<p>My daughter is considering both UCLA (in state) and Michigan for an undergrad business program. Any comments on the strength of each school? It looks like the number of applications to both these schools have gone up significantly since 2008 (100K to ucla!!!!! this year). Also begs the q, what are the class sizes in these schools?</p>
<p>UCLA does not have an undergraduate business program.</p>
<p>And Michigan has a top notch one (Ross) if she can get in. However, if she is not pre-admitted before freshman year, there is no guarantee that she will be admitted later.</p>
<p>Although UCLA doesn’t have a business school, UCLA has a solid Econ program and they do have an accounting minor (if that interests your daughter). Ross is considered more prestigious than UCLA Econ, and will recruit better, but they’re really very different programs. </p>
<p>I would personally go to UCLA and save the money. Or even Cal… Haas is as good as Ross in most categories. Ross is not a given as only about 40% of students are accepted during their freshman year, (same as Haas, during sophomore year).</p>
<p>If cost is an issue, UCLA is the way to go. If you are not too concerned about cost, then Michigan makes better sense. UCLA Business Econ is essentially no better than Michigan Econ. The “Business Econ” major is a gimmick according to my Bruin friends. At least it was back in the 1990s. Maybe things have changed, but back then, they did not have the full weight of Anderson’s career office to help them in job placement. The whole point of Business programs is to have access to the business school’s overdeveloped and aggressive career office. The 40% placement rate into Ross is misleading. For students with 3.5 GPAs or better, the admit rate into Ross once at Michigan is much higher than 40%. There are many “dreamers”; students with 2.5-3.3 GPAs who apply to Ross. They are the ones who drag down the admit rate. At the same time, it should be noted that most students who do not get into Ross would likely not benefit from the placement office. The heavy hitters who recruit at Ross, like the top Tech companies (Microsoft, Google, Intel etc…), Consulting firms (McKinsey, Bain, BCG, Booz, OW etc…) and IBanks (Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Lazard, Morgan Stanley etc…) will typically never hire undergrads with sub 3.5 GPAs unless there is a major pull somewhere.</p>
<p>I would go to Michigan if COA for college isn’t a concern. UCLA is poorly recruited by consulting firms and only the 3.8+ GPAs in their Biz Econ department get i-banking jobs.</p>
<p>I would enroll at Michigan but withdraw and transfer back to UCLA if you are not admitted to Ross since UCLA Biz Econ>Michigan Econ for recruiting at the banks.</p>
<p>Why not consider Berkeley, though?
Berkeley (Haas) = Michigan (Ross) > UCLA (Business Econ)</p>
<p>All of them are good programs, but UCLA doesn’t have the recruitment of Haas/Ross and it doesn’t have a business school.</p>
<p>“UCLA Biz Econ>Michigan Econ for recruiting at the banks”</p>
<p>That is incorrect. In fact, I would give the Edge to Michigan LSA or CoE over UCLA where IBanks are concerned. If cost is not a concern and the OP can easily afford Michigan, this is a no-brainer.</p>
<p>
Alexandre, so are you saying a UCLA undergraduate degree is completely useless in the world of business then? If IBanks don’t even recruit UCLA Biz Econ grads decently, then what major at UCLA are these banks recruiting at?</p>
<p>In the West Coast offices of i-banks, UCLA/USC are the second options besides Haas/Stanford so top students at the former two schools will certainly have good opportunities since there only a few elite schools in California</p>
<p>Both UCLA and Michigan LS&A are semi-targets for IBD and it will take a lot of initiative and resourcefulness in addition to luck secure analyst jobs from either school so cost should be the primary deciding factor here. Ross or Haas is definitely a no-brainer over both the options.</p>
<p>I would suggest the OP to check out USC’s Marshall program, Texas McCombs, and IU Kelley as well in case Ross and Haas don’t work out.</p>
<p>OP. THANK YOU so much for starting this thread. Son is a HS senior. He only applied to a handful of UCs (Berkley/UCLA/UCSD) and a selective few private schools on the east coast. Since the east coast schools are all in the top tier, the chances of getting into any is really not favorable. I am going to ask him to look into University of Michigan.<br>
Does anyone know if they offer Merit Scholarship to the National Merit Scholoarship Finalist? From reading previous posts, i gather that Ross does admit freshman out of HS? (an advantage over Haas)</p>
<p>ps, i had a BA in Econ from UCLA in the 90s. It didn’t get me anywhere.</p>
<p>Thanks for the feedback. We are from the SF area & cost is not a consideration. she is definitely going to try for Haas - issue is it is too close to home an she wants to experience something different (UCB will be an extension of her high school). UCLA or USC would be perfect in terms of distance. However, we visited Michigan during thanksgiving & she absolutely loved it & I understand from all that I have read - that they have a stellar reputation. I did not realize that UCLA did not offer an undergrad business program. Considering Tepper, Stern, Washington Univ.</p>
<p>Myboy123 - Ross does admit from HS but only a small number and is extremely competitive.</p>
<p>cubkdad: we are from SF bay area as well.<br>
how competitive is Ross? How do i find out its freshman profile? (SAT, GPA, AP, etc)
per web research, cost of attending for OOS is appx $50k per year at Michigan. It is right in between east coast private and instate for us. </p>
<p>would you rate Ross higher than Cornell/Northwestern for a student major in Business?</p>
<p>I believe it is extremely competitive (primarily to get in directly from HS). D is not considering Cornell (too out in the boonies according to her) but we visited NW. They do not have an undergrad in Business. Also, among all the schools that we visited, NW was the least impressive - maybe just the guy that we got on that day. From everything that we have researched, Ross is ranked much higher than Cornell for business. </p>
<p>Most of the pvt east coast schools that we are looking at cost around 55K and Michigan around 50K. That is my only reservation about Michigan. I do not have a sense for how big their class sizes but if it compares to Berkley it can have 700 students in some of the freshman classes (a current freshman told me that they have 700 in the CS intro class) </p>
