50 Best Undergrad Business Colleges

This is a first. Business Week has their 50 and 100 best of employers and several other categories of business and education notables (typically MBA aka “B” schools). But this week, BusinessWeek published a first. They have a PDF chart available that shows the survey results of how undergraduate business schools were ranked by current students.

This listing is more than a who’s who of undergrad institutions. This chart shows annual cost to attend, starting salaries for graduates of the institution, student survey ranking compared with overall survey ranking.
Most notable of the data and information provided is the fact that the schools are graded on a scale from A to C on various quality factors such as teaching quality, facilities and services, and job placement. Additionally, there are quite candid comments about quality of classes and classmates, amount of rigor provided by the coursework.
CollegeRecruiter.com continuously encourages students and grads alike to consider internships. It’s interesting to read the comments for these 50 schools and see that Norteastern requires that students participate in as many as three six-month long work projects. That is definitely a means of getting one’s feet wet on the experience and work environment side of life. And these types of co-op programs are certain to create ripe opportunities to develop mentors and references as one moves forward to becoming a graduate.
Oh, silly me! I keep talking about the list of schools but haven’t shared the link to the Top 50 Best Undergraduate B-Schools.
Are these rankings valid and how did BusinessWeek come up with this information? Well, the methodology (very important information, especially for inquiring minds) is outlined in a separate article called “Grading the Schools.”
Internships and Social Responsibility
Again, here at CollegeRecruiter.com, we keep emphasizing the importance of internships as a source of work experience. Think also of internships in two additional dimensions especially compared with the practices of Notre Dame. First of all, it is possible to intern for a company that is related to a class that you’re taking or just completed. This in turn cements the concepts that were gained in the class. The pieces begin to fall into place and the reason and logic for things becomes crystalized.
Secondly, interning can be considered a form of social responsibility. Instead of mustering all of that information and knowledge and storing it for some date in the future, it can be used to empower, improve, and build your present community on an immediate basis.
About Writing and Communication
Although there are some who feel their future is in writing in some manner (most focusing on journalism), it must be noted that writing skills are critical to all graduates. My suggestion, to supplement the recommendations in their article, is read your report or document over aloud. If the conversational tone of the piece isn’t making sense to you (or your pet cat walks out of the room as you read), there’s some rework that’s needed. Sometimes the phrasing is the problem. Sometimes it’s simply a matter of verbosity. Sometimes the language difficulty level needs to be taken down a notch. Work on writing skills as you consider your undergraduate or your B-school options.
The other important factor (that has caused complaints from partners in all manner of firms) is communication skills. Communication (speaking, listening, conveying the proper message and correctly understanding the content of information) is one of the most critical of employment skills and one of the most crucial admission factors. Of even higher importance is the value employers place on good to excellent communication skills.
Although BusinessWeek also announces that they’re launching their undergraduate channel where students can interact with others, I don’t see why CollegeRecruiter.com users need to go all the way over there to do what can be done here.