For those of you who might have questions about the newly-structured BBA Program, there are a couple of interesting and useful articles in BusinessWeek:
- “Big Changes for Michigan BBAs”, September 27, 2006: An interview with Michele Thompson, head of Ross Undergraduate Admissions.
- “A "Luxurious Position" at Michigan”, April 17, 2006: An interview with Al Cotrone, director of the Office of Career Development at Ross.
Taken together, these articles provide a lot of clarifying detail about getting into the program, about the program itself, and about getting a job after graduating.
While I don’t have anything to add to the articles themselves, I am going to take the opportunity and reply to a couple of the more uninformed comments at the end of the Thompson interview:
- We have lots of reasons for having a direct admit program, and copying Indiana’s program (or anyone else’s) was certainly not on the list. We added this because we wanted to provide attractive, high-performing high school students with another option. UM’s Office of Undergraduate Admissions had told us for many years that this would be an attractive option for high school students. They have the option of going to MIT and Wharton directly out of high school. We wanted to give the cream of the high school crop the opportunity to apply directly to Ross — given the quality of the applications that we received and the quality of the students who matriculated here this fall, I am happy to report that we have exceeded our expectations (in no small part due to the efforts of Ms. Thompson). Further, we are not going to be going to 100% direct admissions because we know that many students do not decide to go into business until after they get to college.
- As for the size of our courses: Core courses have 70 students, while electives usually have between 25 and 50 (usually around 40). I’m an associate professor and head of the BBA Program, and I have office hours twice a week for the students in my sections of the core.
- Related to the BBA and MBA: If you get a Ross BBA, then you may or may not need an MBA. It all depends on your desired employer. Some companies require that their employees get an MBA as a prerequisite to moving up in management. Others don’t care about it at all. For others, getting certified as a financial analyst or a CPA is what is really needed in order to advance. It just depends. A typical Ross BBA shouldn’t worry about this type of thing until several years out of school; he or she is very well prepared to succeed in his or her job immediately after graduating. The BBA is neither simply a preparatory degree for receiving an MBA nor a deterrent to getting admitted into an MBA program. It is simply an undergraduate degree that is also very good at preparing a student to succeed in business. Further, it is an excellent preparation for law school or graduate studies in public policy. We have an excellent track record at placing students in the best programs in the country in these fields of study.
So, that’s it for now. If you are interested, or if you have a friend or family member who is interested in the Ross BBA Program, pass along these links.
