Class size for BBA Program

Over the last five years or so, the BBA Program has had about 350-360 students graduate per senior class. We had never before had such a large graduating class. Given the high yield rate of students who were admitted to the program and students who ended up enrolling in classes, we usually admitted no more than 360-370 students after their sophomore year.

Now we’re playing a different game. We are admitting students directly from high school and after their freshman year. The yield rate is much lower for the high school students than the freshman students because they have not yet picked a college to attend. The school now has two decisions to make: what percentage of the graduating class should be admitted directly out of high school, and how large should the graduating class be? I’ll take these questions one at a time (though, of course, they are related).

Since Ross had never before admitted high school students, we have been conservative in our first two years related to the size question. We enrolled a class of 70 students in 2006 and hope to enroll around 100 students in 2007. We will continue to monitor the performance of these “preferred admit” students as we strive to determine how to create the best possible class of graduating BBAs.

As stated before, recently we have had graduating classes of around 350 students. We are in a transition period here at Ross because of the construction. We are going to have access to limited classroom space here on the Business School campus until sometime late fall 2008. However, after that, the Ross School is going to have more space than ever at our disposal — not a lot more for classes, but some. The question becomes how are we going to use it (as a school). Do we have a larger Day MBA program or BBA Program? Or do we add specialized degree programs such as the Masters in Supply Chain? Do we add more programs jointly with other schools and, if so, which schools? Do we add more electives, and to which program? These are not easy decisions to make and have not been fully decided yet.

We are looking at all possibilities. We know that there are students who are not in the BBA Program who would like to be in the program and would succeed once enrolled. But, as discussed, the situation is not that straight forward. I will write about this as more decisions are made.