<p>this is just for fun but if we were to form a ivy league (and i use this not in the athletic sense), which eight undergrad business schools will be part of it? reputation, job prospects, academics all included</p>
<p>If you mean places that have a business major and not just econ, I’d say:</p>
<p>Wharton
MIT Sloan
Cornell A&M
NYU Stern
Michigan Ross
Virginia Darden (or McIntire? I forget which one)
Berkeley Haas
Texas McCombs or UNC Kenan-Flager</p>
<p>this of course doesn’t even include the fact that an “ivy league” would have schools from a similar region. I just listed the best 8 programs IMO</p>
<p>In addition to Wharton (UPenn), I’ve heard that Babson (not sure where that is, haha) has the #1 business school in the country.</p>
<p>lol, babson may have the #1 Entrepreneurship program but its definitely not the #1 business school.</p>
<p>Wharton (UPenn)
Sloan (MIT)
Ross (Michigan)
McIntire (Virginia)
Stern (NYU)
Haas (Berkeley)
McCombs (UT)
Kenan-Flagler (UNC)</p>
<p>^No Cornell AEM? IMO Cornell > McCombs or Kenan-Flagler at the very least.</p>
<p>Cornell AEM is a great program, but it’s still not an undergrad business school, just a business program in CALS. But I like Flipper519’s list.</p>
<p>funny how 5 out of the 8 are public schools…</p>
<p>Cream, it’s a little stretch to say Cornell’s undergrad b-school is even equal to McCombs or Kenan-Flagler. I mean, I know people who went to NYU Stern because they couldn’t get into McCombs in-state. I know, Stern isn’t AEM (it’s better), but you get the point. I don’t personally know anyone at Cornell, but I know almost all of it’s programs are ranked lower than both of the latter schools. Cornell’s finance program isn’t even top 10, and that’s the most important program at an elite school, is usually the largest, and is most indicative of overall program strength and placement.</p>
<p>I would personally say it is:</p>
<p>Penn
MIT
NYU
Berkeley
Michigan
Texas
Virginia
UNC</p>
<p>If you want to argue that something else should be in there, I would say Carnegie Mellon could possibly take UNC’s spot, but Cornell is not quite there.</p>
<p>I don’t find undergraduate business rankings to be particularly useful. </p>
<p>As to whether AEM is on par with McCombs or Kenan-Flager, I would imagine it would be better in terms of recruiting/student quality. Rankings encompass a large number of items. McCombs and Kenan-Flager have significant resources, while AEM is a relatively small department in CALS. </p>
<p>McCombs admissions are heavily weighted towards class rank. So yeah, people who have gotten into Stern have been rejected at McCombs, because the admission guidelines are different (I, on the other hand, was WL at Stern and admitted to McCombs). This does not mean that McCombs is a harder school to get into than Stern or that the student quality at McCombs is better. </p>
<p>I would place the schools in three tiers. </p>
<p>T1 (FAR ABOVE EVERYONE ELSE)
Penn
MIT</p>
<p>T2
Berkeley
Michigan
Virgina
CMU
Cornell
Notre Dame
Emory
NYU</p>
<p>T3
Texas
UNC
Villanova
BC
BYU</p>
<p>I’ve got a few problems with those tiers. I agree with the first one, MIT and Penn are definitely the best. However, I would put Texas and UNC in the second tier long before Notre Dame or Emory and closer but definitely ahead of Cornell. Unless you went to Emory, your wife went to ND and your kid goes to Cornell, it’s hard to see why you organized it like this. Even USC has a better business program than Emory and ND.</p>
<p>The best business school would be the one that attracts the best faculty/recruiters and has the best opportunity for top jobs. I don’t know if it’s more wrong to say Emory, ND and Cornell are equal to the likes of Berkeley, Michigan and Virginia, or to suggest that Texas and UNC are on par with Villanova and BC. The fact that Villanova and BC got in there before somewhere like USC is very wrong, too.</p>
<p>As for claiming that Cornell AEM is better than McCombs, even if you don’t want to focus on difficulty of admission (which I agree, McCombs is definitely rank-heavy) it’s a pretty impossible case because the evidence is stacked against you.</p>
