Friday, March 27, 2009

Additional U Sphere Sites Launched -- Community College Site "CC Sphere" joins the U Sphere Network

We're pleased to announce that we've launched a site geared toward community colleges -- it's called CC Sphere and you can take a look here.

A lot of attention being paid toward community college as a viable alternative to the traditional four-year route. We think that these schools have a ton to offer beyond price. Great programs, great professors, individualized attention.

Sometimes the chance to live at home adds to the desire to attend a community college, but in other cases students from throughout the world are finding American Community Colleges to be definitely worth a look.

CC Sphere joins a couple other sites new to the U Sphere Network: MBA Sphere and Med School Sphere.

Be sure to visit these sites -- you can even login using your Facebook ID -- and we'd love for you to share your ideas and resources with us.

(And we love guest bloggers, too!)

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Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Carnival of College Admission Now Live, and U Sphere Weighs In

We always love taking a look at something called the Carnival of College Admission. We think you will too. This edition is hosted by our sister site, MBA Sphere.

These are crazy crazy financial times -- and it's trickling down to the high schoolers in the audience. If Mom and Dad can't pay for college, well, what's next?

The Carnival has a few ideas on those fronts, as well as advice on how to choose the right school, right grad school, and more.

Take a look!

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Friday, March 13, 2009

A few more things from the U Sphere network

We're magically adding more stuff to our network. For instance:

If you're looking for an MBA program, we've got a site called (get this) MBA Sphere. Be sure to visit it and chime in!

We're also enjoying working with a few niche medical programs, and we have started another site called Med School Sphere.

There's more coming -- we're going to be moving this blog over to a blog that looks quite a bit like the other two. Stay tuned!

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Wednesday, March 04, 2009

Post 200 is, fittingly, about Rankings

Rather than attempt to re-invent the wheel, let's just take this undergraduate business school rankings from BusinessWeek and give proper attribution. And thanks. (Thanks, BusinessWeek.)

Here's the press release -- is your school's biz school on the list?

March 04, 2009

Report: The Best Undergrad Business Schools by BusinessWeek


University of Virginia’s McIntire School Tops BusinessWeek’s
Fourth Annual Ranking of “The Best Undergrad Business Schools”
Last year’s No.1, University of Pennsylvania, falls to No.3;


Ohio State University’s Fisher College of Business rises 17 spots to No.42


New York, New York (February 26, 2009)—University of Virginia’s McIntire School jumped to the top spot on BusinessWeek’s fourth annual ranking of “The Best Undergrad Business Schools.” Rounding out the top five are Notre Dame (Mendoza), University of Pennsylvania (Wharton), University of Michigan (Ross), and Brigham Young (Marriott).

The results of BusinessWeek’s fourth annual ranking of undergraduate business programs reflect the job market’s uncertainty. With 54% of responding seniors lacking an offer as of January (compared with 44% in 2008), the schools that excelled in BusinessWeek’s survey have put an intense focus on guiding students through the career search. Leading the way is No.1-ranked McIntire School of Commerce at the University of Virginia, where nearly three of four seniors have job offers, thanks largely to the school’s innovative efforts to build student-recruiter relationships. The same applies to second-ranked Notre Dame, where administrators tap the school’s well-connected alumni network to scout jobs and offer advice to students. Both overtook the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, which fell to third place after three years at the top.

In general, student satisfaction was down, with more than half of the 101 ranked schools taking a hit. Institutions that succeeded in helping students navigate the difficult job market improved their standings the most. Ohio State University’s Fisher College of Business rose 17 spots, to No.42, in large part because of a recruiting focus centered on regional banks and such large local companies as Procter & Gamble and Limited Brands. Others, including No.29 University of San Diego School of Business Administration, saw their fortunes rise due to a strong focus on accounting, where jobs are still plentiful. New York University’s Stern School of Business didn’t fare as well, falling to No.15 from No.8 after some students returned from summer internships on Wall Street without the job offers they had expected. Some who did receive offers are seeing start dates delayed and are now wondering if the jobs will be there when they graduate—and if the $38,686 a year they spent was worth it.

To rank these programs, BusinessWeek used nine measures, including surveys of 85,000 senior business majors and nearly 600 corporate recruiters, median starting salaries for graduates, and the number of graduates each program sends to top MBA programs. BusinessWeek also calculated an academic quality rating for each program by combining SAT scores, student-faculty ratios, class size, the percentage of students with internships, and the number of hours students devote to class work.

BusinessWeek’s ranking of “The Best Undergraduate B-Schools” is available in the March 9, 2009 issue of BusinessWeek, on newsstands March 2nd. Expanded content, including the full ranking and methodology, interactive tables, and a discussion forum are available on BusinessWeek.com at http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/undergraduate.


(more)

The Top 50 Best Undergrad B-Schools


2009 2008 School
1 2 Virginia (McIntire)
2 3 Notre Dame (Mendoza)
3 1 Pennsylvania (Wharton)
4 6 Michigan (Ross)
5 7 Brigham Young (Marriott)
6 11 UC-Berkeley (Haas)
7 9 MIT (Sloan)
8 4 Cornell
9 5 Emory (Goizueta)
10 10 Texas-Austin (McCombs)
11 13 Villanova
12 20 Richmond (Robins)
13 12 North Carolina (Kenan-Flagler)
14 21 Wake Forest (Calloway)
15 8 NYU (Stern)
16 15 Washington U. (Olin)
17 14 Boston College (Carroll)
18 24 Miami U. (Farmer)
19 22 Carnegie Mellon (Tepper)
20 16 Indiana (Kelley)
21 17 USC (Marshall)
22 18 Illinois
23 28 Babson
24 19 Georgetown (McDonough)
25 33 U. of Washington (Foster)
26 25 Lehigh
27 34 Northeastern
28 n/a American (Kogod)
29 47 San Diego
30 29 William & Mary (Mason)
31 23 SMU (Cox)
32 35 Santa Clara (Leavey)
33 30 Bentley
34 32 Texas Christian (Neeley)
35 43 Maryland (Smith)
36 26 Rensselaer Polytech (Lally)
37 31 Texas A&M (Mays)
38 38 Penn State (Smeal)
39 41 Case Western (Weatherhead)
40 37 Wisconsin
41 27 Fordham
42 59 Ohio State (Fisher)
43 42 Boston U.
44 54 James Madison
45 36 Baylor (Hankamer)
46 n/a Chapman (Argyros)
47 n/a Ohio
48 40 Binghamton
49 52 Syracuse (Whitman)
50 49 U. of Miami
# # # #

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