Real Talk: Undergraduate Business with University of Michigan

0:00 hello everybody thank you so much for joining us today we have a wonderful program planned and we are very very lucky to have Dr Blair Moody Rideout the director of undergraduate admissions from Michigan's Ross School of Business with us and as people are queuing into the room just a couple of housekeeping items I'm Barry Norman and I will be the moderator and host today and um thank you so very much to registrants

0:31 who submitted so many questions in advance we hope that we've got most of the the topics covered for you please continue to ask questions but use the Q a um uh item for um for Q a and not in the chat ideally and I will look through them as we're having our conversation and incorporate anything that we might be able to but again thank you so very much thank you to Dr Moody Rideout for joining us and without further Ado I'd

1:03 love to get started um so Blair we were talking obviously today's program is about business and undergraduate business in particular um thank you for joining us and um we know it's a busy time for you and certainly gearing up for it but we would love to hear maybe to start out um so many of our students whether you're coming from the counseling perspective or you're a parent or for the students out there there's a lot of

1:33 interest in business it's maybe arguably the most popular major or path that students will will mention and yet at the same time it's it's fairly specific and so when we speak to high school students about this idea of picking something specific um a lot of students will say that they're interested in business when you ask them because they want to make money um they'll say because it's a flexible path they're not sure what they want to

2:00 do but they can do almost anything with this um who do you feel from the high school a high school student who do you feel should be applying to undergraduate business programs and and who shouldn't be yeah so that's a great question when I think of students and I think of business and what we're looking for I think it goes beyond making money I think students often think of Finance right away or Banking and there are

2:25 certainly those opportunities to create wealth but I really think what we're looking for in undergraduate business education are creative problem solvers so you know business is Broad I of course there's Finance but there's many other areas of business there's Consulting there's marketing there's the business and Tech space we have students that go into non-profit management social impact so I think for us what we're really looking for coming out of high school are students that like to

2:53 solve problems if you think of business education a lot of these undergraduate business education programs are modeled after MBA programs that focus on the case study analysis pedagogy and so we're looking for students that can solve cases that can provide their input that can look at a situation analyze it and provide a solution so I think we're looking for problem solvers I still think problem solvers can go you know work on Wall Street and Banking and do

3:20 well but I think the core of business business is Broad and so we're looking more for Creative problem solvers more than students that want to make money yeah it's um I think it's very tempting for a lot of students and there often can be a push sometimes from parents sometimes you know from the students themselves to go in this direction but it is a flexible path and at the same time you're picking something fairly specific as a high school student when

3:46 you choose to do an undergraduate Business program yes both true yes yes and to pick up on something that you mentioned um what about this idea like if you know as well as you can know in high school but if you have a really good sense that you're going to likely be pursuing an MBA down the road what are your thoughts about that the the benefits um or the potential drawbacks of doing an undergraduate Business Degree sure so I

4:12 think before I answer the MBA question I often like to talk with folks about kind of that Paradigm Shift we're seeing in undergraduate education at these comprehensive universities and what I mean by that is we're starting to see more of the professionalized undergraduate degree so business has always been an MBA program we now have schools offering undergraduate business degrees like Michigan Ross we also have schools that now offer degrees undergraduate degrees and public policy and public health we have a school of

4:39 information Library science that was more graduate program you can now do social Computing as an undergraduate student the school of information so when you think about that and how you have history directly graduate programs that now offer undergraduate degrees that means a student coming out with that professional undergraduate degree they don't always need the professional graduate degree so our students now speaking specifically to BBA MBA they don't always need an MBA do some go and pursue an MBA yes absolutely it could be

5:09 a requirement for management at their company if they need to move up in the ranks it could be a way for a student to Pivot paths we do have students that will go you know and do one type of profession in business and then realize oh I kind of want to Pivot and do more consulting or marketing and then have the MBA as a transition point before they jump into a new field but it's not needed the BBA is a professional degree

5:33 a lot of our companies will hire bbas because they can do very similar work to an MBA and they can do that work right away so it is something students don't necessarily need down the road certainly some students will choose an MBA for the reasons I mentioned before but sometimes students will choose other paths as well as other master's degrees or even Law School yeah I think the the idea of thinking a bit more ahead like a bit more Forward

6:00 Thinking a bit more ahead and sort of long term as you're considering this path is is definitely worthwhile and not something that that all students will think about right in the moment um and if we could switch gears to admissions and um get in a little bit to the nuts and bolts and and the numbers and sort of the particulars at Ross especially um applying to Ross is a little bit funky for lack of a better word relative

6:27 to some other schools in the sense that Michigan you um pick a school another school besides Ross first uh who ends up um you have to be admitted to that program and then you are reviewed by Ross separately can you talk a little bit just so that everybody is familiar with the process and also make the distinction between LSA as that first choice and one of the other schools oh yes yeah so you said fun key it's

6:54 complex you know Michigan is a large comprehensive institution we have almost 20 schools and colleges we have different Majors undergraduate majors at each of those so Michigan because Michigan is so complex we we try to streamline a little bit the admissions process so students have one of five choices for what we call first year admitting unit that first year so LSA and Engineering are the big ones and then art music and then School of Kinesiology so those

