Best College Business Programs by Specialty

By Geoff Gloeckler

In early March, Bloomberg Businessweek released the sixth-annual undergraduate business school ranking, which highlights the top business programs in the country overall. In the ranking, the schools that boast the most satisfied students tend to fare the best. If you want to find schools that excel in specific academic areas, however, you need to drill a little deeper.

For instance, in the recent ranking, you would assume that Rensselaer Polytechnic's Lally School of Management and Technology (Lally Undergraduate Business Profile), ranked No.43, is a middle-of-the-pack business program.You wouldn't know that the school ranks No.1 in both financial management and corporate strategy.Similarly, the University of South Carolina's Moore School of Business (Moore Undergraduate Business Profile), with an overall rank of 92, is no where near the top of the list. But in our 2011 undergraduate specialty ranking, it emerges as a leader in international education, taking the No. 2 rank in that category.

As part of Bloomberg Businessweek's annual ranking of the top undergraduate business programs, senior business students from the 139 participating schools were asked to assign letter grades—from A to F—indicating how well their business programs teach 14 specialty areas: quantitative methods, operations management, ethics, sustainability, calculus, microeconomics, macroeconomics, accounting, financial management, marketing management, business law, and corporate strategy, as well as entrepreneurship and international business, which were added this year. Based on those grades, scores were calculated for each of the ranked schools in each specialty area. Twelve schools were removed due to an insufficient number of student responses.

Of the participating schools, a wide variety thrive in the specialty ranks, including top programs, midtier schools, and those that did not rank on the overall list due to insufficient responses by corporate recruiters. In all, 53 of the programs earned at least one top-10 finish, with the University of Notre Dame's Mendoza College of Business (Mendoza Undergraduate Business Profile)—the No.1 school overall—and Emory University's Goizueta Business School (Goizueta Undergraduate Business Profile)—No.3 overall—leading the way with 10 each.Notre Dame claims top spot in the ethics specialty, and Emory earns top honors in business law.The University of Richmond's Robins School of Business (Robins Undergraduate Business Profile), No.12 overall, follows with nine top 10s.In terms of consistency, the University of Virginia's McIntire School of Commerce (McIntire Undergraduate Business Profile) scores the best across each of the specialties, with an average rank of just over 12.

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