<p>I believe Tepper and Stern have much smaller classes.</p>
<p>Alexandre - can you comment on class sizes @ Michigan and Ross specifically? Also, you probably have a much better idea about (SAT, GPA, AP, etc)</p>
<p>A little Google goes a long way 
<a href=“Bachelor of Business Administration | Michigan Ross”>http://www.bus.umich.edu/Admissions/BBA/BBA_Class_Profiles.pdf</a></p>
<p>M for education, UCLA for fun. BTW if your daughter’s a shopper, Rodeo Dr. is only 15 minutes from Westwood. That could be a vote for M.</p>
<p>Dfree124 - Thanks - appreciate it - is very helpful</p>
<p>Classes in Ross (starting sophomore year) are NOT large. I think the largest class I had when I attended there was probably 40 students, and some were smaller. That could have changed over the years, but I doubt it. The first year in another college at Michigan (which is required, most commonly LS&A) may have some larger classes, but even my intro Chem and 100 level history classes at Michigan didn’t have 700 students in them. Maybe 200 or 250 in lecture, but then a smaller section a couple of times a week with a TA with 20 or so students in it. You would never have a large lecture class that did NOT have a smaller section at least a couple times a week with a teaching assistant. And some of the TAs are very strong teachers, and they are very good at helping you understand what the prof is really getting at in lecture if you aren’t clear.</p>
<p>Cornell AEM is very highly recruited as well; it is Cornell’s defacto business school. Has your son/daughter considered the Wharton School at UPenn? Its worth a shot. ;)</p>
<p>From personal experience in the business world, the only schools I would pick over Michigan Ross are Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, MIT, Duke, Penn, and Dartmouth for banking/consulting jobs. Columbia and NYU Stern are great but their campus life isn’t as vibrant as some of these other options in my opinion. I believe that getting an Econ/Math degree from a top-ranked private gives you the most rigorous education and analytical skills for the most elite jobs over any u-grad school besides Wharton. At Cal and UCLA, you may have to pick between the education and the recruiting if you study the liberal arts which isn’t ideal.</p>
<p>goldenboy, thanks for the information you provided above.<br>
my son applied Wharton thru ED but he was rejected. it is his dream school. My brother received his MBA from Wharton and he has been talking to his nephew about it for years. my son’s career path that we “see” right now is banking/consulting. He interned at McKinsey over last summer and he loved it. we would have been more than happy to pay for a Wharton education. but it didn’t mean to be. after the rejection from Wharton, he had decided not to apply for Harvard, Stanford, Princeton. His chance of getting into any of the following schools: Columbia, Duke, Dartmouth, Cornell, NW, UChicago, isn’t that great. They are all reach/ high reach for him, we were told. we haven’t visited any school. this whole process is so competitive and unpredictable. Since we do have Berkeley and UCLA in state, we thought he should be able to get in to either one. I am not sure right now this expection is realistic. There are too many exceptional students in the pool.</p>
<p>intparent’s post is accurate. Michigan does not have 700 student classes. In fact, the largest auditoriums at Michigan can only seat 500 or so students, and there are only four such auditoriums. Freshmen classes in popular majors have 300-400 students. Most intro-level classes have fewer than 150 students. Those are usually broken down into discussion groups with 20 or fewer students that meet once weekly. The classes are taught by professors while those discussion sections are usually led by TAs (usually 3rd or 4th year PhD students). This setup will be the same at most research universities will large graduate programs. That would include Cal, Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, Northwestern, Penn etc…, where freshmen classes often have well over 100 students (sometimes over 200 or even 300 students) and are broken down into discussion sections led by TAs. Beyond Freshmen-level classes, most Michigan classes are significantly smaller. Over 30 or my 45 classes at Michigan had fewer than 40 students, many had fewer than 20, and some had fewer than 10. I majored in Economics, which means my classes tended to be larger than average by Michigan standards. Econ, Political Science and Psychology will always have larger classes, not just at Michigan, but at most universities, since those are usually the most popular majors. My Mathematics and Physics classes always had fewer than 30 students. Posters in CC usually lump Michigan with other public universities. While it is true that many public universities have larger classes than smaller private research universities, that is not typically the case at Michigan. You will have larger classes in some instances, but where it matters, in classes where fewer students make for a better learning experience, there will be virtually no difference between Michigan and its private peers. </p>
<p>With regards to IB/consulting recruiting, Ross is excellent. In fact, Ross is ranked #1 in Management and is second only to Wharton among undergraduate business programs when it comes to placement into major management consulting firms. Overall, only Harvard, Princeton and Wharton are more highly recruited than Ross. Brown, Cal (Haas), Chicago, Columbia, Cornell (particularly Dyson), Duke, Georgetown, NYU (Stern), Northwestern, Penn (non-Wharton), Stanford, UVa (McIntire) and Yale are all equally recruited. </p>
<p>As many would recommend, if your son is quantitatively inclined, he can double major in Mathematics and Business. The beauty of Ross is that it only requires 55 credits to complete the major. Most Ross students take over 50 credits in LSA, giving them a very well rounded liberal arts education and the flexibility to double major in a more traditional discipline. LSA is home many top departments, such as Anthropology (#1), Classics (top 10), Economics (#12), English (#13), History (#7), Mathematics (#8), Philosophy (top 5), Political Science (#4), Psychology (#3) and Sociology (#3) to name a few.</p>