Which colleges offer undergrad business programs. I know of…
Wharton
Sloan
Stern
Berkeley (haas)
U mich
add on…
<p>Cornell AEM</p>
<p>The University of Virginia</p>
<p>University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.</p>
<p>-Jerod</p>
<p>Babson and Bentley and I'm sure a ton of other smaller schools</p>
<p>University of Texas at Austin, ranked 5th overall by US News.</p>
<p>Are we talking about only the top undergraduate business schools, or just any run-of-the-mill school?</p>
<p>If it's the latter, then I would argue that the majority of schools, especially the lower-level public schools, offer undergrad business degrees or their equivalents (i.e. bachelor's in accounting, marketing, finance, commerce, etc.). For example, many of the Cal States, i.e. San Jose State, San Diego State, Fresno State, Cal State Northridge, Long Beach State, etc. </p>
<p>If I may digress, undergraduate business programs are actually quite common at most schools and, not to be overly harsh, but also tend to be a dumping ground for lower-quality and lazier students. Case in point - take a gander at the rosters of the top division 1A football and men's basketball programs and look at what the players are majoring in, and you will often times find 'business' or one of its close cousins (i.e. marketing, hotel management, or something like that). Yet I think we can all agree that many of these players aren't really majoring in anything - what many of these players are doing is "majoring in eligibility". In other words, they want to major in something that will give them passing grades without a lot of studying, so they can remain eligible to play, and for many of these students, majoring in business fills the bill nicely. Don't get me wrong - I like big-time college football and men's basketball as much as anybody, but I think we all have to agree that their athletes were not admitted because they were top students. It is for this reason that business progams at many schools are snickered at as being 'joke' majors where students get good grades for doing very little.</p>
<p>It is only at those top schools - Wharton, Sloan, Haas, etc. - where undergrad business administration actually gets respect. Very few Cal or Michigan football players are majoring in bus-ad, for example.</p>
<p>Stern is about as hard as a program you can take. Certainly harder than Haas.</p>
<p>I would point out that the comparison between the undergrad programs at Haas and Stern is not an entirely fair one. Stern admits students as freshman, whereas Haas admits them as juniors. I agree that Haas UG program by itself, which is strictly speaking only the junior and senior year, is really not all that difficult, and may well be significantly easier than Stern. However, if you were to include the first 2 years of Berkeley that a student needs in order to get into Haas, then I think the comparison is far more accurate. Ignoring transfer students for the moment, to be eligible to apply to the Haas UG program, you first have to be a general Berkeley student until your junior year. And the fact is, only half of Berkeley juniors who apply to the Haas UG program get in. It's an entirely separate admissions process. So first you have to get admitted to Berkeley as a freshman. Then, 2 years later, you have to apply to Haas UG. And half of those who attempt the second step are rejected. That doesn't even include those Berkeley students who came in originally hoping to get into Haas, but didn't amass the strong GPA and EC's during their first 2 years at Berkeley that are necessary to get in, so they don't bother to apply. </p>
<p>The point is, the competition for Haas spots is intense. Haas publishes the list of required courses that Berkeley students need in order to be eligible to apply to the program, and the competition within those classes is cutthroat to say the least, because everybody in those classes is basically fighting to get a good grade so they can get into Haas. Sure, those classes aren't technically speaking a part of Haas (again, Haas covers only the junior and senior year), but from a de-facto standpoint, they are part of Haas. </p>
<p>Hence, while I don't know if the Stern program if more difficult than Haas, I would argue that the Stern program as a whole is 'safer'. You're admitted to Stern as a freshman and unless you flunk out/drop-out, you're going to graduate with your UG business degree. If you want to get the UG degree from Haas, you first have to matriculate at Berkeley as a general student, with no guarantee about whether you will get into Haas, and as said above, half of those who apply will get rejected, and that's only talking about those who apply. The point is that the effective flunkout/drop-out rate for Haas is at least 50%, in the sense that at least half of the students who come into Berkeley hoping to get an UG business degree will not get it. And actually I think it's probably more like 75% when you count those people who wanted to go to Haas, but then screwed up their GPA and so don't bother to apply. I don't know what the flunkout/drop-out rate for Stern is, but I doubt that it is 50%, and certainly not 75%.</p>
<p>your info is interesting. Don't forget though to consider if the students at Cal, then Haas could even get into Stern as a freshman. From what I know Wharton and Stern are known to be two of the hardest programs of any discipline, in the country</p>
<p>"Don't forget though to consider if the students at Cal, then Haas could even get into Stern as a freshman."</p>
<p>Do you have any hard data to support that statement? ...like the average/min GPA and SAT scores to get into Stern as a freshman. The few students I know who got into Wharton weren't super-students and they certainly didn't have perfect scores.</p>
<p>Like Haas, competition for Ross(Michigan) is real tough. You need to maintain a very high GPA for the first 2 years, and demonstrate leadership and active in community services. Some students are nervous about getting an A- or B+ in even one course as it will lower their GPA.</p>
<p>as a business major, i can tell you that (at least at my school) it's a very tough major. i do more work for my major than all of my roommates combined. (Biology, Communications, and Graphic Design). I'm constantly working on projects/papers/etc. It's definately not the "easy way out" at my college.</p>
<p>Wow, more than 3 majors combined? Which college is that?
And I'd like to know what you like about being a business major?</p>
<p>And to answer teh OP's question: USD, LMU in CA, though they're not topranked and there are many more. Depends what you're looking for.</p>
<p>well, maybe it just seems like i do more work than they do :) i know my roommates do a lot of work, but i do know that every semester i am in my room for hours and hours every day working on school work (didn't get to bed till at least 3 most nights) while my roommates had time to be out watching movies or going to the bar.. i have some art minors, so i have a lot of art stuff to do as well. i'm just constantly working on projects. just a few examples of business things that ive done in my past 3 years.. </p>
<p>i've done projects on tyco, harley-davidson, wolfgang candy, a 20 page single spaced paper on GM, participated in a "stock broker" game and managed stock portfolios, constructed a business with classmates which competed against other buisinesses in our class throughout the semester (had to make every decision for the business from ground up, using simulation software on the computer), did a 100 page or so project in a group on an international company, had many meetings with the managers and whatnot of it, did a presentation for the before mentioned company infront of the company executives, have done dozens of other presentations, researched marketing trends for music and did a long paper on it, have made many websites, done 20+ page projects for a few other courses, have a nice art portfolio incase i decide to go looking for jobs in that field.. pluss of course i've had plenty of tests and whatnot for all of the classes.</p>
<p>i'd say i've definately spent a majority of my collegiate time working on big projects. as a result, i think i've got a good grasp of how things "actually work".. not just the theory behind them, which is what is taught at most schools. and that's what i like about being a business major. i like knowing how things are actually run. every company that we work for is run by someone who knows this stuff, someone who makes these decisions. i think a lot of people think that "business" is just the easy way to get through school without doing much work... but i really do disagree with that.</p>
<p>If you want a list of highly ranked undergraduate B-schools, buy U.S. News America's Best Colleges (2005 Edition).</p>