AT CORNELL, APPLICATIONS HAVE GONE UP FOR SIX CONSECUTIVE YEARS
“There really is a pretty dramatic leap,” she said. “I think it represents this understanding more generally that business translates through many spheres. You are seeing interesting stories in society about people contributing, innovating and making changes that affect peoples’ lives across the globe…and I think students are responding to that.”
At Cornell University’s Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, the school has seen an increase in applications every year for the last six years, and for three of those six years the uptick was in the double digits, said Edward McLaughlin, director of the school’s undergraduate program. This year, the school accepted less than seven percent of applicants, McLaughlin said.
“That means for every 100 applications — which are always very high quality in most cases – we couldn’t even accept seven of those 100,” he said. “It is a particularly competitive major.”
A WHOPPING 25% INCREASE IN APPLICATIONS AT UT’S MCCOMBS SCHOOL OF BUSINESS
At some schools the application uptick is worrisome, particularly large state universities already struggling with space issues and budget constraints. At the University of Texas at Austin’s McCombs School of Business, applications have gone up nearly 25 percent in the last three years, said David Platt, associate dean for undergraduate programs.
“It is a challenge for us to keep up because we can’t necessarily scale our resources to match that high a number of students,” Platt said. “We wind up at times having difficult conversations about why we can’t take more students because the resources aren’t there for us to do it properly in order for it to be the kind of program we want it to be.”
The application boom means that admissions officers at undergraduate business programs can be more selective than ever before. Emory University’s Goizueta Business School graduated about 270 students six years ago, a number that climbed to 329 this year. As a consequence, the grade point average of a sophomore today is 3.6, up from 3.3 eight years ago, and SAT scores have followed a similar curve, said Andrea Hershatter, the school’s senior associate dean and director of the undergraduate business program. To even have a shot at getting in today a student needs to become involved in student organizations and demonstrate leadership on campus, Hershatter said.
MORE WEIGHT ON STUDENT INVOLVEMENT IN ADMISSION DECISIONS
“It used to be that academics were what we were looking for, and students didn’t have to worry about anything else because they’d earned their right to come to the business school,” Hershatter said. “We’ve changed that and now put a lot of emphasis on student involvement across campus and recommendations, the typical things that go into applications to college,” she said.
The more stringent admissions standards at schools aren’t keeping students away. The appeal of an undergraduate business degree is undeniable in today’s tight job market for college graduates, deans interviewed said. Most business students graduating from top schools can be fairly confident that they’ll leave school with one or several job offers in hand, and an attractive starting salary. The average starting salary of a business graduate today ranges from $52,900 to $62,100, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers’ 2014 salary survey.
The practical nature of a business degree is what led Rupert Kingshott, 18, a recent high school graduate from Greenwich, Ct., to set his sights on attending a top twenty undergraduate business program. He’ll be attending Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business this fall, and knows first-hand how competitive it is to get into a good business school, he said. McDonough is ranked number 18 in Bloomberg Businessweek’s most recent ranking of undergraduate programs, and received 3,335 applications for 540 spots, the school said.
His strong SAT scores, coupled with his impressive record as a rower on his high school’s crew team, helped him get into McDonough, one of his top choices, he said.
“The chances are very much stacked against you,” Kingshott said. “It is all about the edge. Pure SATs and grades are not enough. You need something extra.”
DON’T MISS: THE TRUE VALUE OF AN UNDERGRADUATE BUSINESS EDUCATION or THE ROI ON A COLLEGE BUSINESS MAJOR
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