Are Those Pre-College Business Programs Worth It?

NYU Stern has a six-week program called Summer@Sternfor high school students

TEAM PRESENTATIONS ON THE THREE BEST & WORST DECISIONS

“Nike is really good for them to study because it is kind of one of those iconic brands and resonates with students,” he says. “Nike also has a history of doing some incredibly innovative things and incredibly stupid things, so from a business management standpoint, students can learn from both.”

For another project, students break out in teams to do a business simulation called “Biz Café,” where they get a chance to run a university’s coffee shop and essentially act as the managers, learning how to manage customers’ expectations, deciding what capital investments to make (such as do they need a new espresso machine) and pondering whether or not to buy insurance, Taylor says. At the end of each project, Taylor asks students to make a presentation to the class on what they thought were their three best and worst decisions, and how they would do things differently if they had the chance.

Students get the chance to interact with guest speakers throughout the term, including a hedge fund manager, a high-level commissioner from the National Basketball Association and entrepreneurs.

THE EXPERIENCE CAN HELP STUDENTS BECOME BETTER APPLICANTS

Taylor says he did not have admissions statistics on how many students from the summer program get into Cornell’s undergraduate business program. However, he believes that the experience helps prepare them to become better qualified business school applicants, regardless of where they apply.

“High school students can say they’re ready for college, but the students who go through this program can show or demonstrate to admission people that they can perform at a high level in a college course,” he says.

NYU’s Stern School recently entered the summer school space for high school students with its relatively new Summer@Stern program, launched in 2014. The program had approximately 200 applications for 30 spots last year, says Rohit Deo, acting dean of NYU Stern’s Undergraduate College, and applications have been increasing each year. A “small number” of students from the program have applied, been accepted and enrolled at NYU Stern as full-time students, though admission to NYU Stern’s BS program is not guaranteed by attending the program and it’s not intended to be a feeder to the school, adds Deo.

NYU’S PROGRAM IS SIX WEEKS LONG

Students in the program spend six weeks at NYU taking two courses with NYU Stern faculty: Business and Investments and Behavioral Economics and the Science of Decision Making. Like the other programs, the NYU program introduces students to the “fundamental concept” of business, including accounting, finance, economics, marketing and psychology.

“After taking Summer@Stern, students have a better idea of what it would be like to study business in college and whether it is something they want to pursue,” he says. “Whether they choose to pursue business studies or not, they gain valuable knowledge of the fundamentals of business and personal finance, which can be applied to so many different disciplines, as well as daily life.”

Students who go through these summer experiences say they have had an impact on their lives that goes far beyond just the few weeks they spend on campus. For example, Wharton’s Ben Nathan, who studied in Wharton’s San Francisco outpost in 2014, says the program helped her hone her leadership skills through her group’s entrepreneurship project and the feedback she received from her peers on her strengths as a leader. When she entered Wharton in the fall of 2015, she felt she had a head start in classes like Management 101, a required class for incoming freshman.

‘IT REALLY CHANGED ME’

“There were a lot of activities in the class that I already knew about because I’d done the exact same thing in the Leadership in the Business World program, “she says. “I had an advantage because I knew what the class was about, was used to working on a team and had a greater awareness of my leadership skills.”

In fact, Ben Nathan felt she got so much out of the program that she volunteered as a Residential Team Advisor for the program in between her freshman and sophomore year at Wharton, coaching and mentoring students as they developed their business plans.  She thinks the program is a boon for Wharton because it helps dispel high school students’ notion that the elite undergraduate business program fosters a cut-throat, competitive environment, instead allowing them to see that the school boasts a warm, collaborative student culture.

“I think the experience just sells Wharton so well because the program itself is a good representation of Wharton and the professors,” she says. “It really changed me and helped me learn so much that I wanted to give that same experience to more people.”

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