B-Schools That Create The Best College Experience

B-Schools That Create The Best College Experience by: Nathan Allen on December 11, 2016 | 0 Comments Comments 13,363 Views December 11, 2016Minnesotas Carlson School of Management placed highest in the signature experience and global immersion portion of PQs alumni survey of 2014 graduates.Blake LaBathes first guiding moment of his undergraduate business education came from an unlikely source at an unlikely time. He and a group of students were bussed to a YMCA camp on the shores of Lake Independence, about 25 miles from the University of Minnesotas Carlson School of Management-—in the dead of winter. Part of Carlsons LeaderShape program, the excursion brings together 50 business and engineering students for a week where they learn how to build a just, caring, and thriving world where all lead with integrity, according the the programs mission.We learned about leadership, community, and the world, recalls LaBathe, 21. But the ah-ha moment came during a late night conversa tion with fellow Carlson freshman Raphael Raffy Maristela. He told me how important it was to remain humble and hard working, says LaBathe, who will be graduating from Carlson this spring. The words, stay humble and stay hard working have remained in my head ever since.The timing and setting of LaBathes key experience might be unique, but the fact that it happened is not. According to  PoetsQuants survey of alumni from the leading undergraduate business schools, no other school is more likely to provide a signature experience or global immersion than Minnesotas Carlson School. Some 71% of 2014 alums reported having a signature experiencedefined as a major experiential learning project, retreat or thesisand 83% claimed to have a global immersion during their time at Carlson, which finished 12th in this years rankings. The survey was done as part of the debut PoetsQuants 2016 ranking of undergraduate business schools.RESULTS NOT A SURPRISE FOR CARLSONS ENTREPRENEURSHIP DIRECTORTo us , its not a surprise, says John Stavig, the director of the Holmes Center for Entrepreneurship at the Carlson School. I think we were the first school 10 years ago to require an international experience for all of our undergraduate students. That clearly has an impact. But also experiential learning is at the core of what we do.Indeed, the schools stellar performance was buoyed largely by the high percentage of students experiencing a global immersion, more than 20 percentage points higher than the 60% at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaigns, which came in second place in global experiences. Alumni from Elon Universitys Love School of Business reported the next highest percentage of global immersions  at 50%. For signature experiences, no other schools alumni reported higher exposure than those at Northeastern Universitys DAmore McKim School of Business, at about 78%, which was propelled by its well-known, co-op program.  Boston Universitys Questrom School of Business finished close behind at 77%, with alumni citing the schools Core program as the main driver.When the two categories were averaged, however, after Minnesota Carlson, the next four schools providing their students with the most signature experiences and global immersions were Northeasterns DAmore McKim, Elons Love, Bostons Questrom, and the University of Texas-Austins McCombs School of Business, respectively.Why is this aspect of undergraduate business education important? The days are long gone when students were simply marched through a series of classrooms, taking a set of core classes and then picking form a menu of electives to major in a specific business discipline. Real consulting projects with companies and trips abroad to expose students to different cultures and economies have now become table stakes at the best business schools.THE IMPACT OF PERSONAL ATTENTIONBlake LaBathe, a senior at Minnesotas Carlson School of Management will be working full-time at Microsoft after g raduation this spring. Courtesy photoFor LaBathe first became interested in business after taking a sports marketing class during his freshman year of high school that, he says, was a marketing class disguised as a sports class. Choosing in-state Carlson wasnt part of his original plan, but once the Minnesota native looked into Carlsons highly pragmatic curriculum, he was convinced the school was the place for him.   There wasnt a school as career-focused as what I saw at Carlson, insists LaBathe, who also visited and looked over such rivals as Wisconsins School of Business, Texas McCombs, and Michigans Ross School of Business. While those schools touted their own strengths, with Michigan Ross pushing consulting and Texas McCombs pumping up accounting, LaBathe didnt know exactly what career path in business he would eventually take. All he knew is that he wanted to study business.And that defining career-focused approach is what stands out in LaBathes mind as his undergraduate ex perience wanes. The summer after his junior year, LaBathe came back to campus from his financial services internship at Polaris, a leader in producing and selling powersports products, with a full-time offer in hand. He stepped into  Xiaoji Zhangs office — an assistant counselor at the Carlson School Undergraduate Business Career Center.  