MBA Program Of The Year: Michigan Ross’ Full-Time MBA

The Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor

When Elizabeth McLaughlin graduated from the University of Michigan in 2015, she distinctly recalls the bittersweet moment when she left campus for the start of her professional career. “I remember thinking to myself, ‘Those four years were the best of my entire life, and now they are gone,’” she says.

A communication studies major, McLaughlin moved on to great success. She joined ABC News’ Washington, D.C. bureau as a production assistant and quickly rose, by the age of 24, to cover military and national security issues from the Pentagon for the network’s TV broadcasts, radio stations, and digital platforms. It was a plum job that brought her to 18 countries across four continents with senior government officials from the departments of defense and state leaders.

In time, McLaughlin found herself more interested in the topics she was covering than reporting on them, so she decided an MBA would be the ideal vehicle to make a career transition. With some uncertainty, she returned to Ann Arbor to earn her degree from the Ross School of Business.

‘THERE IS JUST AN INTANGIBLE MAGIC ABOUT THIS PLACE’

“When I came back, I was unsure because I had already been here and I didn’t think I could recreate the feeling I had as an undergrad,” she says. “But the same magic that I felt for four years has happened again. There is just an intangible magic about this place. People care about it so much that It makes me emotional.”

What McLaughlin, who will graduate next year, is encountering has less to do with wizardry and far more to do with a continually innovating MBA program that puts experiential learning at its core and students at the center of the experience. From the required action-learning project that breaks the academic calendar for seven straight weeks and the seven student-run investment funds to a host of other projects and assignments, Ross demonstrates its belief that students best learn by doing.

Elizabeth McLaughlin will graduate with her MBA from the Ross School of Business in 2022

One of the biggest surprises for the former 30-year-old journalist is that she would get to help lead one of the seven student-run investment funds. “I would not have guessed that I would be leading one of our student venture funds,” she says. “I felt that was a world that would have been impenetrable for a journalist. But I made that a focus of my second year here and I am a co-managing director of it. I don’t think I will go into venture capital immediately but it has been a once-in-a-lifetime learning experience.”

PROGRAM OF THE YEAR: MICHIGAN ROSS’ FULL-TIME MBA

What makes the school’s MBA program stand out, however, is its ever-evolving nature. Time and time again, Ross continues to roll out one innovation after another. Little more than a month ago, faculty and MBA students launched the Michigan Climate Venture, a first-of-its-kind, multidisciplinary program at the intersection of climate technology and venture capital. It includes a new student-led investment fund that will disperse cash to early-stage companies in environmental solutions and sustainability. A month earlier, Michigan Ross revealed a new Business + Tech Initiative to prepare students for careers at the intersection of business and technology. Over the summer, Ross launched a healthcare accelerator to provide student teams with grant seed funding and mentorship for student entrepreneurs in the health sector. The school also put in place a new Founders Program in its +Impact Studio, welcoming a half dozen student-led ventures.

The pace of new programs and initiatives is dizzying. “We are built on innovation,” says Brad Killaly, associate dean of MBA programs. “We listen to our students and we listen to our alums. Innovation and creativity are celebrated. We have a culture rolling up our sleeves and trying and doing. That comes from faculty, students and alumni, and from staff. The boldest thing we have done is our ability to make investments in our curriculum, in our community, and in our co-curricular activities to educate and inspire students. It’s our unwavering commitment and success in innovating new courses that equip our students with the most current skills.”

For its leadership in the field of experiential learning and for the never-ending initiatives that keep the MBA forever refreshed and up to date, Poets&Quants names Ross’ MBA the Program of the Year for 2021. For a program that ranks 13th best in the nation by Poets&Quants, Ross’ innovative spirit makes its MBA experience punch well above its weight class. This is the first time, moreover, that we’ve honored a program without a permanent dean. Associate Dean and long-time faculty member Francine Lafontaine temporarily succeeded departing Dean Scott DeRue earlier this year while the university conducts a search for a permanent successor.