7:25 are the units students can apply to for the Ross process we're typically seeing students choosing LSA and Engineering most students will choose LSA LSA offers a direct admit option whereas engineering Kinesiology art music those other schools offer what we call preferred admit option I'll get to that in a moment so the mechanics on the Common App when a student goes to the common application they choose one of those five first-year admitting units and as soon as they choose that another

7:54 drop down will open up and it will say would you like preferred admission to one of the upper level units being Ross and I know that sounds a little funny because it's calling upper level unit and we do have first-year students but again that's how they place things so the student then chooses Ross for preferred admission as an upper level unit in that statement there it talks about if you are applying LSA and you are admitted to both LSA and Ross you

8:19 will forfeit your admission to LSA and you will be a Ross first-year student you can certainly still take courses in LSA add on an adult agree or a minor it's just Michigan has this unique concept of homeschool and you can only be in that one home school your first year so that's the direct admit option preferred admit if you're admitted to both let's say engineering and the raw School of Business you actually start in engineering that first year and but

8:44 you're given preferred admission that preferred spot your sophomore year when the Core curriculum for Ross begins you do have to do well that first year you need to get a c minus or higher in the required courses of first year writing calculus economics 101 most of our students that are doing preferred admission will do just fine in that space and then they're officially in two unit sophomore year which is when students at Michigan declare a dual

9:10 degree and are allowed to then have two units instead of just one homeschool that first year so those are the mechanics I will say if you go to our website we have a lot of great resources there's even you know a video where we talk through the process we actually to one of our admission officers she recorded herself with her cursor her Mouse like choosing the different units and how to do that so there is a video

9:31 on how to do that too if it seems confusing for folks yeah thank you um I think you what you get at though is is I think reflective of the institution right like you said this again is big and complex and this is a way to kind of make some sense out of it and to get it more organized so that students know um how their time there especially the first two years will be structured yes

9:54 yeah um and getting to some of the stats which I know a lot of people are very interested in um how many first-year spots are there available in Ross so there are 500 first-year spots available so we enroll that includes both direct admit and preferred admit for a total of 500 the sophomore class is 625 we do add on 125 after that first year okay and can you talk a little bit about where those additional 125 come from

10:22 yeah the 125 is our transfer process both what we call cross-campus transfer so internal students from another unit that are looking to probably add a dual degree maybe they came in undecided or changing major we reserve 100 spots for those students the other 25 are for external transfer students maybe transferring from an institution outside of Michigan uh preference is given to Michigan residents that are attending community colleges and so then that group of 125 is added on and that's when

10:51 The Core Curriculum the cohort begins sophomore year and they're in a group of 625 for the next three years okay so just to be clear the external transfers from outside institutions are Michigan residents from community colleges almost exclusively yes it's an access program that's what is dictated To Us by our leadership it's almost exclusively we're not looking for four-year transfers we don't have a um it's more of a process where we want students from community colleges to

11:22 enroll in the bulk of this 25 will always be Michigan residents from community colleges okay and so if you're a student and another undergraduate Business program and you're looking to sort of as some students will say trade up or looking maybe Michigan unfortunately Warren admitted the first time around this is not a transferring in from another external program is not going to be the way to go right you know four year to four year transfers often help with

11:49 retention you know if you're losing a group of students and you're filling that group with other four-year students maybe from a peer business school we don't have we're close to 99 retention rate for our students so we're not um looking for students from other business schools we certainly tell them think of us for an MBA program after you graduate when you have five to seven years of work experience but this is more of an access program for in-state

12:11 community college students understood thank you um and what about the admit rate for the students who are applying out of high school directly into Ross yeah so we do have a profile a page on our website we're very transparent with our numbers so we admit each year about 850 students and this year we had just over 9 200 applications so that's an admit rate of about nine percent okay and for the for those listening I put in that link

12:42 um in the chat and we'll continue when there are some helpful links if I can do that um so people can follow some of what you're talking about um and then as far as going back to those uh cross-campus transfers those internal transfers that you also mentioned when you were talking about the numbers a few moments ago um what's the admit rate there and can you talk a little bit also about the policy at Michigan where if you don't

13:06 get in out of high school um about not being able to reapply yeah so the admit rate is hovers around 20 percent so uh data on the profile on the website right now is 101 students out of 482 internal or cross-campus transfer applications and like I said we have a hundred spots for cross-campus transfer those students though it's not a reapplication process so we want to be as transparent as possible and I know sometimes this is

13:36 can be a little frustrating for folks that you know I applied out of high school I came to Michigan now you're telling me I can't reapply and yes that is the policy and that's why we tell you out of high school those 100 spots are not intended to be re-applicants they're really for students that are changing their major that came in under or it came in undecided or students adding on that dual degree like I mentioned before

