Elon ranks among country's top 40 undergraduate business programs

The undergraduate business degree program at Elon’s Martha and Spencer Love School of Business ranks among the best in the country, according to a new survey published by business education news outlet Poets & Quants. 

Elon’s program ranked No. 39 in the U.S. in the inaugural survey by Poets & Quants that includes private and public institutions of all sizes. The survey methodology focuses on three main components — school admissions standards, alumni perspectives on the educational experience and employment data. Raghu Tadepalli, dean of the Love School of Business, said the Poets & Quants ranking is the result of several business deans expressing the need for a ranking of business schools that is based on clearly identifiable criteria that are important to student and parents.

“This ranking does not divide schools into different categories or by region,” Tadepalli said. “Consequently, it is indeed gratifying that the Love School of Business is ranked among the top 40 business schools in the country and speaks to the dedication of our faculty and staff to insuring student success.”

In its article about the Love School of Business, Poets & Quants highlights the program’s ability to ensure a business degree is part of a broader liberal arts education, Elon’s innovative Study USA program and the school’s Doherty Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership. 

Elon achieved its highest marks in the area of the academic experience, which was based on surveys of alumni who had been away from school for at least two years to determine how satisfied they were. Among the questions alumni were asked were whether they would recommend the school to a friend, whether the business degree was worth the time and cost and how effective the career advising effort of the school was.

​​The rankings factored in employment outcomes by looking at the percentage of graduates who started jobs within 90 days, the average salaries of graduates and the percentage of the class with internships before their senior year. For admissions standards, the rankings considered average SAT scores for the last entering class, the percentage who finished in the top 10 percent of their classes in high school and the acceptance rate for the business school program. 

Elon ranked 30th for academic experience, 32nd for the employment of its graduates and 44th in admissions standards. 

“We are being compared with nationally known research universities with high levels of name recognition and we are able to compare very favorably,” Tadepalli said. “It is an honor to work with such a dedicated group of faculty and staff.”

Poets & Quants is headed by Editor-in-Chief John Byrne, who along with being the founder of C-Change Media formerly served as executive editor of Bloomberg Businessweek, Businessweek.com and Fast Company. He created the first regularly published rankings of business schools for Businessweek in 1988 and has authored several business school guidebooks.

“The most popular undergraduate degree granted in the U.S. is the business degree,” Byrne said. “In 2013-2014, more than 358,000 undergraduate business degrees were conferred in the U.S., roughly double the next most area of studies in the health professions. Yet, most of the information available for would-be students and their parents is at the university level and is not specific to business schools. Some very good universities have so-so business programs. Some lesser known universities have business schools that far excel. We’re making that apparent with this ranking.” 

Elon’s Love School of Business was one of three North Carolina schools to make the list, joining Wake Forest University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis took the top spot in this year’s rankings.