ROSS HAS CONSISTENTLY BEEN OUT FRONT IN ADDING ALL KINDS OF DIFFERENTIATING EXPERIENCES

Ross is the fifth school to earn this annual distinction. Last year, Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business got the nod for its highly innovative online MBA program. A year earlier, Washington University’s Olin School of Business was honored for its bold and radical revamp of the school’s full-time MBA experience. The University of Rochester’s Simon Business School won the honor for gaining STEM designation for its entire MBA program, the first to accomplish such a feat (see MBA Program Of The Year: Rochester’s New STEM Play). Simon’s lead has been followed by a bevy of other schools, including Carnegie Mellon and UC-Berkeley Haas. Cornell University’s Johnson School won our first MBA Program of the Year award for its Cornell Tech MBA in New York City (see Program of the Year: Cornell Tech’s MBA).

What do these different MBA options share? In some way, each reflects a reinvention of the conventional MBA degree. After all, aside from a business school’s location or culture, the MBA degree is nearly a commoditized academic experience. What everyone learns in a world-class MBA program is pretty much the same. You take a core curriculum of business basics and then choose from a menu of electives that allow a deep dive into a field of your choosing.

But like our other winners, Ross has consistently been out front in adding all kinds of differentiating experiences within its MBA offering to keep it contemporary and current. No less important to the constant updates is the ever-changing nature of its legendary action-learning projects. The assignments given to student teams by companies and non-profits reflect today’s most urgent and compelling challenges.

ACTION-BASED LEARNING: ‘THAT IS AT THE CORE OUR DEFINING CHARACTERISTIC’

While many schools have only recently tacked on required consulting engagements with companies and non-profits, Ross is now celebrating the 30th anniversary of its learning-by-doing experience, the so-called MAP (Multidisciplinary Action Projects). “That is at the core our defining characteristic,” adds Killaly. “It is who we are. I know other schools have tried to focus on action-based learning but we are the pioneers and the innovators.”

This past year MBA students at Ross participated in 68 MAP projects around the world from more than 100 potential sponsors. More than 35 faculty members directly advised the student teams, along with a host of research scholars and librarians that helped those teams gain difficult-to-find data for their projects. The school boasts six full-time staff members completely devoted to action-based learning.

Because some 95% of the school’s MBA students are career switchers, the projects also help to facilitate career transitions. Students are asked to rank the projects they find most interesting, and a high percentage are assigned to projects that are among their top five. Oftentimes, MAP assignments are pathways to transitions. They lead to summer internships and then full-time job offers in exactly the field they target.

The Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan

LEADING IN DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION

For McLaughlin and other students, it was one of the program’s central features that made her experience so magical—and invaluable. Interested in cloud computing and technology, she worked for Dell Technologies on a MAP project focused on cloud products. The experience was an ideal stepping stone for her summer internship with Microsoft. “I came in with a better understanding of the vocabulary and it allowed me to see myself building a career in this space,” says McLaughlin.

Just as central to experiential learning at Ross is the student-run funds, with a total of $10 million under management. No other business school in the world has as many student-managed investment vehicles. Each fund is run under the supervision of a senior faculty member and provides students with the experience of evaluating pitches from entrepreneurs, performing due diligence, and deciding whether to invest or not. Another Zell Fund resident at the Ross School has an additional $10 million kitty for students to make investments in University of Michigan ventures.

If there is a major trend that has emerged in business education in the past two years, it is a newfound emphasis on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Business school deans have issued all kinds of statements on the subject in the wake of the murder of George Floyd and have named DEI officers, admission officials speak endlessly about the value of diversity, and more admit decisions than ever are being made with diversity in mind.

The Class of 2023 certainly reflects that diversity. The MBA students who entered this fall represented the highest percentage of women ever at 46%, the largest group of students in the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management at 66 students from the most Consortium applications ever. Some 36% are U.S. students of color, tying the record from last year, while 11% are first-generation students, and 5% are veterans. And the class still broke records by achieving the highest average GMAT score in Ross' history, 722, and the highest average GPA of 3.53.

WOMEN NOW MAKE UP 68% OF STUDENT CLUB LEADERSHIP

Brittani Banks will graduate with her MBA from the Ross School of Business in 2022

Diversity, of course, means little without inclusion, and few schools are as ahead in realizing the inclusion part of DEI as Ross. Women, for example, make up 68% of student club leadership. They either lead or co-lead like McLaughlin several of the school's investment funds as well as its consulting and marketing clubs. The last ten student body presidents have all been Consortium members and the last four were women; eight of 10 section presidents also are women.

