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My salary discussion was obviously regarding the Money one that includes salary information that somebody linked to in a recent post.
It does not break out salaries by occupation and it is does not appear to adjust for cost of living. You made it seem like my criticisms were not valid. I think salary could be a useful metric if they broke it out by occupation and adjusted for cost of living.
Last edited by ClemVegas; 02-22-2018 at 05:10 PM..
For a business major, I'd add comparisons of the schools based on these criteria to the mix:
1. Strength of the program in the student's intended area of specialization (number of faculty in that specialty, number of classes offered each semester, number of students who choose that specialization, funding for the program, unique options or strengths of the program in that specialization). Since interests can change, it never hurts to look at a few other specialties in the business school as well.
2. The strength of the business school's career services office and programs
3. Internship opportunities and internship placements in the specialization
4. Which companies recruit on campus for business majors in general and for grads of the intended specialization in particular. How many job fairs does the school host? Do major employers conduct on campus interviews?
5. Where do grads end up working. By this I mean both the employers AND the geographic locations. If your goal is to end up working in a particular state, choosing the flagship business program in that state *may* give you a leg up over someone who graduated from a geographically distant program. Local employers tend to hire from the schools they have in their backyards.
To a lesser degree, it can also be telling to look at where students in the business program go on to get their MBAs.
The business school itself, as well as the school's career services office, should be able to answer most if not all of these questions, but there is also plenty of information available on each business school's website.
Of course, most students will also want to compare the out of pocket cost of attendance (i.e. net price), student loans required, and personal factors (i.e., distance from home, location, extracurricular interests, etc.)
Congratulations to your son, and best of luck to him - he has some GREAT options!
Thought I would post an update on the final schools on my son's list... Here is the status of the schools he applied to:
Accepted (somewhat ranked below by son's interest level):
Penn State, main - business direct admit
The Ohio State - business direct admit
Miami Ohio - business direct admit
University of Colorado - business direct admit
Michigan State - business direct admit
Montana State - business direct admit
Indiana U - accepted, but not business direct admit
Deferred:
Clemson
University Minnesota, Twin Cities
Denied:
Wisconsin
Still under review:
University of Washington
He has received merit scholarship $ from all the acceptance schools, except Penn State, Ohio State, and Colorado have not notified him yet - though they've communicated the scholarship package should be coming soon.
At this point, I believe Ohio State, Penn State, Miami of Ohio are at the top of his list based on their business programs (see - it's not just about skiing!). Miami Ohio gave him a rather generous scholarship. Ohio State has the highest rankings for the business programs he's interest in.
Since I started this thread in 2016, he has determined he does not want to go into engineering but wants to study in the following areas: finance, accounting, supply chain, real estate, and/or entrepreneurship... He applied to these schools as a finance major.
We have scheduled additional tours/visits to several of these schools.
Anyone have any feedback/experiences with some of these programs?
One correction to your post--IU Kelley School is ranked higher than Ohio State in finance specifically and the entire Business school. It also receives a higher ranking from employers. Not sure of your location, but your name suggests the Chicago area. Lots of Chicago area employers recruit at Kelley.
I wouldn't worry about him not being a direct admit. If his scores are close to the direct admit level (maybe test scores are fine, but GPA is slightly under the requirement, etc.) or he applied after Nov. 1, he can petition the decision.
Chicago area students make up the largest percentage of out-of-state students.
We visited Miami of Ohio about 10 years ago when my daughter was in high school. It reminded me a lot of IU on a smaller scale--trees, the town, etc.
Are you an MSU grad or what? I think it's fairly common knowledge what the best schools for business degrees are, and MSU is not on the list. You seem to like to disparage "a magazine" but like it or not, the US News rankings are pretty much the gold standard. I disagree with some of US News' rankings. Penn State, for example, seems to know what to do to get so highly ranked, and yet that huge school only has one alum who ever won a Nobel Prize, and that person didn't go to grad school there; no faculty members who have won a Nobel. US News is using GPA and SAT scores to show quality of applicant a school takes. No, an employer won't ask an applicant. Most employers have a pretty good idea of the quality of schools their applicants come from. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...ies_(21st-50th)
Agree and disagree.