13:59 Michigan has that unique concept of one home school and there's many schools and colleges and a student might want to add the bbr BBA on to their degree program so it's not intended as a re-application process what we do talk with students about though is if you're not admitted to the BBA program out of high school now you know you won't be pursuing a bb-8 Michigan but we still really want you to enroll at Michigan there's many ways to

14:24 do business through LSA there's many ways to have a Ross experience beyond the BBA we tell students you know it's a personal choice at this point you know think about do you want a Michigan degree or do you want a business degree and is that business degree where you've been admitted elsewhere to other business schools and that is a personal choice for students but we want to be transparent at the beginning of what their options will look like once they

14:46 are on campus yeah and so I think that also touches on something we were talking about earlier which is especially if you're interested in Michigan First you do have to ask yourself do I want to be at Michigan is that what's most important or do I need to be in an undergraduate Business program preferably at Michigan perhaps but um and then also really thinking and we'll talk a little bit about the preparation that you're looking for

15:09 um for BBA applicants but really thinking about um whether or not to apply and because you won't get the opportunity if you end up being admitted to Michigan you don't have the opportunity to try again yeah we always tell students apply out of high school because there are more spaces we do have students that will new in high school they wanted Ross and were admitted to Michigan but decide to wait and then they come to campus and they

15:35 apply and they're typically not picked up because again the students that are applying are showing most often dual degree students not looking for just a solely intending to do the BBA degree so there's there's some you know what our cross campus transfer process like I keep mentioning the goals for what we're looking for and so it's not always for students that wait to apply if they know they want a business degree they should apply out of high school it's when we

16:00 have more spots it's likely when they're more competitive as well and I believe the admit rate if you just look on paper the admit rate for the cross-campus transfers is higher right it is yeah but that's misleading it might sound misleading it sounds like because it's not where you have a nine percent versus about a twenty percent but your chances actually you're saying are better coming out of high school they are yes we have more spaces is and the the internal

16:28 cross-campus transfer is more designed for dual degree students yes um and I guess picking up a little bit you had mentioned if having other opportunities to just to pursue business at Michigan should you not be interested in Ross and you happen to have a number of options could you walk us through what those things are for the students who might realize maybe the BBA isn't the best option but that they might be able to get what they need and what they

16:57 want at Michigan yeah so um I like to start when I have this conversation I like to start like before I started admissions I was an academic advisor at Michigan and so I'm very much rooted in like counseling and talking with students and finding their way so when these students that are not admitted to the BBA program but do decide to enroll at Michigan because they want to do business through LSA I will be with them in September I already

17:20 have a couple meetings set up for some of these students and we'll talk about you know these are the options we have minors we have a business minor an entrepreneurship minor a real estate development minor all of our Collective courses are open to all students across campus 20 percent of the seats in those courses are for non-raw students you know Michigan has a focus on the liberal arts and really a cross-disciplinary focus for all of the different units you

17:45 know a typical degree at any school or college at Michigan is about 120 credits and at Ross half of your credits have to be taken elsewhere they have to be taken to LSA they have to be taken in engineering and that's the same for LSA and Engineering so when a student is an LSA they can take a good number of courses at Ross we also have a lot of co-curricular experiences our Global initiatives program they do a

18:07 lot of short-term study abroad trips and they save a certain percentage in those trips every year for non-roth students all of our clubs or many of our clubs are open to students across campus and then you know oftentimes I get questions about career resources you know our career center is not open to all students across campus but the career center you know each School in college has a very robust career center and I love to talk with students about the

18:31 fact that you know if Google's coming on campus to recruit at Ross they're also going to be at the LSA opportunity Hub and of course in engineering similarly for some of these large Banks and I have students all the time that will reach out you know when they graduate to say you know I wasn't admitted to Ross but I want you to know that I'm now working at this tech company or I'm now working at this big Bank in New York City because

18:52 of my LSA economics degree and I just think it's great I think the power of the Block M the power of the Michigan Alumni network really sets students up for Success so I tell students you know if you're not admitted to Ross to think about the power of that Michigan degree and that's where the choice you know really comes in to play for students and then we'll meet with students myself or my team to talk about those ways to have

19:14 a Ross experience and on the flip side of that is there anything that isn't accessible let's say to a non-raw student so for the kids who are thinking maybe that they might access it from LSA or another school yeah I think um so some of the career counseling like I mentioned a lot of the companies will go to all the Career Centers but they won't be able to meet with a Ross career coach some facilities things so they

19:40 can't reserve a study room at Ross just like our students can't reserve you know some at North Campus with engineering um so I think it's more related to facilities and some career things Ross does have a really nice fitness center only for raw students so just some things like that but there's plenty of nice facilities across Michigan's campus yeah I would say so I think that we're safe there and um and also just to clarify in case

20:06 people aren't aware at Ross there there are no Majors right everybody has a business major can you speak a little bit just about the structure in that way oh gosh I love this you know as an educator myself you know that once taught first year seminars you know first year students come in and they change their major on average at least once a lot of them multiple times and even students do as you know as the you

