<p>I'm out of state (from ohio) and I'm considering Ross Duke and Northwestern.
I'm pretty sure I want to do business, but I'm a little intimidated at the cutthroat mentality of alot of business students. I wasn't sure if there was any special treatment that preferred admitts get during their Frosh year at UMich.</p>
<p>I'm leaning toward UMich because it's a little closer to home, but public vs private school is a concern.. and I'm thinking about dual majoring, or minoring in business and some sort of social policy.. but michigan doesn't really offer anythign on social policy or global health (they have something in grad school, but i havent seen anything in undergrad)</p>
<p>any advice?</p>
<p>buckeye alert..buckeye alert</p>
<p>Northwestern offers a minor called business institutions which consists of classes in fields such as finance and accounting. This program had been the closest thing to a degree in business from NU before they instituted the Financial Economics certificate program. For what it means at Northwestern you'll easily be able to have one major while building a solid minor in business.</p>
<p>You should also strongly consider Duke since besides having a strong Economics program, it has probably the best Public Policy department in the country. In addition, as you might know, freshman who choose to participate are divided into special FOCUS clusters and one of these this year is Global Health. This means that not only can you explore this subject in-depth as an undergrad but you will be taught by Duke's distinguished faculty on this subject area.</p>
<p>In addition, you won't experience that same cutthroat mentality among Duke students as you might find at real undergraduate business school and yet you will not be sacrificing any job opportunities in the process as Duke grads are recruited by IBanking/Consulting firms on par with if not a notch more than Ross students. Furthermore, Duke reigns supreme in the South so you would get first dibs at business opportunities in cities like Atlanta, Charlotte, Raleigh, Nashville, etc. etc. as Duke students are the most highly valued in this region whereas Ross grads will have to fight for jobs on Wall Street with Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Wharton, MIT, Cornell, Darmtouth, etc. grads. If you're considering Michigan, the job market is pretty much bust there with the fallout of the big 3 and all. On the other hand, the Research Triangle Area in NC is a fanstastic place to live and study as the local economy there is really booming.</p>
<p>Some other reasons to pick Duke over NU and UMich is better weather, significantly more prestige(#6 on WSJ FEEDER RANKINGS AND #8 on USNEWS), a more gorgeous campus, and a smaller as well as a more intellectaully capable student body.</p>
<p>Good luck with your decision and remember that you will be a winner regardless of what school you decide to go to.</p>
<p>ROSS!!!!..maybe im biased since im going there :)</p>
<p>I just wrote a blog entry on activities that we have put together for preferred admits. You can find the entry at <a href="http://rossbba.blogspot.com/2007/04/preferred-admit-activities.html">http://rossbba.blogspot.com/2007/04/preferred-admit-activities.html</a>.</p>
<p>Ross does <em>not</em> offer a minor in business. We simply don't have the resources to handle this volume of students.</p>
<p>Ross supports dual majors and minors (in other disciplines with a major in business) really well (in my opinion, of course). Graduating with a business major does not take all of your elective slots. As a matter of fact, it takes less than half of the hours you need to graduate from UM. You can actually, fairly easily, fit many minors into your schedule and, with a little planning and sometimes a couple summer classes or AP credits, you can put together a reasonable academic plan for a dual major.</p>
<p>As for cut-throat mentality: I'm not so sure. Business school students are generally a bit more focused than the average college student, but I don't think that you could call them cut-throat. They study, eat pizza late at night, play intramurals, go out on the weekends, and do all of the usual stuff that students do. They certainly study, but they're still students. </p>
<p>I can't speak too much about social policy, but there the Ford School of Public Policy has a new undergraduate program. New, as in, this year new. You can read about it at <a href="http://fordschool.umich.edu/curriculum/ba.php">http://fordschool.umich.edu/curriculum/ba.php</a>.</p>
<p>This probably isn't exactly the source of information you were looking for (that is, the BBA Program Faculty Director). I hope some of our current PAs can step in and offer their own description of the recently completed freshman year.</p>
<p>Best of luck to you. You have three very good choices.</p>
<p>Wow, I'm not going to respond to the evil<em>asian</em>director about the mis-information that he is spreading about Ross. Take it for what it's worth.</p>
<p>I forgot to mention in my earlier post: If you're interested in duals/minors at UM/Ross, you should read my blog post (and the one referred to within) at <a href="http://rossbba.blogspot.com/2007/04/specific-dual-majors-and-minors.html">http://rossbba.blogspot.com/2007/04/specific-dual-majors-and-minors.html</a>.</p>
<p>Other posts at that blog might also be of interest to you if you're looking for more information about the Ross BBA Program.</p>
<p>jgotsmiles, I'll PM you. I'll help you compare your options and hope that my first-hand experience in the PA program can shed some light on what works and doesn't work in the program. </p>
<p>Overall, I think you're better off coming to Ross.</p>
<p>bahamutscale, if you have insight into what doesn't work in the Ross PA program, please let me know. Come by my office and we can chat --- in the real world, face to face. Thanks for any help or insight that you can give me.</p>
<p>Mr. Moore, I included my honest inputs in the final survey for the PA Program. However, we can connect via email over the summer and keep in touch. I'll also make sure to come by your office next year.</p>
<p>Thanks bahamutscale for your PMs--
I think I'm leaning towards Ross now, especially with the personalization of the PA program. I would want a strong business background with a liberal arts education, and I think Ross (out of the places I've been accepteD) is the best option.</p>
<p>EAD, Michigan's school of Public Affairs is actually ranked higher than Duke's, and Michigan (Ross included) is not known for being "cutthroat".</p>
<p>jgotsmiles, if you are interested in an undergraduate Business program mixed in with a liberal Arts education, you can't beat Ross.</p>
<p>Michigan is probably the least cutthroat of the top business schools (i.e. Wharton and Stern, among others). That being said, the students are smart, and they always get the job done.</p>
<p>i don't know about that.
michigan-ross is pretty cutthroat. i didn't really know anybody in the BBA program and mostly all my friends are in LSA.</p>
<p>i think it's basically because of the curve. only a certain percentage of students can get A's, and everyone is smart.. so it gets very competitive. i've had people not being willing to help me out on things i didn't understand.</p>
<p>The curve at first seems very generous (40% get A- or better in core classes), but it's actually not that easy to be in the top 2 out of 5, considering that everyone is at least at your level. Now that I think about it, ECON 101 was an easy A, but financial and managerial accounting sure weren't, especially managerial.</p>
<p>managerial was death..</p>
<p>and yeah redhare, i thought the curve seemed very generous at first. i couldn't have been more wrong.</p>