Best Business Programs by Specialty

College business students rated their schools on a dozen disciplines, from ethics to sustainability. The top programs include some surprises

By Geoff Gloeckler

• View Slide Show

Irish eyes are smiling on Notre Dame's Mendoza College of Business (Mendoza Undergraduate Business Profile). Not only is Mendoza home to the top-ranked undergraduate business program in the nation and the most satisfied students; it's also the most decorated school in Bloomberg Businessweek's annual ranking of the Best Undergraduate Business Programs by Specialty.

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—to their business programs in 12 specialty areas: quantitative methods, operations management, ethics, sustainability, calculus, microeconomics, macroeconomics, accounting, financial management, marketing management, business law, and corporate strategy. Based on those grades, scores were calculated for each of the ranked schools in each area.

Not surprisingly, the top-ranked schools in the overall ranking, published in March, have the most top-10 specialty rankings, as well. Notre Dame leads the way, appearing on eight top-10 lists, followed by Cornell University (Cornell Undergraduate Business Profile) and Babson College (Babson Undergraduate Business Profile)—Nos.5 and 15 in the overall ranking, respectively—with six top-10 specialty ranks apiece.Emory University's Goizueta School of Business (Goizueta Undergraduate Business Profile), the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School (Wharton Undergraduate Business Profile), and the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (Kenan-Flagler Undergraduate Business Profile) each ranked near the top of five specialty lists.

Racking Up Top Awards

Among them, the top three programs in the overall ranking took eight of the No. 1 specialty ranks. No. 1 Notre Dame is tops in accounting and ethics, No. 2 University of Virginia McIntire School of Commerce (McIntire Undergraduate Business Profile) takes the top spot in both macroeconomics and business law, and No.3 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management (Sloan Undergraduate Business Profile) is best in quantitative methods, operations management, calculus, and marketing. "Sloan requires a great deal of its students," says an MIT senior business student responding to the Bloomberg Businessweek survey. "It's exceedingly challenging, but that's a good thing."

Business Exchange

Track and share business topics across the Web.