This Just In: Michigan Ross Jumps into the Top Two in P&Q’s 2020 Best Schools for Business Majors Ranking

In what Poets&Quants dubs an “impressive” climb, the Ross School of Business has earned the No. 2 spot in the publication’s ranking of Best Undergraduate Business Schools this year. This result marks the best finish for Michigan Ross to date, rising from No. 4 last year, and No. 13 two years ago.

To compile the ranking, P&Q equally weighs data on admission standards, academic and co-curricular experience as measured by alumni, and employment outcomes gathered from extensive school and alumni surveys. 

The 2020 results show Michigan Ross continues to make large gains in the alumni portion of the ranking. The school placed second in alumni satisfaction, just a few points behind the top place finisher, and up from 11th last year and 32nd the year before. 

The article mentions the change in the Ross BBA from a three-year to four-year direct admit program, as well as impressive stats of the newest and most recent graduating classes: “Of those accepted in 2019, the average SAT score was 1500. Graduates from 2019 averaged $75,575 in salary in their first jobs.”

P&Q spoke with Norm Bishara, associate dean of Undergraduate Programs at Michigan Ross, for his thoughts on the BBA program’s climb in the rankings. Bishara said in the article that Ross has done a lot of work to make the program more cohesive, which he believes carries over to the student and alumni experience.

Bolstering the student experience, Bishara said cross-campus entrepreneurial endeavors are popular for business majors at Michigan Ross. “Students are taking classes all over the university,” he explained. “We have students getting dual degrees. We have students who are learning things from other schools and bringing them back here — their projects and startups.”

Additionally, Bishara said that students are taking advantage of the opportunity to study abroad in the winter term of their junior year as part of the Ross Semester Exchange Program. Nearly half of BBA juniors are slated to participate in the program in 2020, up from 147 students in 2017.

Along with publishing its rankings, P&Q posted the results of the alumni report card survey that it used for the rankings, which revealed that Michigan Ross received nearly all A’s and A+ 's from the Class of 2017. 

Among the questions grads rated Ross highly were: would you recommend the business program to a close friend or colleague; how would you judge the business program’s alumni network and connections that can help you throughout your career; and how would you appraise the effectiveness of the business program’s career advising, where Ross was one of only six schools to receive an A. 

SEE THE FULL RANKINGS HERE