20:28 know upperclassmen they think oh yeah I'm sticking with this major but I'm starting to take more of these courses in my minor so I love the fact that we don't have Majors it's a broad-based management degree and it allows students to really choose the courses that align with their interest we do have this concept of specialization so you can specialize in accounting Finance Consulting entrepreneurship but the specialization depends on how many courses you think you need you know for

20:53 accounting you're probably going to need more like six or seven electives for entrepreneurship you might only need two or three and you might have some other you know specializations there as well so it's a broad-based management degree and I think it really aligns to you know what employers want and that the nature of work is constantly changing so sometimes to be kind of locked into a very sort of prescribed major doesn't always align with the industries our

21:19 students are looking to go into I didn't think about it from that um philosophical perspective but it makes a lot of sense when you say it um it actually makes the more specific degree more um broad-based and and you know as things change as times change and as career um career places change and things like that yeah um and then a question that comes up a lot um for students is um they're interested in business they're not sure which area

21:50 they're getting ready they're writing their essays and they think um I've got to pick something or not and I'd love for you to speak to whether or not a student a high school student needs to know what area of business they want to focus on when they're thinking about these essays no they do not need to know what area you know when I think of high school students we often ask our high school students we first ask them

22:13 okay what colleges are you interested in and then the second question is what are you going to major in and that second question what are you going to major in always bothers me as an educator because it's like what are there more what are their interests or what problem do they want to solve instead of what major so again going back to the broad-based BBA a student does not have to know if they want to do accounting or consulting or

22:33 Finance or marketing and if anything sometimes it hurts them when they apply and they say I want to do finance and then they go and they list some you know Finance terms they heard about online or they read something about we're not really looking for an exact area specialization or an exact industry we're more looking for like an essay that is reflective writing on why they want to study business you know why does it excite them how would they contribute

22:59 to the learning environment that's more what we're looking for than to list kind of a functional industry because 17 18 year olds don't know what functional Industries are not even our first year students we have a whole course called ba100 where we teach them the different areas of different Industries and then they'll go oh that makes sense so they're not going to know a functional area and we don't want them to place themselves in a hole right away either

23:21 yeah I guess that's why you're going right to learn about this exactly yeah yeah um I think also you hit on a good point which is and this comes up certainly with specialized programs like yours but it actually comes up when students are answering supplemental questions for you know Liberal Arts and Sciences schools as well which is this idea that um of course you know trying to say what they think you want to hear and also treating

23:46 these essays more almost like a school paper or assignment as opposed to a personal story or you know something more just you know more specific to them and it's just good to hear it from you directly especially even when we're talking about a program that is more specific in nature but just this idea of kind of talking about yourself your interests um yes expressing uh and showing that you have engaged in business in some way

24:17 without trying to show I I know these specific terms or I have all this knowledge already yeah you're picking based on other things it sounds like yeah it's storytelling on who you are it's not telling me about business or the starting salary or that it'll give me a great job it's more about why you like to work in teams why do you like to be a leader and those are all things we're looking for yeah and what are the

24:41 best ways for a student who may be and there there are great opportunities actually and increase over time even more for young people to dip their toes in business certainly entrepreneurship certain type of things what are the ways that students can demonstrate that they've not just not that they just have an interest in business but that they've actually experienced it age-appropriately in some ways yeah you know so students do not need to have an internship they do not need to have

25:10 started their own business they don't even need to be in a business Club quite honestly we know that you know some high schools offer business opportunities some don't we're looking for more kind of um the why more than the what so a good example I always like to give is there was a student and all of her activities were theater related but she was the person she was the ad manager for one of those theater groups

25:35 she was also reserving space for a little Community Theater group outside of her high school so she had all this logistical sort of business related things and then her essay of what she wanted to do she wanted to work in media and entertainment but from the business strategy side it made complete sense and so for us it's more like well why did you pick this organization and if you can really tell us the why that shows us

25:57 where your passions are instead of a student that picked a business club and they don't really know why but they thought a business club would look good for their college application so you know I think it's it's a big rumor that you have to have started your own business or that you have to have an internship you know at a business type you know Corporation um and that's not what we're looking for we're looking for again the sort of the

26:23 ties back to this you know concept of action-based learning of collaboration of leadership of taking initiative because those are the students that will be the the most successful in our program yeah I think also sometimes when students do some of these internships where they work in some kind of Finance firm or whatever it is um that they end up what they get out of it is more like the what they did and the why isn't there because why really

26:49 didn't come from them it was more external and so you end up it's I it's virtually impossible to distinguish between those students right because they're also saying either they did kind of the same stuff or slightly different variations of the same thing and so it's hard to find one more compelling over the other it is and one of the things I'll tell you we have a lot of students I think internships or experiences are good to kind of Shadow and to learn but

27:13 we're looking more for where students can actively engage and so oftentimes a business internship a student has in high school is more just learning it's good but we're looking more for active engagement you know I think of an artifact we saw recently a student who actually like we love part-time jobs we had a student that was working at a coffee shop and one of her artifact pieces was a screenshot of she had to respond to customer reviews and Google

