We were particularly interested in Skidmore’s business undergraduate program, which seems relatively rare for a NE LAC (some Southern LACs like WandL, Trinity U and Rhodes have it). S would benefit from small classes and Div III sport. Seems unusually large and deep in offerings and track as well. Has anyone researched it and/or experienced it first hand in some depth? Does it have a strong alumni base in NYC and/or finance?
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In case it’s of use:
Can also be found at Dickinson, Denison, st Olaf, Susquehanna, Marist, UPuget Sound, DePauw.
Skidmore’s program seems less developed than either the one at Dickinson or Denison.
Mb107 is well thought out. Double majors are offered woth Germen, Frenxh, Spanish, and Political science.
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Muhlenberg, Bucknell, and URichmond are also worth looking into.
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Thanks; I could not find full business majors at Denison and Dickinson. I only found a pre-business track at Dickinson and a Global Commerce major at Denison. Did you have have different programs in mind or were thinking of those?
Bucknell and Richmond are Div I sports; will check out Muhlenberg.
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https://www.stlawu.edu/business-liberal-arts/major-requirements
Lots of merit scholarship awards.
Lots of athletes (D-III except Ice Hockey is D-I).
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International Business and Management is one of Dickinson’s most popular majors.
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Denison has Global Commerce which is an interdisciplinary major. Also has concentration in Financial Econ within the Econ major, and the Organizational Studies program which requires assorted interdisciplinary classes, including Organizational Psychology, plus a summer intensive business/consulting program. Those options, plus strong Data Analytics and CS majors, means students can do very well in post-grad.
Dickinson’s International Business & Mgmt major seems to describe itself as more of a traditional business major, and includes classes such as Fundamentals of Business and Global Marketing. Dickinson’s program also requires higher level foreign language (as does Denison’s Global Commerce) plus internship experience.
I took a look at Skidmore’s Business and Mgmt major page and have to admit, it’s pretty difficult to navigate – I can understand asking for advice from anyone who might have gone through the program!
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I would be very careful about choosing an LAC for a business major. I am a undergrad business student at a top 15 university, and I was admitted to top LACs like W&L and Carleton last year. Business as a major is the antithesis of what liberal arts colleges stand for. You are taught what it takes to get a job and the objective skills for that job and then you’re off. Sure, you could argue that business strategy is “critical” and “creative,” but I can promise you it’s not similar in any regard to the true liberal arts. If you want an LAC experience and are interested in going into business, try economics. Most of the top LACs have connections in business from their alumni network, and many of my friends at LACs are landing internships at finance firms.
Babson College is a business school and competes at the Div III level. Brandeis and RPI are small universities which offer business programs and compete at Div III.
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@Bill_Marsh thanks for your reply. I checked the Wesleyan website and did not see a business administration major. Where did you find it?
The poster may have mistakenly referred to Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia which has about five (500) hundred full-time students and has about 92% female enrollment.
Reminds me of a student who–about a decade ago–received an unsolicited application waiver from Cornell College (Iowa) and found it hard to believe that an Ivy was so seemingly desperate for applications.
Portland, Oregon versus Portland, Maine type mistake.
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I’m wrong. Sorry. My bad.
I’d second Babson and if a DII mid sized university might work look into Bentley as well.
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And I second Bentley as well. I thought of it too, but it’s not D III.
D’s boyfriend was a very successful business / econ student and athlete at Skidmore. We also know other kids well who graduated from the B program.
They take it seriously, it’s well attended and the kids are placed. It’s going to be hard getting an analyst spot at Goldman unless you are at a tippy tippy top school. Same with McKinsey. You’ll hear people from other schools say they place kids at Goldman, Morgan Stanley, etc., but you have to ask, ‘doing what?’ Private wealth management and those kinds of jobs are not that hard to get. It’s sales. I’m not denigrating it, but it is not the same as being recruited into a selective ibank’s analyst program.
Skidmore sends kids to the big 4, into banking and into consulting every year in healthy numbers from what we’ve been able to tell. My potential future SIL was certainly placed well and recommends the program. Are they placing kids at McKinsey and Boston Consulting or for Goldman analyst roles with regularity? I don’t think so, but stand to be corrected. It is a place from which you can launch, however. For finance in the LAC world, I’d peg it a click below Middlebury, Williams and some other tippy top LACs who send kids to elite Wall St posts regularly. But apparently the Skidmore network is thriving and only getting better, so there’s that.
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Thanks for the helpful response. I have started following Skidmore’s CDC on Instagram and they do post quite often about placements and internships. Would greatly appreciate if you could please ask your future SIL re his views on the academic depth of the Business program and level of curriculum requirements outside the business major; and whether he thinks he would have been better off attending an undergraduate business school program like the ones available at Villanova, BC, CMU, etc.
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Yeah, you make some good points here. I’ll admit, if your goal is to be an accountant and get recruited into assurance work, it really doesn’t matter where you go to school … they don’t care. Honestly, they don’t - they recruit regionally based on where the office need is. For the EY Las Vegas office, they recruit heavily at UNLV, which is not exactly an academic power house.
But you do need to have taken the accounting track and many of the kids will sit for the CPA because they’re ready to do so. Kinda hard to prep for that at Williams or Middlebury.
If you want to be at the tippy top of finance and consulting, it’s best to go with the name schools that feed those places. McKinsey doesn’t interview everywhere. Nor does Goldman. So it depends on which LAC. Williams and Middlebury have worn a path to Wall Street and so if you want high finance, it would be better to hit those two, and several other LACs as well (including, btw, W&L), over many, many well respected larger universities.
The thing I think you’re missing here is that Skidmore doesn’t have a pretend LAC version of a business program. It’s a business program. I don’t think you can do a full accounting track, but if you want finance, consulting, etc., they offer a good course selection and are producing kids who are being placed. It’s definitely not the accidental one-off every three years kind of thing. From first hand experience, they’re sending kids to competitive job placements annually.
And even w/o the business program, I think the pendulum is going to swing back to “we are recruiting brains, not what you learned in Marketing 101.” I’ve been a business lawyer for years, and have managed large functions in F500 companies. Other than for the accounting function, people coming out of school for ‘business’ aren’t doing well because of the business curriculum as much as because they’re smart.
So, for me? Yeah, I’m going to hire a smarty pants econ/math kid from Wellesley over a Finance / Marketing kid from Penn State. Or I’m at least going to put her on equal footing and not penalize her because she didn’t go to business school.
We’re both making some sweeping generalizations here, but that’s my take.
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I will, but let me make a couple of responses of my own regarding the schools you listed:
CMU - that’s an elite place. See my response to the other poster who gave the dire warning about LAC and business. CMU is CMU … you can major in math or econ there and still do well in finance / consulting placement.
BC - to a lesser extent than CMU, but again, a pretty high level school. Probably less about the curriculum than about the fact that it’s a high admissions hurdle, and that BC has blazed a path and has an amazing network.
Villanova - interesting you mention this as it was one of his choices. He has strong connections to Nova but I’m positive would say he made the right choice. I don’t see Villanova in the same category as CMU and BC in the finance/consulting world. I may be wrong about that, but it’s my impression.
I’ll get back to you about your other questions.
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Villanova is strong in accounting and places well in Big 4 accounting firms.
Big 4 accounting firms hire recent graduates for audit/assurance, tax, and consulting divisions. Within each group there are specialties such as cybersecurity or taxation of mergers & acquisitions.
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