I think colleges should decide what works best for them.
But if you asked me for my preference, I would choose option A.
When my children were researching schools for business, of course we realized it would make the transition to college less stressful. That said, not having ‘direct admit’ would not be a deal breaker. << sorry for the double negative. Also, our thinking was direct admit may contribute to a more collaborative, less competitive, environment.
Now that my older child is graduating, I would add one more benefit to option A - flexibility. My children were able to take business classes as freshman. They were able to do a semester abroad. They will be able to graduate with double majors, and in my son’s case also a minor.
On another thread there was a discussion comparing UIUC’s College of Business and Michigan’s BBA. I shared that my son was not a direct admit to Ross. I honestly don’t know how much that factored into his decision to attend UIUC.
But it is interesting to see that Michigan is doing away with regular admission. They’re going to ‘preferred admit’, which sounds like it will now be a 4 yr program as opposed to the 3yr program. I wonder if they’re doing it because they were losing students who wanted guaranteed admission to Ross. It sounds like the new 4 yr plan would allow students to do a semester abroad. I was surprised to learn that undergraduate semester study abroad is new to Michigan…it explains why we got such a vague answer when we visited campus on an admitted student day 2 years ago.