, to Yield, Wharton is roughly equal to or above HYPSM. You cannot counter that. No one has acess to the HYPSM cross admit rate, but this is based on commonly accepted knowledge. In the same way that I do not know the cross admit rate between Carnegie mellon and MIT but it is commonly known that MIT beats CMU for people looking to get into engeenering. </p>

<p>As for accounting vs PE/VC/HF/IB/ST … I am not even going to respond. Anyone who knows anything about this industry would find your arguments ridiculous. I was using hyperbole to illustrate my point, it is a technique used to help explain things for people too stubborn to understand simple fact. Research it. But from a monetary side of things you can make 170% to 200% in banking of what you would make in consulting. That scale is roughly the same as the salary for a manager at your local mcdonalds vs an accountant, but it was just a stupid example it was not supposed to be taken literally. The gap does exist though. Accounting is a good field, but it is not the most desired at top schools like Wharton, not by a long long long shot. SO to judge which school is the best based on how many kids they send into accounting is ludicrious. ND and UVA would probably beat Harvard as well. </p>

<p>I never said that non-target kids (i.e the guy from buffalo) do NOT get finance job; all I said, which is uncontrovertible, is that a far greater number get in from the top target schools: WHYPSM. For god’s sake, Buffett graduated from U of Nebraska after going to Wharton and he made it. BUT, in this industry going to a top target school like Wharton opens so many more doors for you and makes it easier to get in.</p>

<p>If you were paying attention, you would notice that I was talking about getting into Silver Lake STRAIGHT OUT OF UNDERGRAD. The only jobs you can get as an undergrad is an analyst, and they only go to Wharton to get their analysts. Sure they recruit Harvard and Wharton and other MBAs etc for other positions (which is why there are non-Wharton grads in senior ranks, duh!) but that is not for undergraduates. What I said was absolutely true: they ONLY take Whartonites straight out of undergrad. Before you try to refute an argument, make sure you know what the other person was saying before blabbing. </p>

<p>And as for the KKR thing, I counted 2 out of 9, learn how to count, only Harvard with 3 has more, and in both of the links i provided almost none of the other bba programs we were discussing were represented at all. :)</p>

<p>But to the rest of you, all I am saying is that yes, there are over obviously awesome schools out there, Haas, Sloan, etc. But businessweek is obviously wrong because Wharton is the top school in terms of representation out of undergrad on Wall Street and has higher caliber kids on average. (that is not to say just because someone went to wharton that htey are superior to the stern kid automatically - obviously that is foolish). But Wall Street is a very elitist place, if you don’t like it you better get used to it quick. Go wherever you go, work hard, and you can make it. </p>

<p>Good luck in life, you’ll need it. </p>

<p>You bore me, i’m outtie.</p>

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<p>I think this discussion is focusing too much on past prestige, and not enough on college life. The BW ranking takes that into consideration in the student happiness ranking.</p>

<p>Let’s face it, UG is about the college life as much as academics. If you focus too much on the academics, you’ll look back one day and wonder where your life went? Sure making 6 figures after bonuses in IB sounds attractive, but is it worth it after working 80-100 hour/week? How much is your per hour pay? The fact the Wharton isn’t in the top 10 list for the Student, Recruiter, and Internship ranking, speaks volumes for the type of student and the quality of life at Wharton.</p>

<p>At the end of the day, a degree is just a piece of paper. It’ll help you get that first job, but after that it’s all up to you. </p>

<p>In high school, all you learn is to compete for the top spot, prove you are the best. But later in life, after pulling long work weeks, you’ll learn (or maybe not) that life is so much more. It’s about being happy. Being able to come home at the end of the day and not be completely exhaust. Having time to do your hobbies. Not dreading the Sunday nights. That isn’t to say to settle for mediocrity, but you can be successful in your own way. Working in a “prestigious” position doesn’t necessarily translates to person success/happiness. </p>

<p>At end of the day, it is about what brings your happiness. Then again, if only money brings you happiness, then go for it. Gun for that position at all cost.</p>