Making its debut in this years Poets&Quants rankings in 29th place is Freeman College of Management at Bucknell University, a private liberal arts college in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. It comes in just one place behind Hult International Business School with an admittance rate of 29% and a strong alumni survey where over 80% of students from the Class of 2019 said that they would recommend the undergraduate business program without hesitation. In Fall of 2019, almost 1,500 students applied to the four-year business program and only 430 were admitted.
Over at Bucknell, experiential learning takes precedence. They have an Executive Alumni Mentoring Program that connects first-year students with mentors at firms including Goldman Sachs, Vanguard, Deloitte and JPMorgan Chase, study abroad programs in Ireland, South Africa, Costa Rica and one in Asia Pacific coming up, and industry trips that bring business students to Wall Street in New York City and Silicon Valley in San Francisco.
Business students at Bucknell can choose to major in Accounting, Finance, Business Analytics, Managing for Sustainability, Global Management and Markets, Innovation & Design. The school estimates that the four-year cost of attendance to be $212,190, and additional expenses such as rent, transportation and study materials are expected to add to that amount. About 33% of incoming Fall of 2019 students received some form of scholarship support with the average amount at about $32,000.
In a survey with P&Q, almost 90% of students from the Class of 2019 said they believed the school had prepared them well for the world of work, and 85% said that their Bucknell degree was worth its cost in tuition. Almost 95% also said that alumni of the school were accessible and willing to connect them with potential employers.
In an institute where 70% of students from the 2019 class said their experience was life-changing, the school has displayed great responsiveness to industry trends and market needs. They shared that the most significant curricular enhancement the school made recently is a new business analytics major that culminates with a practicum and is supported with a student trip to Silicon Valley over spring break.
To support the success of the incoming class, the school has also implemented learning cohorts and first-year students in groups of 8 are paired with mentors from the senior class, providing guidance, advice, and direction for students in a new environment with new systems in place. As a result of the school’s effort, they shared that their first-year retention rate is 96%.
The management programs at Bucknell are firmly rooted in the tradition of teaching management in the context of the liberal arts. As such, management students must participate in the liberal-arts core and most of the management majors have elective requirements in their program that explicitly require students to take classes outside of the College of Management. In addition, all management students participate in the writing across the curriculum requirement, which asks that all Bucknell students take at least three writing-intensive classes during their time here.
Management 101 is a hallmark of the school’s experiential approach to management education. In Management 101, all students learn about basic organizational forms, behaviors and decision making by forming a company in their first year, raising funds through a self-designed product that is sold on campus and using the proceeds for a service project in the local community. Since its inception in 1978, 310 MGMT 101 companies have provided services and donations valued in excess of $500,000 and have worked more than 100,000 person-hours for their service client partners. At the other end, seniors in the Management Consulting class work with local organizations and communities, such as depressed towns from the coal region in Central Pennsylvania, to rebuild the community.
Freeman College is a signatory member of the United Nations Principles for Responsible Management Education (UN PRME) and is committed to integrating the UN Sustainable Development Goals in our curriculum.
The school also offers 7 courses with a significant global component that helps bring the world into the classroom. With names like Global Manager as Diplomat, Global Manager Abroad, and Global Flows of Capital, students are given ample opportunities to figure out the skills needed to work in a global workforce. In classes such as Sustainable Management and Technologies, students travel to Costa Rica for three weeks to learn from real life.
Over 80% of students from the Class of 2019 said that they were engaged in a signature experience such as a simulation, capstone project, or competition, while at Freeman College, and almost 85% said that their time there was life-changing. Over 70% of students from the 2019 class found full-time positions within 3 months of graduation with an average salary of $67,505 drawn, and their list of top employers has consistently included PwC, Deloitte, KPMG, Deutsche Bank, Ernst & Young and Accenture.
“I got to select my own research topic based on my passion; I had one on one experience working with a professor,” Amy Caporale, a Class of 2019 student who is now working as an analyst with Portfolio Advisors, said. “It was outside the scope of a specific major but overall an amazing experience and chance to learn about what I was truly interested in.”