27:36 that was her task yes for 17 18 year old but if you think about it in business like she's interacting with customers you know and she's getting more out of that it was at a coffee shop that part-time job at a local coffee shop in a very rural area then maybe a student that is kind of sitting back passively and learning things at an internship yeah yeah no that's a whole that's a hard time yes yes yeah I mean responding

28:03 to the compliments on the complaints and in such a public way and being responsible for the voice of the company yes talk about learning yeah yeah no I understand absolutely but I do think the why has to come from within as corny as it sounds yes otherwise it's just so hard to you know to tell a compelling story about the reason um and so a lot of people of course are counselors and families alike have paid

28:30 close attention to the Supreme Court decision that recently came down um Michigan as many may know um had a law a state law that prevented you from practicing race conscious admissions so you have been doing this for quite some time I still feel I need to ask if there are any um ways that are different this year that you'll be evaluating applications so tactically no we've been under a ban on the use of both race and gender for

29:01 about 20 years however we're very concerned about the broad implications for higher education and the chilling effect this has on students with racially minoritized identities so we're looking you know at our Outreach recruitment events and our Outreach efforts to see where we might need to change to be more encouraging for students from certain identities but tactically from an admissions review a file a review standpoint nothing has changed okay um and I know the answer to this

29:31 question but I think it will benefit especially students but even for counselors to be able to go back to families um a lot of people who have kids of the age of applying now apply to Michigan when it was rolling admission and there was a strong benefit to getting things in early but we're no longer in the late 80s and early 90s and so I wondered if you could just share if there's any benefit at all to submitting an

29:58 application in let's say August or September versus let's say October we know you don't want everybody doing it and there's no good reason to do it on October 31st or November 1st but yeah um there is a lot of anxiety and feelings like just get it in get it in and pressure of school counselors independent counselors I mean just a lot of anxiety around this if you could just speak to that I would I would be

30:22 grateful yeah so there's there's no there is no preference or even look at application Stan update on an application readers don't even see it I know sometimes students will insinuate like here's my application time date and it's a day after I submitted or what is my number I've been assigned my friend got an earlier number it's because you know what does that mean no they our readers don't see the application date or the time stamp they come into their

30:47 cues when they come into their cues there's no preference for that what I will say though what you were just mentioning just get it in just submit it we do start reviewing in October portfolios in the Common App so if you get it in in October we're going to start reviewing and we thank you for that you know it gives us a little bit more time but no there's no preference to that one of the things I will say to

31:07 students though don't hold on to it like when you're ready to submit you are ready to submit there is no sort of grammar check or other idea in your essay that's really going to change the the full content of it so just you know get over it and submit it and just have that confidence in yourself and I will also say give yourself don't really don't submit on the day of November first if you can at all and very I mean

31:30 our system is not going to crash but what will happen is your computer will do a system update or something will happen with your own internet access so it's always wise to submit whatever your guidance counselor suggests but I typically suggest three to five days in advance of the deadline yeah yeah there's just there's no good reason for it and by the way your system might have a common app usually will have a glitch it will sometimes yes yeah and I just

31:53 feel like whenever you're doing something under the gun there is a a Stress and Anxiety at base and then oftentimes you know you're not as careful because you are so you know anxious about it so those final like and people start changing little things and actually a lot of bad stuff can happen there when you're doing things under pressure with the time with the clock ticking and so absolutely you know you don't want to rush to hand it in before

32:21 it's actually in good shape just to get it in but then you also don't want to wait till the last minute there's a happy medium somewhere yeah still there um and if we could talk about so at Ross um so you're applying to the University of Michigan um on the Common App and then if you're going to be applying to Ross you've got this additional supplement Beyond let's call it the general Michigan supplement um you call it a portfolio and um we

32:49 have an artifact which we'll talk about I think that get that word in and of itself I think makes everybody really kind of um uncomfortable with it um also a business case discussion if we could start um if you could take us through the portfolio review process and tell us use the portfolio how is it assessed is it faculty is it admissions folks like just bring us through the process yeah and if before I do that I want to talk about

33:16 kind of our reasoning for a portfolio so our admissions process is really aligned to our curriculum and our values at Ross and for us at Ross we don't have many multiple choice tests we don't have a lot of large research papers we don't have a lot of like individual learning type pieces which are like standardized tests or you know research papers we're going to do a lot of case analysis a lot of group work a lot of collaboration

33:41 some of your classes is going to be all working in groups and you have to know how to grade your peers it's a fabulous type of instruction so because of that our students sometimes that are the you know have perfect test scores and perfect GPA but don't really have any leadership or extracurricular involvement or not the great best fit for us and we know that too from all the research we've done so the portfolio adds that qualitative piece where we're

34:06 looking kind of more at competencies that are really important to us and so we have the business case discussion and we have the artifact and the artifact is a very academic word that is given to Aspire faculty it's not something old in a museum it's an artifact of learning and so we tell students that maybe I'll start there first we tell students you know your artifact think of your four years of high school and what are you

