The David Eccles School of Business at the University of Utah landed at No. 84 in this year’s 2023 rankings, down just two places from No. 82 finish in our 2022 rankings. The B-School’s acceptance rate was 93% for the most recent incoming batch of students compared to last year’s 73.77%, and their average SAT score remained the same this year at 1210.
Eccles students have relatively strong employment outcomes. Some 84.20% of the Class of 2023 secured full-time employment within three months of graduation, and 61% of the Class of 2023 landed a business-focused internship before graduating.
TRULY INTEGRATED CORE CURRICULUM
Business majors at Eccles include Accounting, Business Administration, Entrepreneurship, Finance, Information Systems, Management, Marketing, Operations Management, and Quantitative Analysis of Markets and Organizations.
All Eccles undergraduates are required to take the undergraduate core curriculum, which features a number of liberal arts courses. What makes the core curriculum at Eccles unique is that the curriculum is designed specifically for business students unlike at other B-schools where students take a university-wide general education.
The Eccles core curriculum integrates liberal arts and business together with courses such as “Foundations of Business Thought” and “Business and Humanities.” In Spring 2019, Eccles began offering a revised core curriculum that features an integrated, problem-based approach to teaching foundational principles and concepts. The new curriculum reorganizes foundational information systems and statistics material in a two-semester, problem-based sequence called “Frameworks for Business Problems.”
Additionally, first-year students take a Career Development course, where they explore career interests and goals, and a VIBE (Value, Impact, Business, and Entrepreneurship) course where they are exposed to challenges faced by businesses. In their second year, students build foundational interdisciplinary business knowledge through an integrated semester blending accounting, finance, management, marketing, and operations. Through the core curriculum, Eccles students are given a strong foundation in a business-focused, liberal arts education.
Eccles alumni view their education relatively well with alumni rating the quality of teaching in business courses an 8.5 average rating.
“My professors became mentors and friends that I will remain in contact with long-term,” one alumni told us.
GLOBAL OPPORTUNITIES
Eccles students have a variety of opportunities to travel abroad to learn business from a global perspective. The B-school makes it easy for students to still gain credits and stay on track in their program as students can take Eccles School courses at a variety of international locations, both with Eccles faculty and partner university faculty.
“I studied abroad in Paris and I was able to tour different businesses there while studying marketing,” an alumni said. “This was unique because I was able to see business from a global perspective while still learning from professors from the University of Utah.”
One of the strong global opportunities at Eccles is the honors-level Business Scholars Program. Business Scholars get priority registration for Eccles Global trips and have the opportunity to meet with business leaders from the companies that they study. Many alumni that we surveyed spoke highly about their experience abroad through the Business Scholars Program.
“I took part in a summer program with the Business Scholars,” one alumni reported. “It helped me to integrate with my classmates, many of whom I worked with during the remaining years of my degree. It also exposed me to the alumni network and helped facilitate my eventual career abroad.”
Beyond the Business Scholars Program, there are a number of other opportunities for students to travel globally as well with programs designed around specific majors. For example, the Eccles Global Business Consulting Internship Program allows students to be part of a multidisciplinary team working with companies in Amsterdam and Paris. Students act as the subject matter expert for their field within the consulting team and work together to solve real challenges that global businesses face.
Overall, what makes the Eccles program valuable is its integrated business and liberal arts core curriculum and the ease and variety of opportunities for students to travel abroad.
Alumni say:
“My Business Scholars experience was life changing. I just got back from a two-year volunteering service and was eager to learn the world of business. The program gave me the opportunity to explore different components of business as well as networking with peers and professionals. I think it’s important to have those experiences as a first-year student versus when you are a third-year student.”
“The courses focused on developing various technical skills in combination with soft skills relevant to management which better prepares you for the complex challenges in any work environment. Further, many of the project-oriented coursework has been instrumental in developing a personal portfolio that can be used to demonstrate learned skills.”
“Visited many different large corporations and went out of the country to experience business in other countries to gain exposure to all types of businesses.”
“The student investment fund program prepared me for the high expectations and long hours associated with early-career finance. The network of high achieving young professionals and access to top tier professors was a great motivator and resource post-graduation.”
“The Goff Strategic Fellows program was a student-run consulting agency that provided consulting services to actual companies. Over a year, we developed four unique business model recommendations for four real-world companies. This experience provided me skills and tools I still use to this day to identify and solve problems.”