I like the work I did but didnt love the company, LaBathe recalls telling Zhang.Zhang, who has a masters in counseling psychology, did exactly what is expected of a counselor. She talked with LaBathe about his passions and career goals and where they aligned. And then she convinced LaBathe to turn down the offer. Two weeks later, LaBathe received an email from Zhang with some internship descriptions at companies she thought LaBathe would be interested in. A week after that, they bumped into each other in a Carlson hallway.  I barely recognized her, but shes like, Oh, Blake, how are you doing? Hows recruitment going? Did you get my emai l? Are there any companies youre targeting now?' LaBathe recalls.When LaBathe did find his dream internship-—a financial analyst gig at Microsoft-—Zhang was there ready to do a mock interview right before LaBathe flew from Minneapolis to Microsoft headquarters in Seattle. This time, LaBathe accepted the offer after completing the internship, he says, beaming over the phone, and will make the move to Seattle after graduation this spring.  I realized for every bit of work I put in towards my own career, Carlson was going to match that, LaBathe says. They were going to put in just as much work to make sure I was achieving my dream career and my dream goals.COURSES AT CARLSON BUILT TO INCORPORATE THE INTERNATIONAL REQUIREMENTWhile personal touch and attention seem to stand out in the minds of students,  many schools have made significant curricular and extracurricular changes to broaden the swath of potential impact experiences. This year, Minnesota Carlsons internatio nal requirement garnered the best feedback. When we put that requirement in place, it was something the entire school got behind, Stavig says. And a result of doing that was we needed to create interesting options for the students.Stavig says some of those innovations came out of the entrepreneurship department he heads. For example, entrepreneurship courses began building a portfolio of short international experiences for undergrads. A lot of courses we specifically developed to support that requirement, Stavig notes. Most recently, Carlson incorporated a trip to Cuba in Steve Spruths entrepreneurship course. â€Å"I’ve never seen a more excited group of students,† says Spruth, a senior lecturer in the school’s strategic management and entrepreneurship department .  Ã¢â‚¬Å"They could barely sit in their seats the first day of class, which is rare. That tells me that we’ve created an experience that people realize is hard for them to have on their own. You want to say you were in Cuba before it changed.†Visiting a country like Cuba takes the international experience to a new level, Stavig believes. Spending a semester in Europe or Australia, in my mind,  doesnt count as a transformational learning experience, says Stavig, noting he encourages students to spend time in both developed and developing countries. Working on projects with individuals and companies in these developing countries and trying to solve real challenges as you work through the cultural differences is dramatically different and significantly more impactful for the students.KELLEYS I-CORE PROGRAM A HIT AMONG 2014 ALUMSAt Indiana Universitys Kelley School of Business, which finished eighth overall on the signature experience and immersion test, the most talked about experience among alumni is the schools integrative core (I-Core) program. Dubbed internally as the Kelley rite of passage, the four-block course program is designed to combine what students lea rn inside and outside of the classroom from the first two years of their undergraduate experience. I-Core is part of a trio of curricular additions recently made at Kelley. The other two are the Kelley Compass, which according to the school, is the DNA of the Kelley experience and includes three courses taken during the first three years of the program and the Global Foundations Core.The challenge we identified a number of years ago, when we redesigned our undergraduate curriculum, was how could we create a program that could both equip and empower students to find and follow their passions, explains Joshua Perry, the chair of the undergraduate program at Kelley. Its to really discover what they want to do with a business education and then to guide them successfully into a chosen career.Perry says that Kelley adopts a self-discovery approach to business education and is a result of a top-down approach to creating the best undergraduate business experience in the country. Unlike man y other schools where Ph.D. students and teaching assistants are rolled out, Perry notes, some 99% of the courses at Kelley are taught by full-time faculty members. Perry admits many schools that place around Kelley in the rankings likely have some sort of derivative of what Kelley does, which is true. Be it Northeasterns co-op program, Minnesota Carlsons international requirement, or Boston Questroms CORE offering, many schools have unique ways of offering a meaningful experience. But according to alumni perspectives collected via our alumni survey, some schools are better at it than others. Either way, students are increasingly looking for experiences beyond traditional classroom instruction.Education isnt about memorizing content anymore, Minnesotas Stavig insists. That has dramatically changed.See the following page for the programs most mentioned as signature experiences by the Class of 2014. Those programs are not listed in any order. The final page contains  a percentage ra nking of how schools performed in the signature experience and global immersion category on our alumni survey. Page 1 of 3123 »