The sophomore was just getting settled in at orientation as a new member of the Ross School of Business, and was being introduced to his orientation group’s assignment. The idea was to use a competition to bring the section together while introducing principles of business to the newly admitted students. The goal: create a Kickstarter for a business that wanted to supply computers to underprivileged youth in Detroit.
Cortez, who grew up in a lower-income Detroit family, applied to the Business School for social change and effective community action just like this. He was a business student for less than a day, and he was already living his dream.
But almost as quickly as he was sold on the project, he realized that the dream was going to have to wait. There were roughly 85 other students in his group, and he got a taste of what happens when that many high-minded and motivated individuals are asked to collaborate and compete.
“As we start working and separating ourselves into teams, you can see the alpha dog-ness in a lot of people,” Cortez said. “I like to be around a pretty diverse group, people who are knowledgeable and socially conscious, so I’m used to kind of stepping back, give your idea, and come to some consensus. But a lot of people came in feeling like they had the idea, they had to take charge.
“Everybody is trying to take over and rule this room. That’s really not how to get things done, so I just immediately was sensing trouble. At first, I just tried to kind of bring the group together and even try to take a leadership role until I realized that no one was listening, everyone has their own opinion, nobody is willing to listen to anybody else’s thoughts.”
Cortez could tell right away that it was trouble. Just a few rooms over, fellow Business sophomore Emily Yerington was struggling through a very similar experience.
“I really didn’t know what to expect, so I was trying to be open-minded about it going in,” she said. “What ended up happening was that it became a shouting contest and it was actually very much male-dominated. That was the only experience I’ve ever had where I felt like I was at a disadvantage for being a girl.
“The only people that were getting their voices heard were these guys and most of them were bigger and almost scary.”
It’s no secret that the Ross School of Business is an elite institution. It regularly ranks among the top five undergraduate business schools in the world, and 92 percent of its students have a job offer within six months of graduation. Last year, 1,139 freshman — 19 percent of the University’s class of 2017 — applied to the Business School, a number that has continued to grow year after year. About 400 students were admitted at the end of their freshman year — accompanying about 100 pre-admitted students — to make up the entering sophomore class.
But if the Business School is so popular and successful, why do students want to leave? Both Yerington and Cortez left the Business School after their first semester, and roughly 3 percent of students drop the program each semester.
Though the magnitude of the dissatisfaction will vary, stories of herd mentality, arrogance and a lack of a voice inside the Business School leave many dismayed and even upset with their collegiate path.
“There is a lot of ‘Oh my god, I hate this place. I’m just here because I know I’m going to get a job,’” Cortez said. “When I decided to drop, I heard a lot of ‘Kendall, that takes so much courage, I wish I had dropped.’ There’s definitely a sense within the Business School that people who are in it love to hate it.”
Always at the forefront of academic prestige and success, the school now finds itself at the forefront of a much less desirable position. The negative internal and external perceptions of the Business School are mounting, and the school must find a way to respond.
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For whatever reason, many students love to hate the Business School.
Some people dislike the Business School for the building, already critiqued as overly extravagant with expansions on the way. Others dislike the seemingly endless supply of funds for students, artwork, and — of course — moving trees. Others still disapprove of the exclusionary culture, one in which students try to separate themselves from the remainder of the student body, with exclusive classes, recruiting opportunities, and even a separate name.
For Lynn Wooten, the associate dean for undergraduate programs, however, it’s the internal dissatisfaction that’s most problematic. A longtime researcher in strategy, management, and organizational behavior, Wooten knows the dangers of these competition-filled communities.
“We try to reach out to every student and to practice what we preach with this notion of self-authorship and finding your passion,” she said. “But no matter how much we say it, research says that students are going to follow their peers. You can come in wanting to use business for social change, but then you see everyone is doing finance. I’ve heard some students say they feel marginalized, and then they ultimately went into finance because they felt a big push to do so.”
In total, around 40 percent of the Business School students go into finance, making it far and away the most popular component of business, though Wooten said there was similar peer pressure felt to go into accounting and consulting as well.
Both Cortez and Yerington applied to the Business School with ambitions surrounding social change, but both felt that it wasn’t the peers that did the funneling into finance — it was the coursework structure. Beginning a business curriculum with quantitative and foreign concepts of accounting and business analytics only furthered the bitter taste, Yerington said.
“I was never mainstream business, which is a vast majority of what Ross is.” Yerington said. “As much as they pretend that they aren’t about that, that’s exactly what they are. (The administrators and faculty) act as if they want to make us all individuals who are going to go out and change the world, but they make it so all of our resumes look exactly the same, our interviews are trained to be exactly the same way, and basically they just funnel you into paths and you’re going to be a little clone with everyone else.”
Added Cortez: “They need to do a better job of letting kids know that there’s more to business than three fields … Yes, these are the most popular, but there’s a slew of other things that you can do and be happy doing with a business degree.”
This narrow focus goes with what Wooten describes as a herd mentality — a process of assimilation and conformity that the dean sees as the school’s greatest flaw. There are a number of factors that go into this practice, but Wooten believes the dynamic is already in place before the students enter the Business School.
With this year’s introduction of a more flexible curriculum that will, for the first time, allow students to study abroad during the academic year beginning next year, along with enhanced programs to ensure a thriving culture and positive influences, Wooten said she feels that the next two years will be a major step for the Business School to increase student happiness.
However, admittance and core classes begin in sophomore year, which means most students may already be a part of communities on campus. This may narrow students’ focus both academically and socially, hindering the influence of added programs.
“The question becomes, how do we get people to find where they can thrive and fit into the culture, and how do we change the perception of the culture to make everyone feel welcome?” Wooten said. “That involves trying to get people to know each other better through teamwork and group projects.
The focus on technical skills and quantitative specialization is a growing trend among most business schools, but, according to a 2012 report by The Wall Street Journal, employers don’t agree with this trend.
Employers need “flexible thinkers with innovative ideas and a broad knowledge base derived from exposure to multiple disciplines,” but don’t find it in the business world because “the undergraduate degrees focus too much on the nuts and bolts of finance and accounting and don’t develop enough critical thinking and problem-solving skills through long essays, in-class debates and other hallmarks of liberal-arts courses,” the article read.
Around the same time that the report came out, Wooten and fellow Business School administrators were beginning to finalize plans to join a growing number of business programs with redesigned curriculums. The changes are only beginning to take place, but it was clear from the start what the goals were.
Through revised curriculum, supplemental programs and an enhanced support staff, Wooten and the rest of the administrators are looking toward customization and a sense of purpose for all 500 students in each grade level.
“What keeps me up at night is thinking about how I can make sure Ross is the best business school and transformational experience for everyone,” Wooten said. “If I think about the changes I want to make, I want to have engaged learning experiences inside and outside of the classroom.”
The new design increased the number of business classes — something Wooten said had to be done to keep up with other schools — but also increased flexibility. For the first time, business undergrads are able to study abroad and now have the opportunity to schedule core classes to their choosing.
But Wooten’s ultimate goal is to increase student happiness while continuing the same practices that make the Business School one of the world’s premier business programs each year.
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