Undergraduate Business Schools

College Search & Selection
1

<p>I'm a senior interested in Business. I want to focus on something marketable like Finance or Accounting but I want to gain the necessary skills to become an entrepreneur. </p>

<p>I've been accepted to Tulane University with a $17,000/year scholarship, and I'm still waiting on letters from USC, Michigan, and IU Bloomington. I am a double-legacy at USC and my stats are well within range, so (I think!) my chances are decent. Being a Michigan resident will help me at U of M as well.</p>

<p>I'm from Michigan and I want to get away from home, and I dread the thought of going to a big state university.</p>

<p>A: How important are undergrad business school rankings? Tulane seems like a great fit for me because of its size and location, but USC, IU and Michigan have more highly regarded business programs.</p>

<p>B: Would it be stupid to choose Tulane's business program over USC, IU or Michigan's?</p>

<p>C: Can I sacrifice prestige for a more suitable environment and not feel the effects of my decision?</p>

<p>This entire situation is stressful!</p>

<p>Any insight would be greatly appreciated.</p>

2

<p>Ross > Marshall</p>

<p>

Why? Ross is pretty small and has great recruiting.</p>

<p>Marshall is good but not as nationally prominent as Ross. If you want to settle down in Socal, Marshall is a great choice.</p>

<p>USC is a very big private school…in a very large city, surrounded by parking structures and two major freeways.</p>

<p>Personally, I would hold off on worrying about this until all offers come in…with financial aid. If one option is super expensive for out-of-pocket costs, cross it off the list, no matter how prestigious.</p>

3

<p>I wouldn’t hesitate to go to Tulane. No, the undergraduate ranking doesn’t matter much. You go to the school that’s the best fit - socially, academically, and financially.</p>

<p>The only rankings that matter are yours.</p>

4

<p>“No, the undergraduate ranking doesn’t matter much.”</p>

<p>I disagree. For business, and particularly finance, it makes a HUGE difference. As an instate student, if you can get into Michigan and Ross, it is your best choice.</p>

5

<p>“For business, and particularly finance, it makes a HUGE difference”</p>

<p>No, really, it doesn’t. Part of my job is understanding what factors into college student success, and rank isn’t one of those factors. I’d be more than interested if you could prove me wrong and point to any research that says otherwise. </p>

<p>Education literature is filled with study after study that point to a raft of other factors. A student’s background – intelligence, social capital, commitment to earning a degree, and yes, wealth – seems to be more determinative than anything else. After that are levels of social and academic engagement - that is, do you fit in? Can you find your people at the place where you are studying? Does the college offer opportunities for you to learn outside the class? How strong are the relationships among students as peers and between students and professors? Does it offer the right level of academic challenge? Affordability plays a role too, but it’s tough to disentangle it from other issues.</p>

<p>Tulane puts you in an urban area with plenty of opportunity for internships and field experiences. It’s known for good student-faculty relationships. The academics are strong. It prepares students well for grad school. If it feels like the right place to a given student, then that matters far more than the rank in the likelihood of that student succeeding.</p>

6

<p>^^^You should learn the concept of target and non-target business programs. Really, you should.</p>

7

<p>Lol cougar23, dont listen to lynxinsider. Yes, UG business rankings matter a hella lot. Its called target and non-target school. </p>

<p>Target schools have recruiters such as Goldman, Citi, JP Morgan for front office positions (analysts, trading, mergers and acqs). Semi-target schools will have these recruiters too, but for less positions and possible back office (accounting, operations, etc.) </p>

<p>Out of the schools you have listed, UM Ross is by far the best in the midwest. Nothing comes close to it in the mid-west besides UChicago. Yes Notre Dame is ranked as #1 in businessweek but it isn’t even a target school. ND a semi-target school so automatically, Ross is better. A lot of Chicago recruiters flock Ross. Also, Ross is small and competitive to get in so it really doesn’t have a big school feel to it. </p>

<p>Tulane is a semi-target school. There are wall street positions but you better work you @ss off 24/7. TU has a strong network base in the Northeast. However, interships are don’t hold any worth in New Orleans. Really, New Orleans is dead in terms of big banks. The big opportunities just aren’t in New Orleans. However, most of the top positions in New Orleans are Tulane Grads - I tell you that from first hand experience. If you aren’t studying Finance at TU, you’re better off going somewhere else. If you get recruited from TU, you’ll be probably working in either Northeast or Texas. Nobody goes to Nawlins’ to do business. They go there to party. </p>

<p>A: Yes </p>

<p>B: The best is where you are going to be happy. Happy = good grades and success. If I were you, yes. </p>

<p>C: Yes, in the sake of happiness. </p>

<p>If you are so determined to get away from home, then go to USC. If not, I would go to Ross. Ross is helluva school for business. </p>

<p>If rankings didn’t matter according to lynx, then go to Wayne State where probably you would get a full scholarship.</p>

