The undergraduate business experience at Ivy College is best characterized by its flexible curriculum structure and relevant course material.
Iowa State University’s Ivy College of Business ranked No. 85 in this year’s 2023 rankings, jumping four spots from last year’s No. 89. The school has been slowing climbing upwards from the previous year’s 97th-place finish. Of the three methodological categories, the school placed highest in Career Outcomes, landing at No. 63.
The B-school reported an acceptance rate of 87.53% for the Class of 2023 – slightly less selective than last year’s 84.15%. Their average SAT score was a solid 1157 for the Class of 2023. Employment outcomes saw a bit of an increase this year, with 89.40% of the Class of 2023 landing full-time employment at the time of graduation, up from the Class of 2020’s rate of 82.22%.
FLEXIBILITY
Ivy College undergraduates can choose from the following majors: Accounting, Actuarial Science, Business Analytics, Business Economics, Entrepreneurship, Finance, Management, Management Information Systems, Marketing, and Supply Chain Management. One of the benefits of the Ivy College undergraduate program is that students enter as pre-business majors and all follow the same pathway into their upper-level major. In turn, students have more flexibility and time to decide their major.
“Our ‘admission’ requirements to the upper-level majors is not a floating quota or target – students who meet the course and GPA requirements are admitted to their major,” Valentina Salotti, associate dean for Academic Affairs at Iowa State, told us.
Ivy College alumni view their undergraduate business education positively. Surveyed 2018 alum rated the quality of teaching in Ivy College business courses an 8.5 average rating. When asked if they would recommend the business program to a close friend or colleague interested in an undergraduate business degree, alumni gave an 8.9 average rating. Ivy College faculty received a strong 9.2 average rating in terms of their availability for informal discussions and mentoring outside of class.
RELEVANT, END-TO-END COURSE MATERIAL
Ivy College is consistently updating the course material in its curriculum to ensure students are getting a relevant business education. The B-school recently added dedicated majors in Actuarial Science, Entrepreneurship, and Business Analytics — all three are fields that are seeing growth in the B-school’s region as well as in the overall state of Iowa. Additionally, analytics courses were integrated within the curricula of nearly all majors across Ivy College.
The business program received positive ratings from surveyed 2018 alumni who gave it an 8.3 average rating in terms of how well it prepared them for the world of work. Alumni also rated the opportunities at Ivy College to nurture and improve their soft skills in business at an 8.5 average rating.
A number of surveyed 2018 alumni highlighted the relevancy of course material and the impact that course projects had in teaching them valuable long-term skills.
“The supply chain case study course was life-changing in my business career,” one 2018 alum told us. “It taught me quick problem solving and teamwork. It also taught me professional presentation skills. This helped me learn the industry and potential real-life situations.”
“In my entrepreneur course we had to create a product to sell to people to raise money for a charity,” another 2018 alum said. “The goal of this project was to give the largest donation overall. I was able to use skills learned in my accounting and management classes as well as the supplementary courses required to be taken for a degree. My group came up with the idea of selling Christmas mugs for Mug Night. We had to come up with a sale price, price out vendor cost, market the product, and actually sell it. This was a really cool experience where I felt we got to learn how some businesses work and how an entrepreneur gets to where they are. We learned from our peers that some were more successful than others and were able to see what is needed to be successful in business.”
The relevance of court material and project work at Ivy College is what makes its undergraduate business program strong. Students aren’t just taught material and given exams. They’re challenged to apply their knowledge and experience what an industry is really like — from end-to-end.
“The supply chain class had a live study with Target’s Global Supply Chain,” one 2018 alum recalled. “We traveled to China to a lawn furniture factory, followed product back to the Port in China, Port in the U.S., Distribution Center, and then back to the local Target store. We saw an entire supply chain from start to finish while being able to evaluate processes for improvement. We then traveled to Target Headquarters to present our process improvements to Senior Leadership.”
When students enter Ivy College as freshmen, they enter as pre-business. But by the time they make their way through the four-year curriculum of highly relevant material, they have all the proper training they need to be masters of their craft.
Alumni say:
“The content of the capstone project was very relevant at the time of the competition. The team dynamics and the program layout was a very competitive and immensely enriching experience for my business school learning.”
“Hands-on work with industry professionals.”
“Did a project through the college’s honors program on credit scores and ended up becoming a credit analyst! The universe definitely aligned to give me my dream career.”
Top 10 Employers for Class of 2019:
- Principal Financial Group – 24
- Wells Fargo – 21
- TMC Transportation – 16
- John Deere – 15
- RSM US LLP – 14
- PepsiCo – 12
- Cerner Corporation – 9
- Enterprise Rent-A-Car – 9
- Office of Auditor of State (Iowa) – 9
- Collins Aerospace – 8
- KPMG – 8
- Kohl’s – 7
- 3M – 6
- Caterpillar – 6
- Farm Bureau Financial Services – 6
- Pella – 6
- PwC – 6
- Renewable Energy Group (REG) – 6
