More Than Business at Babson

Babson's undergrads get business degrees, but half of the curriculum is devoted to liberal arts

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Grant Gosselin
Babson College

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If you're not serious about business, don't apply to Babson College. The school, located in the Boston area, is a business-management school that offers Bachelor's of Science degrees in the field.

Though it might be difficult to commit to a particular field in high school, potential Babson freshmen are able to do it. Many have had successful businesspeople in their families, joined career-related clubs in high school, and taken advanced placement classes in economics or a related field, says Grant Gosselin, dean of undergraduate admission at Babson.

Gosselin is relatively new to his position—he started on Oct. 15 of this year. Before that, he worked in an associate role in admissions at Babson and at Boston College. He also earned both degrees—undergraduate and a Master's in Higher Education Administration—from Boston College.

Gosselin recently spoke to BusinessWeek.com reporter Julie Gordon about Babson admissions. Here's an edited portion of their discussion.

How does being a business-focused college affect the application process and type of student who applies?

We're definitely looking for a very specific student. And that's our challenge—to find students that aren't only academically stellar but are certain that they want a degree in business. We at Babson are very concerned about making sure that students are equally prepared for their careers through an understanding of the liberal arts (see BusinessWeek.com, 4/26/06, "A Liberal Take on Hiring"). Half of our curriculum is actually liberal arts-based, so [another] big challenge is getting the message out that while the degrees that students earn from Babson are business degrees, the curriculum is 50-50.

How do you get that message out?

In our marketing, we're really trying to encourage students to look at not only the business skills that they're learning and how they would be applicable for their careers, but also that the liberal arts are often going to give them what they need to understand people from different backgrounds and understand different cultures and different political situations in the countries in which they might do business (see BusinessWeek.com, 4/26/06, "Memo to Students: Writing Skills Matter").

Besides having strong drive and focus, what other qualities do Babson applicants share?

We're looking for students that not only succeed academically but have shown leadership skills in their high schools or their communities, and they've shown that they're able to see the bigger picture when it comes to how these things play into their development as young people.

Babson has a strong entrepreneurship focus. Do students ever come in with entrepreneurship experience?

Absolutely. A lot of them have started their own businesses. We have students that have done everything from e-commerce businesses to lawn care and snow removal businesses to a number of things in their local communities. And that's definitely something that we look at. We also give them an opportunity to apply for a specific scholarship—our Blank Scholarship. Arthur Blank, who's the founder of Home Depot (HD) and the owner of the Atlanta Falcons, is an alum and has a scholarship in his name.

What's the average GPA and SAT score for incoming students?

Most of our students are about B-plus, A-minus students in the classroom in the most challenging curriculums they can take advantage of. [For SAT score,] the middle 50% range of admitted students last year was between 1780 and 2050.