I agree that too many people rely on US News' rankings as gospel and that these rankings are skewed anyway: too much emphasize on admissions stats when, really, admissions is just a popularity contest that favors/disfavors schools often because of geography and other logistics. I mean, Michigan State University is a huge world-class university that sits in a medium-size state contending with another huge even higher ranked school in University of Michigan. And yet there's Clemson Univ ranked higher than Mich State, which is in a small state with no in state competition with modest competition in the region -- UNC and Ga Tech are very good, but there are a bunch of bordering and nearby southern states with mediocre public Us. Clemson decided to emphasize engineering, which typically draws higher math SATs/ACTs, and viola! ... Honestly, does anybody really believe Clemson is qualitatively 'better' than MSU? Certainly the world ranking authorities, like Times Higher Education (THE) of London, and even US News' global rankings -- which don't really factor in admissions, don't think so.
Plus you are correct, there are schools that have, admittedly, manipulated their admissions stats to move up quickly in USN&WR's rankings -- I'm not sure about Penn State, but I know Washington U, among others, admitted to such, and I would be very surprised that Northeastern U, which shot up the ladder out of nowhere, didn't do some admissions stats tinkering as well...
I disagree putting much stock into Nobel prize numbers. For one thing, a quick scan of the Wikipedia list you presented has inaccuracies: for example, for University of Kentucky they missed nobelist Thomas Hunt Morgan, by far UK's most prestigious non-sports alum. For Michigan State, they failed to list Albert Fert, an off-campus adjunct professor. Land grant separate schools, like Michigan State, Iowa State, Maryland and Penn State historically were undergraduate Agricultural & Mechanic Arts (engineering) colleges focusing on technical subjects, while flagship universities in these states were graduate/research institutes since at least, the turn of the 20th Century -- the land grant separates didn't grow into grad-research schools until the mid/late 20th Century.
(Note: in eastern states like Maryland, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, states early on subsidized private Ivy League/Ivy Like universities for graduate/research making them, quasi state-flagship universities so that, in these cases, the land grant schools stood on similar ground to there west-of-the Allegheny bretheren who competed with State U flagships, esp in Big 10 country.
I agree that too many people rely on US News' rankings as gospel and that these rankings are skewed anyway: too much emphasize on admissions stats when, really, admissions is just a popularity contest that favors/disfavors schools often because of geography and other logistics. I mean, Michigan State University is a huge world-class university that sits in a medium-size state contending with another huge even higher ranked school in University of Michigan. And yet there's Clemson Univ ranked higher than Mich State, which is in a small state with no in state competition with modest competition in the region -- UNC and Ga Tech are very good, but there are a bunch of bordering and nearby southern states with mediocre public Us. Clemson decided to emphasize engineering, which typically draws higher math SATs/ACTs, and viola! ... Honestly, does anybody really believe Clemson is qualitatively 'better' than MSU? Certainly the world ranking authorities, like Times Higher Education (THE) of London, and even US News' global rankings -- which don't really factor in admissions, don't think so.
Plus you are correct, there are schools that have, admittedly, manipulated their admissions stats to move up quickly in USN&WR's rankings -- I'm not sure about Penn State, but I know Washington U, among others, admitted to such, and I would be very surprised that Northeastern U, which shot up the ladder out of nowhere, didn't do some admissions stats tinkering as well...
I disagree putting much stock into Nobel prize numbers. For one thing, a quick scan of the Wikipedia list you presented has inaccuracies: for example, for University of Kentucky they missed nobelist Thomas Hunt Morgan, by far UK's most prestigious non-sports alum. For Michigan State, they failed to list Albert Fert, an off-campus adjunct professor. Land grant separate schools, like Michigan State, Iowa State, Maryland and Penn State historically were undergraduate Agricultural & Mechanic Arts (engineering) colleges focusing on technical subjects, while flagship universities in these states were graduate/research institutes since at least, the turn of the 20th Century -- the land grant separates didn't grow into grad-research schools until the mid/late 20th Century.
(Note: in eastern states like Maryland, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, states early on subsidized private Ivy League/Ivy Like universities for graduate/research making them, quasi state-flagship universities so that, in these cases, the land grant schools stood on similar ground to there west-of-the Allegheny bretheren who competed with State U flagships, esp in Big 10 country.
