Purpose of having freshman and sophomore admissions

The Ross School has two paths by which students can gain admission to the program. The first is the “preferred admit” program for high school seniors and the second is the standard program for college freshmen.

Our preferred admit program allows us to target those high school students who have both built a very attractive resume out of high school and know that they are interested in getting a business education. After gaining admission to this program, they can become full-fledged Ross students their sophomore year if they maintain a 3.3 GPA during their freshman year while taking several required classes (including microeconomics, freshman writing, and a math class).

The standard admissions program yields us several types of students, all of whom have done well at Ross in the past:

• Students who are late bloomers and distinguish themselves more in their college application than they did out of high school,
• Students who discovered their interest in business after enrolling at Michigan, and
• Students who, though they distinguished themselves in high school and were interested in business, were not chosen during the preferred admissions process. Unfortunately, there are lots of students who I would like to admit into the program out of high school that I simply don’t have slots for in the PA program. This means that they have to re-apply after their freshman year and I can only hope that they do so.

Concerning the relative sizes of the PA and standard admissions programs, I would like to balance them so that the third type is minimized while still allowing a strong and large group of the first and second types. It will probably be several years before we know what the proper balance should be between the two admissions paths. I have a feeling, though I am not sure, that there is an actual difference between the students in the two admissions paths — not in their performance or eventual career success but in their interests. We like the diversity of student interests that we have always had here at Ross, and I don’t want us to mess that up. If having two separate admissions routes helps us maintain our general diversity, then we’re going to have two admissions routes.

We have strength in finance, consulting, accounting, operations, marketing, etc. We have a strong job placement success in the Northeast and Midwest (because that’s where our students are generally interested in working) though we generally are able to provide some help in placing students wherever they want to go. I think this diversity is a strength of ours. I will continue to be a strong proponent of maintaining these two paths so that we can learn more about the strengths of each and maintain the diversity of our student body.

Competition for preferred admit program

We are extremely blessed here at the Ross School. Through a combination of factors, there is a great competition for the slots in the preferred admit program by which high school seniors can gain tentative admittance to the Ross School. (I say “tentative” because these students have to maintain a 3.3 GPA during their freshman year at Michigan before they become full-fledged students of the Ross School.)

This program was approved as a two-year pilot program by the Ross faculty in which we would hope to enroll about 70 freshmen per year. Last year got off to a great start and we were able to enroll a great group of students. This year has been even better. (The following numbers are tentative but are indicative of how competitive the program is.) UM received about 25,000 applications this year. Of those, about 2300 indicated that they would like to be considered for the preferred admissions program. 2300! I went to the Ross faculty and said that, though 70 sounded like a good number a couple of years ago when the program was approved, I’d like to enroll about 100 students this year. I showed them the evidence of the quality of these students and they were convinced. Thus, this year we should have an entering class of 100 preferred admit students.

We do not know if 100 will be the number of slots for this program into the future. I bet that it’s going to increase in coming years but we’ll just have to see how the applications look. For now, I’m glad that we have been able to provide an avenue for these students to get into Ross right out of high school. I look forward to seeing great results from them (and all Ross students) in coming years.

Work load

In BusinessWeek’s recent ranking of undergraduate business programs, they reported that Ross School students report that they put in more hours per week studying than students at other schools. I wouldn’t dispute this. Probably surprisingly, while I think that putting in the work is a good thing, I’m not going to hang my hat on this and say that this indicates that we have the best students around. While I do think that we have the best students around, I’m not sure that this indicates this. To me, it simply indicates to me how interested they are in their studies, in getting a good grade, and in making sure that their transcript looks like they want it to going into each recruiting season.

I think this willingness to work hard is a distinguishing characteristic of Ross students. The fact that it’s distinguishing manifests itself in two ways. First, first-year students (from other schools and, especially, other universities) find the transition to the demanded and expected workload at Ross very difficult indeed. Many students have been able to get good grades in other schools without putting in the hours required at Ross; they find this new work load unexpected, at the least, and, more likely, hard to comprehend. “I’ve always been able to get good grades while partying three to four nights a week!” We hear this every year and we have to break the news that it’s no longer possible to live that way consistently and get the grades they are used to getting.

The second way that this willingness to work hard manifests itself is in the success that our students have both in getting good jobs in demanding professions (consulting, financial analysts, et al.) and in making quick transitions to successful performance in those jobs because they are so used to working long, hard hours. BBA’s wildly successful job placement record is a matter of public record so I need not go into that here. Their success in those jobs can be both inferred from the fact that these companies continue to come back to Ross to recruit and supported by personal anecdotes that I have heard from students and recruiters about how well the transition of Ross students goes relative to students from other schools.

Let me close by stating that we’re certainly not all-work-and-no-play. Not like that at all. More like work-hard-and-play-hard. Just don’t come to Ross and think “I’m smart; I’ll do fine.” Well, as far as I can tell, almost everyone here is both smart and hard-working — and if they’re not, they’re really good at fooling a lot of people a lot of the time. It’s a challenging and fun place to be.

BusinessWeek ranks us #5

The BusinessWeek undergraduate business rankings came out today. We moved up to #5 this year from last year’s #6. It is quite an honor to be ranked as high as this among this group of top notch schools. We are pleased that we have moved up but, as competitive as we are, we would like to receive a higher ranking — but only if it is an accurate reflection of our status. We are continuing to do all that we can to improve the experience of Ross students while they are here and hope that these improvements are reflected in the next rankings.

There are several parts of the survey that are of immediate interest to Ross students:

• The best undergrad b-schools: This is the lead article for the survey. It highlights four schools including Ross.
• Undergrad Rankings 2007: the rankings themselves. Ross is ranked #5.
• Ross profile: there are some errors that I am going to try to get fixed
• Business immersion the U of M way: a slide show of the Michigan and Ross campus
• Cracking the books: a table listing the (self-reported) number of hours per week that business students say they study. Ross students reported that they work, on average, 21 hours per week, most in the survey. The average for all schools is around 14 hours per week.

Let me know if you have any questions related to this survey.