2023 In Review: Poets&Quants’ 10 Most-Read Undergrad Stories Of The Year

8. The Highest-Paying Business Majors

Which business major has the highest earning potential? Which has the lowest?
For prospective business school students, these are important questions to consider. And it’s why this story on The Federal Reserve’s ranking of 10 undergraduate business majors on average salaries and unemployment rates was our eighth most-read story of 2023.

Graduates who major in business analytics earn the most ($66,000 on average per year) early on in their careers, the reserve found. For mid-career wages, finance and economics are the top earners ($100,000 on average per year). The ranking used 2021 data from the U.S. Census Bureau to determine unemployment and underemployment rates for recent college grads aged 22 to 27 with a bachelor’s degree or higher.

See the full list, plus analysis of other popular undergraduate majors, here.

7. 50 Best Undergraduate Business Professors of 2023

One of P&Q’s most popular collections is our 50 Best Undergraduate Business School Professors. This year, we received more than 650 nominations from students, alumni, colleagues, and school deans taking the time to put into words what these outstanding professors meant to their students, their departments, and the business community at large.

Nominations came from more than 50 of the best undergraduate business programs, including a dozen international schools.

2023’s list features 24 women, including Anjelina Belakovskaia, Associate Teaching Professor in Global Finance at Arizona State University’s Thunderbird School of Global Management. She is a Woman International Grandmaster in chess, a three-time U.S. Women’s Chess Champion, and a member of the US Olympic Women’s Chess Team from 1991-2000.

What does she enjoy most about teaching business school students? “The ‘eye-opening moments’ when students make connections, recognize value, get excited about the material, and discover the depth of financial knowledge and possibilities,” she says.

See the full list, and read through the professor profiles, here.

6. The Top 25 Highest-Paying Internships

Looking for a high-paying internship this summer? Look in tech.

Tech companies, including Stripe, Roblox, Coinbase and Meta all led Glassdoor’s highest-paying internships ranking this year with monthly salaries ranging from $8,160 to $9,064.

In addition to average monthly salary, Glassdoor also compiled business outlook ratings for each employer. This measure is based on data collected from Glassdoor users, such as CEO rating and willingness to recommend their firm to a friend. Across both finance and tech industries, a number of companies had dire outlook ratings—in large part due to recent mass layoffs.

See the full list here.

5. 100 Best & Brightest Undergraduate Business Majors Of 2023

Since 2016, we’ve recognized the “Best and Brightest” business majors as nominated by the best b-schools in the country. And the list is always one of our most popular reads, this year coming in at No. 5.

This year’s list included 63 women, 37 men and 15 students hailing from nations outside the United States. The student led winning case teams and ran orientations. Often, they served as treasurers, campaign managers, scrum masters and RAs.

“I’ve been fortunate and lucky to have had an incredible journey so far—from winning international pitch competitions to having been featured on Fox News, NBC, the front page of The Dallas Morning News, and over 20 different journals/publications in four different languages,” Raleigh Dewan of Southern Methodist University (Cox) writes in his profile for our annual feature.

“For me, the most meaningful achievements have come from being able to donate money to incredible organizations fighting human trafficking through my Sister Shaq Tea Company and from being able to see people regain the agency, autonomy, and dignity stolen by their neurological diseases with the SteadiSpoon, an assistive eating device I designed for people suffering from Parkinson’s Disease tremors.”

Read through all the profiles here.

4. Acceptance rates and highest salaries for business majors

As part of P&Q’s annual ranking of the best undergraduate business schools in the U.S., we release a trove of data stories prospective students need to make informed decisions. This includes two analysis articles that are routinely among our most popular: Acceptance rates at the business schools in our ranking and the average starting salaries of schools’ graduates.

You can find our acceptance rate breakdown article from our 2023 ranking here.

Or, if you’re more interested in what you can earn after graduating from a top business school, check out our salary analysis here.