34:31 most proud of that is what you submit and it also needs to show your learning and action you have a 250 words small essay that accompanies the artifact and it's not a play-by-play of what the artifact is it's more a reflection of what you've learned it's where we've learned about students that have submitted something where it was you know a paper something that was really marked up by us a teacher and then they talk about like getting feedback and

34:55 what it meant to them and how you know they've done better I mentioned before the student the part-time job artifact where we saw her how she responded to the comments another really quiet effect we've we think of you know we oftentimes will hear of awards students receive in admissions they'll list it maybe they'll submit the certificate copy as a supplement or additional materials but I've seen one time a student actually submitted the speech notes that she gave

35:20 to win the award and it told us a lot more about her experience than actually just seeing this award certificate so we have a blog post and Barry will share it of actual artifact examples we have um an artifact or a port fully a website where we have two students on a video Forum that share what their artifact was and why they submitted it so the artifact I actually think it's the piece and it sounds really daunting at first

35:44 but it's the piece that students love in the end because it's open-ended and they have control over what they submit and then when you when we say think of your four years of high school what are you most proud of you see Smiles it's like oh yeah I know what I could submit now the artifact is not a business plan it's not something it doesn't have to be related to business it's not an idea for a startup it's really something it's

36:06 nothing new you've created senior year it's really something that encompasses your four years of growth and learning uh the for in the first piece of the that you'll see when you do the portfolio through slide room is the business case discussion and that is an exercise in creative and critical thinking so I've mentioned before Business Schools are all about case analysis and solving problems so this is a mini case analysis so you'll pick an issue that is local to you your

36:34 community you will tell us what the implications are the business issues and then you will provide a solution we are looking through how you think through a problem we're not going to look whether your solution actually will work we don't know if it'll work but we're looking for a solution or how you the steps how you think through it now when I say solution though an app doesn't solve everything a lot of times students will do really well tell us what the

36:58 problems are and then they'll say oh I would create an app that would track this this and that it's like no think through it a little bit more so again we're looking for students in the Motions of how they have creative thinking and how they have problem solving skills yeah I think again going back to sort of the process and sort of um not just again the what but the why and digging a little deeper whether

37:21 you're talking about a business case discussion or your own story for how you landed um on this path yeah yeah um thank you so much by the way this is a source of confusion for so many people counselors and students um I think people see that portfolio and do get nervous about artifact and immediately as you touched upon think of an item like something three-dimensional and you know um precious and um and and

37:51 aren't necessarily necessarily thinking as broadly as you're speaking or as personally necessarily um as you're speaking and even with the the case discussion again heading back often into more sort of school kind of paper thinking and not remembering what the purpose is of asking this question um and what they're trying what you're trying to get insight into yes yeah in the business case discussion another tip it's not a research-based prompt so

38:21 we're looking for no research no citations no research it's just okay this is a problem in my community these are the issues this is how I would solve it yeah and why and why do you care about this exactly yeah yeah um can you take us back to the the original question actually because we we kind of got onto more specifics about the portfolio itself can you take us through the process of how they're reviewed and who yeah absolutely so the

38:49 portfolio and the everything is reviewed in the common application and the portfolio and we have two readers that are assigned to an application they review 30 minutes each so it is a longer review they do not review any of the academic side that the academic reviews in a different space because we don't want the academic review to bias the portfolio review and then once those two readers do reviews if there is variance so if it varies by a certain point of

39:18 standard deviation we do variance reports weekly it's sent out for a third read if there is variance and then from that we have an administrative read which will include folks on my team and also faculty members so you try talked about faculty faculty are the folks that have created these prompts and they're involved in that process and that happens at the administrative review after the reader review okay great yeah and so yeah it sounds like you said that they are seeing Ross

39:47 is seeing the Common App yes you're reading you're reading the main essay like the personal statement you're reading that what I'll call academic interest essays again okay so you're seeing all of that and the extracurriculars the awards um all of the qualitative information and when you say that the academic review I understand that the people who are reading the portfolio are not looking at that but other folks on the in Ross admissions are is that just to

40:17 clarify yes yeah but yes there are we certain of course we have an academic review um but the portfolio goes through a separate qualitative review because we don't want it to be biased by the academic review great by the way I can't believe 30 minutes I think that might be like a record so long it's long yeah it's really intentional you know I have to think one of the things about the Ross process and I keep going back to

40:40 this is very much rooted in our values and our goals and um we want to review on academic information that is qualitative information and we want to be able to give the time to to do that yeah and I guess relative to the university overall you do have obviously a lot of applications but not what the numbers we're thinking for the University as a whole correct yes I assume enables you to do that although I would still

41:03 imagine it's incredibly challenging it is it's still close to 10 000 applications so it's still incredibly challenging but it's something that we're committed to doing yeah I think students you know they're putting their heart and soul and we shouldn't give them the time and really review it yeah but we appreciate that yeah um and back to um there's a question on the Michigan supplement this is different from the Ross separate from the Ross portfolio where I called it

41:26 before an academic interest question it asks about what you're interested in pursuing and how and why you'd like to pursue it at Michigan if you are a student let's just say who's going to be applying to LSA at Ross can you share a little bit about how one should think about that since you're applying to two schools one of which you will not be admitted to and end up in how do you straddle that so this essay even though

