For most majors, there’s a set of schools that tend to be especially popular. Business is not different. Many business students are immediately drawn toward schools like UC Berkeley, University of Michigan, University of Pennsylvania, and many other US News Rankings “powerhouses.”
So long as students are investigating each school carefully and making sure it’s a great fit for them, there’s nothing wrong with using rankings as a starting point. But there’s two potential downsides:
- There are many amazing programs out there that you may end up overlooking if you’re just focusing on the top 10 or 20 or 30 schools on some ranking system.
- When everyone applies to the same schools (and I assure you, this is 100% a thing for certain majors like business, computer science, and engineering), those programs become incredibly competitive. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but when programs are only accepting less than 10% of students, it gives us greater reason to diversify our college lists to include schools that don’t have such low acceptance rates.
This blog post will highlight two business programs that are often overlook but that have a lot to offer.
Bentley University
- Private university in Waltham, Massachusetts that’s primarily devoted to business.
- Small school with around 4,000 undergraduate students.
- “General Finance” is the most popular major, but they also offer majors in: Management, Marketing, Business Administration, Accounting, plus many more.
- They also have a wonderful group of minors to choose from so that students can customize their degrees in things like: Actuarial Science, Data Technologies, Entrepreneurial Studies, Gender Studies, Computer Information Systems.
- All first year students participate in a Falcon Discovery Seminar where they work with a faculty member to solve a real-life, interdisciplinary problem related to business.
- Bentley also has a liberal arts focus, so you won’t just be taking business courses but instead will receive a well-rounded exposure to a variety of core subjects.
- 90% of students participate in internships.
- The university really encourages students to customize their degrees with unique majors, minors, and combinations thereof (this is not something you find at every university).
- Ranked #16 in “Best Value Universities.”
Babson College
- Babson is a private business school located in Wellesley, Massachusetts. Their primary focus is on entrepreneurial education.
- In addition to a robust core business curriculum, they also require many liberal arts courses, with the stated aim of ensuring that students have the critical thinking and communication skills necessary to thrive in the real world.
- They really emphasize sustainability and require all juniors to take a Socio-Ecological Systems course devoted to the role humans play in climate change.
- “Hands-on learning” is built into their curriculum in all four years through internships, research projects, job shadows, and course projects. Indeed, in year one all students turn a business idea into a tangible reality via the required “Foundations of Management and Entrepreneurship” course.
- 14:1 student to faculty ratio.
- 87% of students participate in internships.
- Many classes are taught by former industry leaders.
- They provide 24 different concentrations and encourage students to tailor their degrees by focusing on things like: Environmental Sustainability, Social Responsibility, Legal Studies, Real Estate, Marketing, plus many more.
If you’re an aspiring business student, both of these schools are definitely worth checking out!
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