Yes/no.
I did not state, nor did I mean to imply, that Penn State is being dishonest. I said "seems to know what to do to get so highly ranked". Penn State has 19 "commonwealth campuses" throughout the state. Most of these are two year schools. (They also have some "special mission" campuses such as the medical camus in Hershey, and a few four year satellite campuses.) Many students who don't get in at the main campus do get accepted at a commonwealth campus. I recall reading one time, and I could never find this again if I had all day, that Penn State's stats in US News are based on the freshman class it admits to the main campus. However, the commonwealth campus students are free to transfer to the main campus after 1-2 years assuming their grades allow, so the SAT/ACT/GPA scores of its total graduates from the main campus are lower than those of the freshman class admitted to the MC. Penn State Campuses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsy...ate_University
As for the Nobel Prize numbers, again yes/no. For starts, it was an example to show that PSU is not up there with a lot of other super high academic schools. Typical of CD, someone took the example and ran with it.
PSU is a huge school. I recall also reading that 1 in 7 college graduates in PA went to Penn State. The current undergrad population is 83,170 students, about 46,000 at the main campus. One would think that a school that big, with a faculty large enough to service that many students, would have more than ONE Nobel laureate. Even if that number is incorrect, and there are maybe three, that's still not a great showing. The University of Illinois, which is tied for PSU at #14 by US News, has 29. U of I is quite similar to PSU in many aspects; it's big, it's a land-grant school, has a big ag college, as well as engineering and liberal arts. Even the U of CO, a known skiing school, has 13, according to the numbers supplied by Wiki, which as you say, may have missed a few. If you look at that list, though, you'll see that some schools don't count certain people. (Op cit)
Disclaimer: My brother is a Penn State grad. I have no animosity to PSU.
Last edited by Katarina Witt; 02-23-2018 at 01:29 PM..
I did not state, nor did I mean to imply, that Penn State is being dishonest. I said "seems to know what to do to get so highly ranked". Penn State has 19 "commonwealth campuses" throughout the state. Most of these are two year schools. (They also have some "special mission" campuses such as the medical camus in Hershey, and a few four year satellite campuses.) Many students who don't get in at the main campus do get accepted at a commonwealth campus. I recall reading one time, and I could never find this again if I had all day, that Penn State's stats in US News are based on the freshman class it admits to the main campus. However, the commonwealth campus students are free to transfer to the main campus after 1-2 years assuming their grades allow, so the SAT/ACT/GPA scores of its total graduates from the main campus are lower than those of the freshman class admitted to the MC. Penn State Campuses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsy...ate_University
As for the Nobel Prize numbers, again yes/no. For starts, it was an example to show that PSU is not up there with a lot of other super high academic schools. Typical of CD, someone took the example and ran with it.
PSU is a huge school. I recall also reading that 1 in 7 college graduates in PA went to Penn State. The current undergrad population is 83,170 students, about 46,000 at the main campus. One would think that a school that big, with a faculty large enough to service that many students, would have more than ONE Nobel laureate. Even if that number is incorrect, and there are maybe three, that's still not a great showing. The University of Illinois, which is tied for PSU at #14 by US News, has 29. U of I is quite similar to PSU in many aspects; it's big, it's a land-grant school, has a big ag college, as well as engineering and liberal arts. Even the U of CO, a known skiing school, has 13, according to the numbers supplied by Wiki, which as you say, may have missed a few. If you look at that list, though, you'll see that some schools don't count certain people. (Op cit)
Disclaimer: My brother is a Penn State grad. I have no animosity to PSU.