41:49 it talks about like including what school you're applying to it says that clearly in the essay prompt students I think it lost too much in that and list I'm applying to LSA and I'm applying to Ross it kind of goes back to what we were talking about before and then they list a major and then they list a course they want to take and then we're losing there's no focus on them and what they want to study so the students that truly

42:09 have um integration like they want to do engineering and Ross they need to really talk about both but they're talking more about their desire to learn what are their goals are what do they want to get out of those two programs for students that are applying you know to LSA and Ross with the goal of Ross they can still talk about business education generally because if they're not admitted to Ross they're going to do business through LSA which is econ and

42:34 you don't need to list econ you don't need to list a finance or accounting or anything in Ross you're talking about kind of what you want to study at Michigan what you want to get out of this experience and what your goals are so I think we in across campus we know that we're not as tied to a student like getting Ross perfectly right or getting econ perfectly right we're tied to more looking at it's again it's reflective

42:57 writing and what the students academic goals are and if it's showing they have a desire to learn and kind of a clear goal and a path we also see essays you know more so probably for LSA than Ross that are just undecided and they just talk about the nature of liberal arts education might talk about if they're applying to business to the nature of an undergraduate Business Degree collaboration working with teams case analysis I still want to figure things

43:19 out but this is why I want to study Michigan yeah so and just to clarify so a student who you do you only read applicants who let's say LSA has kind of pre-approved for LSA or are you reading all of the people who come in and then if LSA ends up taking them it kind of connects there can you read them all we have to we start reading like I mentioned before in October we have to get ahead of volume

43:45 because otherwise you would have to be waiting on LSA and you wouldn't yeah you know with the LSA review structure now um in the office of undergraduate admissions they will release their early action decisions end of January and we want to quickly turn around two three weeks later so we have to read them all beforehand so we can do that quickly yeah and that was actually my next question so it's usually end of January for the let's say General decisions and

44:08 so they students should expect to hear from Ross two to three weeks later so sort of I will actually tell them the dates yeah I do a blog post so I have a Blog if anyone wants to follow it in January every year I have a very popular blog post and I'll say okay this is the date I'm going to release in February this is the date in March and April we're always Friday at five o'clock so

44:27 the students you know can get comfortable with that decision over the weekend talk with their family members about it so that it doesn't happen on the next day you have to go to school if it's a disappointing decision and we tell students we're going to tell you the exact Friday so that you don't have to log into the portal every Friday at five o'clock or be guessing or not schedule a family dinner on these Fridays because you think it could

44:44 happen so we try to be as transparent as possible like I said I will have a very popular blog post in January that will tell the public the three dates when we will release yeah right yes and again thank you for the transparency especially with places like Michigan and the bigger universities the rumor mill of last year they did it on this day at this time and it's like it's a whole other thing so that you are

45:11 willing um to do that is much appreciated yes oh yeah we try to be as transparent as possible I'm a parent I got kids I know how this feels they're not yet in high school but I do know even the rumor mill you know with middle school and grade school so yes we're trying to be transparent yeah and so the students who would have applied under the early action deadline would be hearing on that on February Friday

45:34 um date the ones who are hearing in March can you just clarify yeah not all early action admits will hear in February okay so we do not have a um I'll call it action so to speak like our Central Admissions Office no sort of guarantee we also don't use a deferment to regular admission because we don't really have a regular admission process so um we will do admission offers in February um and I also too I'll be pretty

46:05 transparent in the blog too and I'll do some updates throughout the time whether we're going to release denies and if we did release denies most often the first round are admits but it's not everyone from early action will hear from us because we need to wait to see the more rounds that are coming in from our central office we do try as much as we can to get all of our early action students a decision by end of March if

46:27 we can in most years we've been able to do that sometimes some students might not hear until April which is our last round but we do try to get early action students their decision by our March release yeah okay so the first two rounds you mostly you'll be possibly announcing it on your blog if there were denies but mostly you're sort of admitting people almost on a not rolling but rolling it still feels rolling it's rolling with three dates and we'll tell

46:56 the students what the dates are but you know in any given year I have to really manage the numbers so this is where it becomes hard it becomes the funnel at the beginning is this very individual process for these students and then it becomes more as we roll out decisions this very large process of what we know as enrollment management and so I have to kind of decide when we're going to release certain batches and how many

47:17 based on what we see coming in from our Central Admissions Office got it got it but that's also helpful so some students may get in in March and some may get in in February who applied in early action which is also helpful to know that I didn't hear in that first round it's not because you're didn't get it you actually stopped you still have an opportunity yes okay terrific um and uh we have to actually wrap up

47:40 soon I can't believe it um we often asked students what's unique about them and I would love to turn the tables a little bit and ask you about kind of the notable characteristics of the Ross program and or experience yeah um so the raw School of Business is known for action-based Learning and we were modeled after an MBA program we keep our first year class really small so that we can meet that commitment so for students

