The Chaifetz education is made up of three key components: values, leadership, and action. Whether it’s through service opportunities or experiential learning, Chaifetz implements these three core elements throughout the entire undergraduate business experience.
The Richard A. Chaifetz School of Business at Saint Louis University landed at No. 49 in this year’s 2023 rankings – up a good 7 places from last year’s No. 56 in our 2022 rankings.
The St. Louis, Missouri-based B-school had a more selective admissions year, at 78.50% for this year’s incoming class, in contrast to 82.29% for last year’s incoming students. This year’s incoming class had a lower average SAT score than last year’s – dropping 30 points to 1210 for the most recent incoming class in relation to last year’s score which was 1240.
Chaifetz saw a slight decrease in employment rates – from a very high 95.55% of the Class of 2022 securing full-time employment within three months of graduation to a still high 92.68% of the Class of 2023. Internship rates also declined slightly — with 72% of 2023 grads securing a business-focused internship before graduating as compared to the previous year’s 75% of the Class of 2022. Of the three methodological categories, the B-School did best in both Career Outcomes and Academic Experience, where they placed No. 50 in both.
MAJORS AND COURSE CONTENT
Chaifetz undergraduates can choose from 9 different business majors including Accounting, Business Technology Management (available with an Analytics and Enterprise Systems Concentration), Economics, Entrepreneurship, Finance (Financial Analysis Concentration and Real Estate Concentration also available within Finance), International Business, Leadership and Human Resource Management, Marketing, and Sports Business.
Chaifetz alumni view their business education relatively well with surveyed alumni, giving an 8.92 average rating for the quality of teaching in business courses. Faculty support was rated the highest with alumni giving a 9.58 average rating in terms of faculty availability for informal discussion and mentoring outside of class.
SERVICE LEADERSHIP PROGRAM
Community service is a central part of the Chaifetz experience. The Service Leadership Program allows students to volunteer at service sites in the St. Louis community including Big Brothers Big Sisters, Ronald McDonald House, Saint Louis University’s Campus Kitchen. Since its inception in 1996, Chaifetz students have completed more than 100,000 hours of service.
“This is an intensive program that is designed for business students and is unique to the Chaifetz School of Business,” one alumni told us. “The service hour requirement combined with leadership workshops transform business students into agents for change in their communities no matter what their career path and I haven’t seen any program like this at another business school.”
EXPERIENTIAL, REAL-WORLD LEARNING
Many of the courses at Chaifetz include an experiential learning component that challenges students to learn in the real world. A number of these courses also offer a global component, and 26.92% of Chaifetz students from the Class of 2023 graduated with a global experience.
Students in the International Business program can take part in a two-week global immersion trip to Budapest, Hungary as part of their required electives. The trip includes company visits, market survey research, and cultural excursions aimed at teaching students about the business challenges specific to Central Europe.
“One of my favorite aspects of the business classes that I took at SLU was the classes that required service hours or field hours,” one alumni reported. “Although meeting that requirement was difficult and time consuming it allowed me to get real work experience. It showed me what I enjoy doing.”
The Chaifetz education is one that challenges students to not only utilize business to solve real-world issues, but also to lead as agents of change. The B-school’s strong Service Leadership Program and experiential coursework, ultimately, create business professionals who are driven by the Chaifetz DNA of values, leadership, and action.
Alumni say:
“I participated in a startup company incubator and founded a company with other students. I also wrote a capstone thesis on the split between St. Louis County and St. Louis City and the income and socioeconomic effects of the divide. This project connected my education to my experiences in the community and gave me a chance to better understand my hometown. It also allowed me to bring light to issues that many people prefer not to talk about.”
“I finished first in our capstone simulation where we had to build and manage a business. The ability to understand how each department of a business affects another was instrumental to my development and transition to the corporate world. Now I work for one of the largest supply chain companies where this skill and understanding is vital to my role and the business.”
“The experience I enjoyed the most was a project that involved softwares like SAP and Tableau. In this project, we managed the supply chain and the overall business activity in a business simulator that put much of what I learned to test and enabled me to engage in the success of this simulated business selling milk and other dairy products.”
“I was in an Accounting Information Systems class that was sponsored by Deloitte. It was a great experience — Deloitte would fly professionals in from across the country to teach the course. It was a unique opportunity to network and learn more about a firm I would like to work for as well as provide real-life examples of how the class applied to the real world.”
“Drafted a program to help further market/expand LGPA reach domestically. The engagement of this work did not feel like normal school work. The engagement of a 3rd party company was a great experience & use of application of skills rather than learning material.”
