The Robins School of Business at the University of Richmond landed the 18th spot in this year’s rankings, up 5 places from 2021’s 23rd place. Robins placed 26th in the 2020 rankings, consistently climbing upwards the past few years. The B-School has been more selective over the years as well, with a slightly more selective acceptance rate this year of 28.14% for the Class of 2021, up from last year’s 31.20% acceptance rate. The average SAT score went down some, at 1366 compared to last year’s 1384.
Employability for Robins graduates was at an all time high, back to that of 2019’s – with 100% of the Class of 2021 securing full-time employment within three months of graduation, one of the only two ranked undergraduate B-School’s to score perfection in this year’s employment outcomes category besides Byrum. Internship rates decreased this year to 92% for the Class of 2021, down only 4% from 2020’s 96%.
Numbers-wise, Robins proves to be a stellar undergraduate business program. And much of that success can be attributed to the B-school’s focus on small class sizes with high professor engagement and experiential learning-focused education.
SMALL CLASS SIZES WITH QUALITY PROFESSOR ENGAGEMENT
The University of Richmond is a private liberal arts university. As a part of a liberal arts institution, the Robins School offers a business curriculum that’s rooted in liberal arts. Robins students have access to three business majors including Accounting, Economics, and Business Administration. Students can choose from concentrations such as Finance, Marketing, International Business, Business Analytics, Entrepreneurship and Management Consulting.
One of the main benefits of a Robins education is the attention that each student receives. With an average class size of roughly 20 students, professors can offer greater attention to every student’s needs and goals.
Many alumni responding to our alumni survey highlighted the small class size as a main differentiating factor of their Robins experience. One 2018 alumni, who double majored in both accounting and finance, said the small class sizes are Robin were beneficial for engaged learning.
“I was a double major in those subjects so most of my assessments land at average, though teachers were consistently high quality, available, and cared about their students,” the alumni told us.
On average, 2019 alumni rated the quality of teaching in business courses at Robins at a solid 9.2 rating. When asked to rate faculty availability for informal discussions and mentoring outside of class, alumni gave a whopping 9.7 average rating.
Many other B-schools can boast the expansive opportunities that are available to their students, but the fact that Robins places heavy emphasis on its small class size and attentive faculty speaks volumes about the individual care they put into each and every student’s development.
EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING-FOCUSED EDUCATION
Much of the coursework and out-of-the-classroom opportunities at Robins emphasizes experiential learning. By having an experiential learning-focused education that emphasizes teamwork and an application of their studies, students can develop important soft skills such as communication skills, adaptability, delegation, and time management. Surveyed 2018 alumni rated the opportunities given to them at Robins to nurture and improve their soft skills at a strong 9 average rating.
“In my capstone marketing class, we did a semester-long consulting engagement with a local business and got to present our recommendations to them personally,” one 2018 alumni told us. “Great practice in hard and soft skills that I still use today.”
Another 2018 alumni highlighted their experiential learning experiences in both an operations management course and marketing management-focused course.
“Both of these instances were unique as they simulated what occurs in the real world,” the alum said. “There were also strong connections created between concepts to real life application in terms of understanding how to create a lean, agile way of working and working through conflict in our groups.”
Remarks such as these were common in many of the Robins alumni that responded to the survey. Whether it was through a course project or a competition, the main theme from every response was an education that placed strong emphasis on learning business in a way that reflected real-world conditions.
“Management consulting simulations that allowed students to form teams and compete for a grade,” one 2018 alumni said. “The simulation allowed your team to manage a supply chain and maximize revenue/profits over the course of a semester through knowledge gained during lectures. A once in a lifetime experience that essentially allowed me to function as a process improvement and supply chain management consultant before I entered the job market.”
Overall, the combination of small class sizes and opportunities for students to apply their learnings in the real-world makes the Robins education one that will continuously impress both students and employers.
Alumni say:
“The consulting practicum course was exceptional. It was a hands on, guided approach to consulting and allowed for real insight into the daily life, workload and responsibilities of a consultant. It helped with the soft skills of client interaction, operating within scope, managing scope creep, as well as networking. Additionally, this course provided real resume experience that could be discussed with future full-time employers during the interview process.”
“I was engaged in several ‘signature experiences’ that included making complete projects and proposals, some of our own making and some for classwork. It was unique because they were entirely student driven. The professors were there to mentor and bounce ideas off of, but they encouraged us to take the projects from beginning to end.”
“For my senior capstone class, we completed case studies on companies like Disney and Ryanair and recommended real-world strategic initiatives based on the company’s current positioning in the market.”
“I received money as part of the spider internship funds for my proposal to build out a smartphone application to help better serve students who are studying abroad. Without this opportunity, I would not have had the money or time to pursue the idea and bring the app to life.”
“We did a semester-long case study on a business as part of Strategic Management, the business administration capstone course. It was a great way to experience strategy consulting type work in a low pressure academic setting.”
Where The Class of 2020 Went To Work:
PwC – 12
Deloitte – 7
EY – 6
KCIC – 4
Barclays – 3
Harris Williams – 3
KPMG – 3
Truist – 3
UBS – 3