Each class section includes an inclusion representative, and MBAs are engaged with Ross leadership on advancing DEI work at the school. "They are leading and that helps to build a more inclusive community," says Soojin Kwon, managing director of MBA admissions and the student experience.

Coming into Ross’ MBA program in 2020, as the pandemic was raging and African-American 26-year-old Breonna Taylor was fatally shot by police in her apartment in Louisville, Brittani Banks found it challenging. “But my entire section of classmates just stopped and made sure we addressed the issues of social injustice in person,” she says. “There was a flood of people who wanted to acknowledge what was happening. My classmates were willing to make dinner for me. They were ready to have that conversation because we had built a community of trust with each other.”

But like, McLaughlin, what most surprised her was the autonomy students had to make change happen. Banks, formerly an account manager at Cigna, entered the MBA program keen on a career in healthcare. She joined the school’s healthcare and life sciences club, ultimately becoming its president. Banks had the idea for a health equity case competition and brought it to the program office. “They loved it and provided all the tools to make it a success,” she says. “It wasn’t just my idea and if it happens it happens. They got into the weeds with me.”

'PEOPLE LOVE IT HERE'

Banks, 29, originally hoped to launch the competition with ten teams from ten different business schools. Instead, 220 students on 49 teams applied to compete from 27 universities on three continents. Johnson & Johnson, no less, kicked in $20,000 of funding, in part because of the connections she made at the company through a Ross alum. In September of her first year, Banks was already in the running for a summer internship at J&J after she was contacted by a former member of the school’s life sciences club. " It was unsolicited and a fantastic experience,” says Banks, who interned in a leadership development program at J&J’s Janssen Pharmaceuticals group. “I built a great network at J&J.”

McLaughlin also has experienced firsthand the support of Ross's alumni network. When she was recruiting and reaching out to dozens of alumni, many of whom have since become mentors, they were all highly responsive. "Every single one of them got back to me. It speaks to people’s willingness and love for the school," she says. "And my classmates are p[assionate and fun. Whatever you want to focus on, you can do it here. There is just an energy and a willingness to make things happen. I love that."

At one point an alum of the school asked Banks to pick three things she wanted to accomplish at Ross by the time she graduated with her MBA. “I wanted to lead an organization,” she says. “Do something out of my comfort zone. And I wanted to leave a legacy of some kind.”

'A NEW CHAPTER IN YOUR LIFE DOESN'T HAVE TO BE A SCARY OR DAUNTING THING'

As president of the healthcare and life sciences club who initiated the health equity case competition, Banks feels that she has done all three with half a year to go before her graduation. “Michigan gives you a place to call home so transitioning or moving into a new chapter in your life doesn’t have to be a scary or daunting thing. When you come here you are admitted into a homey community that you can take with you everywhere. That is not an experience you can easily duplicate everywhere.”

Unlike other business schools that are largely isolated from the greater university, Ross is among the most connected to its resident university. "We are fortunate to be part of an extraordinary university and we closely work with all of the other colleges on campus," says Killaly, noting that there are more than 30 dual programs with the MBA. "You have students from other schools in and out of the classrooms, too," adds Kwon. "They are from the schools of public policy, law, education, social work, environment, and public health. Our business school is not across the river."
As co-managing director of the Zell Lurie Commercialization Fund, McLaughlin's team of some 40 students include students who are pursuing degrees in law, public health, and medicine.

Bottom line: The MBA program attracts people with great values who make the community a priority. "People love it here," says Diana Economy, director of full-time MBA admissions. "We get people who are really down to earth. They love their MBA experience and they get great jobs."

Kwon, who earned her Ross MBA in 1999, agrees. "It was like this when I was here. I love my classmates. They feel this tug. Its rewarding to be in a community where people are interested in making a difference and not just a buck.
It’s not just where you are ranked. It’s the special feeling you have about the place."

Call it magic.

DON'T MISS: DEAN OF THE YEAR: JEFFREY BROWN OF GIES COLLEGE OF BUSINESS or MEET THE MICHIGAN ROSS MBA CLASS OF 2023

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