How would you appraise the effectiveness of the business program’s career advising effort?
Ever since the Great Recession, business schools have poured tons of resources into career coaches and mentoring for their students. Some schools, of course, didn’t need a recessionary wake-up call. Still, among the leading schools, it’s rare that professional development and career management are left out of orientation or even the core curriculum.
So an obvious question is just how much career advising do undergraduates get and how effective is it? At many undergraduate business schools, career management is handled by the university-wide office. The best business programs, however, have control over this critical function and that can make a very big difference in a program’s outcomes. Alumni told us that no school beat Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business in this department. University of Notre Dame Mendoza School of Business came right behind Kelley, followed closely by the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School, TCU’s Neeley School, and UT-Austin’s McCombs.
On our ten-point scale, with ten reflecting the highest possible score, Indiana killed it with a 9.18, while Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School was at the bottom with a 7.31. The average score was 8.49, pretty darn good across the board.
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| School | Grade |
|---|---|
| 1. Indiana University (Kelley School of Business) | A+ |
| 2. University of Notre Dame (Mendoza School of Business) | A+ |
| 3. University of Minnesota (Carlson School of Management) | A+ |
| 4. Texas Christian University (Neeley School of Business) | A+ |
| 5. University of Texas-Austin (McCombs School of Business) | A+ |
| 6. Washington University (Olin School of Business) | A |
| 7. Northeastern University (D’Amore-McKim School of Business) | A- |
| 8. Brigham Young University (Marriott School of Management) | A |
| 9. Wake Forest University (School of Business) | A |
| 10. Georgetown University (McDonough School of Business) | A |
| 11. Southern Methodist University (Cox School of Business) | A- |
| 12. Emory University (Goizueta School of Business) | A- |
| 13. University of Richmond (Robins School of Business) | A- |
| 14. Lehigh University (College of Business & Economics) | A- |
| 15. University of Pittsburgh (College of Business Administration) | B+ |
| 16. Michigan State University (Broad College of Business) | B+ |
| 17. University of Massachusetts-Amherst (Isenberg School of Management) | B+ |
| 18. The College of New Jersey (College of Business) | B+ |
| 19. James Madison University (College of Business) | B+ |
| 20. University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign (College of Business) | B+ |
| 21. Fordham University (Gabelli School of Business) | B |
| 22. University of Wisconsin (School of Business) | B |
| 23. Boston University (Questrom School of Business) | B |
| 24. Purdue University (Krannert School of Management) | B |
| 25. Arizona State University (W. P. Carey School of Business) | B |
| 26. Elon University (Martha & Spencer Love School of Business) | B |
| 27. Texas A&M University (Mays School of Business) | B |
| 28. Carnegie Mellon University (Tepper School of Business) | B |
Source: Poets&Quants 2016 undergraduate alumni survey