A couple things:
it's a fine distinction, but even though they are both considered "land grant" universities, U of Illinois Urbana-Champaign was the state's flagship school prior to the turn of the 20th century whereas Penn State assumed this position much later, really by the 1950s if not later. Thus UIUC had a tremendous head start in terms of its graduate/research as compared to Penn State, where even now, many of the grad/research function in the State are at U. Pennsylvania and Pitt. Despite PSU's great size as you note, this makes a difference for PSU was/is more undergraduate focused. UIUC on the other hand, which comfortably leads the Big 10 in Nobel affiliations, is more similar to Cal-Berkeley which, also is a land grant school.
it's a fine distinction, but even though they are both considered "land grant" universities, U of Illinois Urbana-Champaign was the state's flagship school prior to the turn of the 20th century whereas Penn State assumed this position much later, really by the 1950s if not later. Thus UIUC had a tremendous head start in terms of its graduate/research as compared to Penn State, where even now, many of the grad/research function in the State are at U. Pennsylvania and Pitt. Despite PSU's great size as you note, this makes a difference for PSU was/is more undergraduate focused. UIUC on the other hand, which comfortably leads the Big 10 in Nobel affiliations, is more similar to Cal-Berkeley which, also is a land grant school.
I am aware of some of Penn State's history, as well as UIUC's where my husband got his PhD. However, I don't get this. Penn State was established in 1855, UI in 1867. What was Pennsylvania's flagship prior to the 1950s?
The problem with looking at earnings is different occupations have different payscales. To lump all careers together doesn't make any sense to me. In general, a more STEM oriented college will have graduates earning an higher average salary.
The early career earnings do not factor in cost of living.
You see the California schools ranked high but California is a very expensive place to live and employers tend to pay more in CA than employers in other places with lower COL.
That makes sense. I tried to dig deeper to see if they had a more detailed earnings scale by the school, I wasn't able to find it on most school sites.
I didn't read all the post but I wanted to comment on the business major. I went to school for my undergraduate in Business Administration with a minor in IT at a public regional Universities South Tier 2 school. It is a medium size school with less than 6k students. It isn't considered a top school but it was a good school.
I think my success in business was after undergraduate school. My school had an excellent career and counseling department for job searches after graduation. I interned 15 hours a week in different aspects of the business and IT field while going to school full time.
After graduation, I landed my first corporate job at Fidelity Investments. I had never heard of the company. They were impressed with my experience and hours of internships at various business companies throughout my studies.
I interned in the field of marketing, accounting, economics, IT computer programming, project management and many positions at the VA administration while completing my undergraduate degree. I went on to UNC to start my graduate degree.
I started working at Fidelity in the RTP area with many graduates from Ivy League schools that had moved down to the Raleigh-Durham area from Massachusetts. I had co-workers from Boston U, Yale, Penn and many other schools from the Northeast.
What I found that in many business fields, It's about your experience and determination to progress not a major emphasis on credentials in undergrad schools with the exception of some fields like accounting and IT that require certifications. Working at Fidelity Investments, I did continue with their on job course certifications and training.
I took courses with Boston U and Villanova in Six Sigma, accounting, human resources and most of the courses that related to my field at Fidelity. I continued to get bonus and promotions and progress through the ranks.
I say this because it is not always a matter of going to the best schools and spending lots of money to have a great career in business. It's the determination to expose yourself to every aspect of the business, project management, and technology. I know it's not one size fits all but most places would rather see your hands-on learning experience while in college and after than a GPA and a school name.
Even though I'm no longer in the public sector, I find it true in the government sector as well.
Regarding rankings: if we're talking US News rankings for "BEST BUSINESS SCHOOLS" those rankings are for MBA/masters programs, and not the undergraduate programs.
Rankings are a starting point for making comparisons, but what a prospective student and parents really need to do after being admitted is dig down further to make their own rankings. I suggested a few things to consider above, but each student/family will have - and should have - their own criteria for ranking the different options in the end.
I live in Boulder and have kids, so this thread caught my eye. We struggle with finding a location like Boulder, but not 2 miles from the house.
There are a few excellent Business Schools on his accepted list. Honestly they are a notch or maybe 2 above CU.
Have you visited Montana State yet? I see a decent number of local kids go there and they absolutely love it.
I get what your saying about location. IMO my daughter's perfect school is right near our house (Northwestern) but it is just too close for her...
We drove through Montana State campus, but haven't made an official visit yet. Colorado and Montana were once at the very top of his list, but for whatever reason (maybe the business school offerings) he is not as interested now. Too bad because they are in beautiful areas and he got a lot of scholarship $ from Montana.
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