Ross School of Business

Among many others, three main factors differentiate Ross: 1) The opportunity to attend school in the wonderful, close-knit campus town of Ann Arbor. 2) A highly collaborative student body that is passionate about social and environmental issues and how business can be leveraged for positive global impact. 3) The Multi-disciplinary Action Project and many extracurricular activities that push students to apply their MBA skills in ambiguous, new situations that, while often annoying, are highly realistic of challenges we will face in the real world.

I think Ross needs to focus on enforcing higher academic standards on its MBA students. I found my courses challenging and usually (not always) the course load was adequate or challenging. However, at times, I did not feel grading standards were as stringent as they could be. Top recruiters never looked at students' grades or seemed to care about MBA performance, which reinforced the situation. Ross and top MBA recruiters should both emphasize the importance of the academic experience and academic success. Many students will not prioritize academic success if recruiters do not and I think this dampens the MBA experience for students who are highly passionate about academics.

"GO BLUE" is currency around the world for U-M alumni. It's an invitation to have a conversation with countless individuals who have passed through this special place in Ann Arbor. All MBA programs have instructive classes, acclaimed professors, a bevy of student clubs, etc., but none have the people and family of Michigan. I am proud to be a Michigan alumni.

I think Michigan needs to drastically improve its Office of Career Development. Not sure how it is relative to other schools of its caliber, but students at Michigan often pursue non-traditional career paths and the office is not equipped to help them.

What makes Ross unique is the truly inter/multi-disciplinary approach to business. Because of the close relationships with other graduate schools, and major joint degree programs my academic experience has been greatly enriched in understanding how they all work together. Also, the heavy focus on learning by doing and reflection truly has allowed me to grow as a leader.

There are a couple of firms, Bain for instance, that recruit at Ross but don't use it as a core school, which could be improved. Ross is improving in terms of diversity, but its location still poses some challenges in that regard.

Ross brings the best of everything together: It combines a great University (Michigan) with a top notch business school in a fantastic town. It is literally the best of all worlds! Football, classic college town, great recruiters on campus, incredibly diverse classmates, challenging professors. I am so glad that I came to Ross, I couldn't even imagine going to a different institution.

Grades don't matter (Michigan has a non disclosure policy for grades, as do most schools) and they should so students have more of an incentive to come to and participate in class.

The caliber of students and alumni really elevates the school character. We help each other as much as possible, while still keeping a competitive edge. Students are trained to respond to requests for help within 48 hours. The community is dynamic, generally kind spirited, and team-oriented. They are the type of coworkers that you want to work with, the bosses you work hard for, and the people you would stick your neck out for.

While the quality of the classes overall is very good, the quantity is a bit lacking. By the time I got to the end of my 2nd year, I just felt like there weren't any more interesting classes left for me to take.

Ross is a great school for those making big career transitions. The core classes are exciting and relevant, and even Accounting is taught conceptually rather than by rote memorization, so the concepts ""stick."" The electives are broad and interesting enough to allow for specialization, and the faculty are both extremely accomplished and very approachable.

Ross is extremely focused on diversity, and the student body is very inclusive. As a lesbian attending a Midwestern school, I was surprised to find that not only was being gay a nonissue, there was actually a large LGBT community within the MBA program. Also, I think it is important that the Ross diversity clubs are not cloistered support groups, but are huge and fully integrated into the fabric of the student community. Most of them (including Out for Business, the LGBT student club) have plenty of non-minority ""ally"" members, regularly host events that include the entire student body, and work closely with the Admissions staff to ensure that future classes are even more diverse. And it's working! The year I went with my classmates to the Reaching Out LGBT MBA conference, Ross easily had the largest student group in attendance."

Although I feel that the program is very strong, I feel that certain classes should be moved into the core curriculum such as Valuation. There are a handful of courses that most students take on their own and are valuable enough to have directly in the core. Also, the order of the core could be adjusted to move the strategy class to the end of the core instead of at the beginning.