8

<p>lynxinsider asks for evidence and gets instead unsubstantiated opinions. </p>

<p>How typical of CC!</p>

9

<p>"ynxinsider asks for evidence and gets instead unsubstantiated opinions. </p>

<p>How typical of CC! "</p>

<p>Pot meet kettle.</p>

10

<p>@rjkofnovi</p>

<p>Out of curiosity, besides Ivies, UChicago, Ross, Stern, what other programs would be considered “targets”? What programs are considered “semi-targets”?</p>

11

<p>^^^^The best area to get answers to your questions here on CC is in the business major forum. Here is the link:</p>

<p>[Business</a> Major - College Confidential](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/business-major/]Business”>Business Major - College Confidential Forums)</p>

<p>Post your inquiry there.</p>

12

<p>@rjkofnovi - I’m happy to learn. It’s what I do. Point me to something.</p>

13

<p>If you want to know what the “target schools” are, at least for finance, do some searching. It’s been debated many times before. As far as undergraduate business programs go, Wharton, Sloan, Haas, Ross all give you more than enough opportunities to break into whatever you want. Marshall and McCombs are also solid but not as strong. Kelley is decent but for banking you better be in their special workshop for a good chance.</p>

14

<p>

Wharton is in a different league than these schools. The top 3 banks (GS, JPM and MS) hire almost 5 times as many analysts from Wharton than they do at Ross, Stern, Mcintire, Haas and McCombs. This is not to mention the buy side recruitment that Wharton enjoys which is nonexistent elsewhere.</p>

<p>You can get a bulge bracket front office offer from Ross but its not going to be easy by any means. That being said, its almost impossible out of Tulane.</p>

<p>Also, McIntire is on par with Ross, Haas and Stern. UT McCombs is just outside this group of elite programs.</p>

<p>Check out Cornell AEM as well. I would say its better all the rest besides Wharton.</p>

15

<p>“I’ve been accepted to Tulane University with a $17,000/year scholarship, and I’m still waiting on letters from USC, Michigan, and IU Bloomington.”</p>

<p>These are the four schools that the OP applied to. He/she didn’t apply to Penn, Cornell, or any other school mentioned. Ross, as an instate student, is really the best choice overall for career aspirations.</p>

16

<p>For getting a job in banking/consulting:</p>

<ol>
<li>Ross</li>
<li>Kelley, Marshall</li>
<li>Tulane</li>
</ol>

<p>You are also in-state for UMichigan. It seems like an incredible option. You might really come to love the school. In addition, your other options (USC, Indiana) are also enormous schools, so they’re no better alternatives.</p>

<p>When it comes to big schools, you often cut a smaller piece of the school for yourself. For example, the Ross business program is a much smaller community within UMich, and your extracurricular activities will surround you with familiar groups. Don’t overlook those “small-school” attributes in big schools, depending on how you approach life. If you have entrepreneurial aspirations, a big school actually seems like a great environment.</p>

17

<p>I’m going to chyme in here. Its clear that lynxinsider and annsdad have very little understanding of how corporate recruiting works, particularly at the elite level. To call the response of rjkofnovi and dollarbill (who are spot on) unsubstantiated means that there is a lack of understanding on their part of how it all works.</p>

<p>Bottom line: Michigan is by far the strongest target of the schools you have listed. If you want to get an elite business job but a smaller environment, the targets that fit the bill are the Ivies (Princeton and Dartmouth in particular have great placement more tightknit environments) and a few select others such as Williams, Northwestern, Duke, Stanford, MIT, Amherst, and Chicago. </p>

<p>Also Vanderbilt, Rice, Middlebury, and Colgate as lesser/ semi-targets.</p>

<p>Tulane isn’t on the map. You can be the valedictorian of Tulane and still have a tough go.</p>

18

<p>No need to drag annasdad into this; he just pointed out that I asked for references to information of which I’m apparently ignorant and no one has replied with anything substantive. “Lynx doesn’t get it” isn’t super helpful to me. </p>

<p>I stand ready to learn that undergraduate business school rank (or corporate recruiting activity, since that seems to be where the conversation has gone now) is more important than the factors I pointed out in terms of student success. Show me some evidence, or at least something assertive from a credible source.</p>

<p>Lest the written form belie my attitude: I am not trying to be sarcastic or snarky in the least. I really would like to know if there’s something to the notion of rank in the undergrad business realm. It will help me professionally and it will help the students I work with.</p>

19

<p>Rankings of undergraduate business schools don’t seem to be that accurate in my opinion. If you’re interested in finance or consulting, Wharton is the king of the hill regardless of whether Businessweek ranks Notre Dame’s Mendoza as being #1. There’s about 5 programs that are on the next tier: UC Berkeley Haas, NYU Stern, UVA McIntire, Michigan Ross and Texas McCombs. Things get pretty regional after this group so I would pick the highest regarded school with a u-grad biz program closes to where you want to work if you can’t get into the aforementioned 6.</p>

20

<p>While I agree that if Wall Street is the goal the posts on targets are pretty accurate. BUT there are many many jobs in finance and consulting that are not on Wall Street or just with a few firms on the east coast. Those might not pay as much but they are also not as insane in pressure and dealing with very difficult people. For those jobs IU would be as good as UM or any other good B school (ND, etc).</p>