Our son has direct admission to Isenberg Business school in Univ of Mass Amherst with a scholarship and also to Univ of Virginia. While Univ of Virginia is higher ranked, the fees difference is about $30k a year and he will still need to get admission to McIntire College of Commerce.
Any suggestions on what choice to make would be welcome.
U Va more prestigious name than UMass, but is it worth 120K to you? Do you have any doubt that your son can get into McIntire? Colder weather, distance from home, fantastic food at UMa and decent to excellent dorms.
Seems to me that itās unlikely to make much difference to his life where he goes for undergrad for business, especially since many do go on for an MBA later on. Iād go with UMass.
Safety has become a concern at UVA.
What does he think he wants to do? Business is pretty generic.
Finance, marketing, supply chain, operations, accountingā¦ the sub sector makes a difference IMHO. Of these, finance is the only discipline where a higher ranked school MIGHT make sense (donāt jump on me, I said MIGHT).
HS kids often pick ābusinessā as the least controversial ānone of the aboveā choices (donāt like blood, not interested in law school, donāt like math so donāt want engineering, etc.) But what has sparked his interest in business, and if he decides heās NOT going to major in business, then what?
Thanks for these great responses!
The fee difference is compelling and I tend to agree that undergraduate may not make a huge difference. Of course it matters on the individual, alumni network and the companies recruiting on campus.
On the Business front, he is interested between finance and consulting. He would need to experience some courses and internships before becoming more clear on the area that he would like to specialise in.
What ātypeā of business will be key. UVA/McIntire is fantastic. If you want to do investment banking, UVA will be the better choiceā¦maybe better odds for consulting. For most everything else including corporate finance, it probably wonāt matter as much. Direct admit is also >>>>>> non-direct.
On UVA, I thought I read somewhere there was a significant surcharge if/when you get into McIntire but could be wrongā¦worth looking though.
Also, unlikely you need an MBA later except in maybe a couple limited circumstances if you go to a good undergrad business program. Years ago this was less true.
It would be either Investment banking or preferably management consulting. Of course it depends on the ability of the individual but does the program give the individual a better shot at these highly competitive career options is the question
Personally, I would lean toward UVA then even if it costs more. You could probably get into management consulting at UMass but UVA will have more options/pull. For IB, UVA will give you a much stronger probability of getting into that type of role.
Direct admit > secondary admit. At McIntyre, admission is not completely in the students control because admissions is holisticā¦meaning McIntyre has institutional priorities that they follow when selecting a class. Here are the most recent stats: B.S. in Commerce Admissions Statistics - Experience McIntire
With that said, for IB, recruiting is often completed in the spring of sophomore year (when many interviews for post-junior year summer internships happen), before a student enters McIntyre. Note that it is quite possible to get IB jobs without a business type majorā¦economics, math, neuroscience majors and more are represented in all incoming IB classes. Same is true for consulting.
In this case UVA, even if he doesnāt get into McIntire. My fear though is most kids have no idea what IB or consulting even is.
$120k is a lot of dough so itās up to you - are you willing ?
I disagree an MBA isnāt needed today. For many companies itās the cost of entry to move up. But many more do part time today than b4.
Oh, great. So now itās not just college admissions, itās acceptance to a competitive major AFTER matriculation, that is being done by āholisticā means? (Translation: we can take people with lower grades in order to achieve the desired racial/ethnic/whatever proportion that we want.)
What possible justification could they have for doing this? Are they going to claim that their own grading system is somehow biased, go GPA-optional for acceptance into competitive majors?
All good questions, but you are asking the wrong person! McIntyre is not the only business school with a secondary admission process that is holistic.
McIntyre is NOT a trade school for churning out I-banking wannabees. So kids who are interested in other aspects of business are important for maintaining some semblance of balance in the program. Not to mention the vibe would be Lord of the Flies if they ONLY accepted āI banking or bustā students.
Itās far easier to get an IB or strategy consulting job out of UVA than UMass. That said, IB is a 90 hour a week grind. Need to be smart, savvy and a grinder.
Out of UMass, with strong grades, he can get great corporate and Big 4 jobs and then go to a top MBA program. Thatāll cost two years salary if done full time and fewer scholarships but there will be solid corporate development programs out of UMass as well that donāt need an MBA, and the MBA can be done part time.
My son will reach out to UMass Amherst directly, but does anyone know how the first-year Isenberg program works for accepted students with Undecided Business major.
Hope to confirm that first-year undecided Isenberg students take a variety of courses and that each major including finance etc. is available to select rather than only hospitality and sports management. Thanks!
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