<p>I’m also against rankings that care too much about program resources and size rather than quality (like BusinessWeek rankings, which it looks like you relied heavily on to form your tiers), but US News “program” rankings are actually based on peer and employer perceptions. In other words, that’s where the best faculty want to teach and where the recruiters want to recruit. The most important program to look at is undeniably finance, for which McCombs hangs out near the cool “5” mark each year (4th last year - which is now Michigan’s spot, 6th this) and Cornell doesn’t make the top 10 cut. The next most important is probably accounting, but I won’t even go there because McCombs has been number 1 for a couple of decades and the importance of accounting rankings are still so far behind that of finance.</p>
<p>If you want to look at more solid proof of where recruiters want to recruit, McCombs posts similar placement stats to Virginia, so there’s no way it’s that far behind. I know a lot of people in the Northeast or Pacific Coast don’t think much of McCombs, but this is just distorted.</p>
<p>If we are doing tiers, this is how it should have gone:</p>
<p>T1
Penn
MIT</p>
<p>T2
NYU
Berkeley
Michigan
Texas
Virginia
UNC
CMU</p>
<p>T3
Cornell
USC
Indiana
Notre Dame
etc.</p>
<p>I agree with Openedskittles</p>
<p>The education and recruiting dynamic at McCombs is fairly complex. There is BHP and MPA, both highly regarded programs with outstanding students. I would even go as far as to say the student quality in BHP could compare with Penn. </p>
<p>The range of student quality at McCombs is far larger than it is at Emory, ND, Cornell, CMU, Berkeley, etc. McCombs has a good number of strong students (who tend to cluster in BHP, MPA, Finance), and a fair number of weak students, whereas in the other programs I mentioned student ability is more evenly distributed due to the admissions requirements not being so heavily rank based. </p>
<p>I would certainly agree with the BusinessWeek assertion that regular instruction at McCombs is a bit lacking. </p>
<p>Recruiting is a bit slow these days with the recession, Finance has been hit particularly hard. But I guess this is the case at ANY school.</p>
<p>Penn (Wharton)
Georgetown (McDonough)
MIT (Sloan)
NYU (Stern)
Berkeley (Haas)
Michigan (Ross)
UVA (McIntire)
UT (McCombs)
USC (Marshall)
UNC (Kenan-Flagler)
Emory (Goizueta)
Notre Dame (Mendoza)
Carnegie Mellon (Tepper)</p>
<p>Babson may not be the #1 business school in the country (yet!), but it IS the #1 SMALL business school in the country as well as #1 for entrepreneurship in the country. It should be ranked much higher but it get’s beat out on reputation by all the bigger schools. If you’re looking for a small school and want the best in business — Babson is for you.</p>
<p>while USC may not be renowned for its academic achievements, its undergrad b program is top notch and easily in the top 10. marshall/usc should be on any top 10 list</p>
<p>USC is definitely a good one, but I wouldn’t say its “easily” top 10. It might be arguably top 10, and if it is, then it’s just barely 10th.</p>
<p>dont really get these last two posts about usc. would love to hear some kind of justification.</p>
<h1>1 Wharton (clearly #1, although not to the extent some would think)</h1>
<h1>2 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Sloan)</h1>
<h1>2 University of California-Berkeley (Haas)</h1>
<h1>2 University of Michigan-Ann Arbor (Ross)</h1>
<h1>2 University of Virginia (McIntire)</h1>
<h1>6 Cornell University</h1>
<h1>6 Georgetown University (McDonough)</h1>
<h1>6 New York University</h1>
<p>Those would be my eight.</p>
<p>Many other programs are great, including:
Carnegie Mellon University (Tepper)
Emory University (Goizuette)
Indiana University-Bloomington (Kelley)
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (Kenan Flagler)
University of Notre Dame (Mendoza)
University of Southern California (Marshall)
University of Texas-Austin (McCombs)</p>
<p>the first 2 being #1 UPenn and #2 MIT Sloan is definitely right, while the rest is just a blah. Too hard to decide, too much to compare.</p>