48:11 that are looking for undergraduate business degrees you'll notice some of them enroll a class of 1200 students 2 000 students we enroll our first year class of 500 because of that environment where they're working with their peers in a collaborative environment we also have a Core Curriculum that is really unique to us starting sophomore year when students have their first accounting course the same group of 90 students in that section are the same group in their first management course

48:35 and their first marketing course because they do a lot of group work they have to get to know their cohort well so it's kind of like a home remodel that carries them through and then I think you got to think about Michigan and you got to think about Ross and students really are getting The Best of Both Worlds the University of Michigan is consistently ranked as one of the top five public institutions in the nation and the raw

48:57 School of Business undergraduate program is consistently ranked within the top five students are getting The Best of Both Worlds and then add on to that if you're a sports fan this you know community at Michigan this Big Ten Sports atmosphere the Block M with the largest living alumni body in the nation it's I just think you're not going to get that at any other institution yeah oh blue right go Blue yeah um and we always wrap up with our final

49:24 question um I like to ask one of the essay questions uh usually from a supplement of our admissions guests um and I would love to ask you the business case discussion question if you would be open to it yeah you don't have to give a full length uh you know outline or or a speech about it um and if I could just I'll first read the question I know you know it but for the benefit of the

49:50 audience and I do have to say bear with us it's a it's a little bit of a long prompt but in such a wonderful way because again you are so transparent and you are giving instructions and direction in this prompt which again most schools do not do but you do it very explicitly here so um again for the audience bear with me I do want to read it in its entirety and then if you wouldn't mind

50:16 um humoring us and giving a little bit of a response yeah the business case discussion this is from the Ross portfolio choose a current event or issue in your community and discuss the business implications propose a solution that incorporates business principles or practices the review panel will look for creativity drawing connections and originality your response should be limited to approximately 500 Words and then it continues this case discussion helps us learn more about your

50:48 understanding of business the topic should be unique to your interests experiences and knowledge there is no right or wrong business situation to choose it's truly up to you we encourage you to select a topic that you are passionate about and not a global topic that you are disconnected from God bless you Blair um if you could uh hug kudos to you for excellent prompt writing which again is not a given and makes apparency

51:19 even less so for an already complex process but if you wouldn't mind giving us your response to this sure yeah so we always tell a student to choose a local issue not a global issue and so for me when I think of you know when I was in high school in the 90s I think a local issue for me was probably my school district and actually course offerings so I went to a school district that was

51:42 under resourced so much so that I had to transfer to a different school district for my last year of high school because they didn't offer any sort of advanced curriculum for myself to take so that would be my issue kind of you know this sort of curriculum offer offerings at high schools an implication would be it's tied to funding for schools and in the state where I resided it's tied to tax dollars that's a business issue and

52:04 then I probably go through you know a solution on how I would work to solve that whether it be a reciprocal relationship for students to have buses to other school systems to take courses why they can still stay at the community they've been in for a long time and studying to have to transfer like guy did and through that story you'll hear then about my educational history and my context that where the school district I was in it wasn't very well resourced how

52:26 that impacted my transition to then go to an entirely new District to inform new Fred to form new friendships maybe you know to have a gap and my extracurricular activities but you know learning something as I think now you know I work in an education policy space and what I do and so that's very important you know so that's also as an adult why I'm choosing that I don't know if I'd pick that when I was you know a

52:47 high schooler in the 90s but one of the things I want to touch on here at the business case discussion is we want students to choose something in their Community you know when we see these Global topics like when we see the Olympics that are being held in a country where it shouldn't be held we see these great essays about the economic development of the country and the impact the financial burden on the country and the citizens or we saw one

53:10 year when Pokemon go was big we saw all of these business case discussions about how catching Pokemon and different storefronts causes issues for consumer very business related but not really specific to the student if you go to the blog post you'll see more things that are very specific to students we had a student in rural Michigan that talked about loss of community space and Orchard that was going to be sold off and made into a commercial real estate development and

53:36 lo and behold a Family Dollar was going to come in and take away kind of the sort of community feel of this local community that was an issue we had another issue who actually a student a business case discussion where a student actually talked about a GameStop closing because he was a gamer and how it affected his community space where he'd like to go a very typical 17-18 year old thing but a very good business case

53:56 discussion versus you know about the Olympics in another country where you've never been to that country or never been to the Olympics so that that's what my tips for students it's not a research-based prompt keep it local keep something that is really you're really passionate about and business is Broad it can be education policy space it doesn't have to be something related to marketing Finance or Consulting yeah I mean again to reiterate the point you've been making throughout our conversation

54:21 this idea that you're not they're not there to demonstrate their business knowledge but against help their story via these questions that you're asking in the opportunities that you're given so yes yeah really throughout the questions yeah well thank you so so much thank you this has been a true pleasure and just extraordinarily refreshing and I know that I speak for everybody who has um been with us this evening and that we

54:51 really thank you and are grateful for the transparency we need more of it um and so thank you and we appreciate you thank you I appreciate the space and thank you everyone for listening go Blue go Blue have a good night everybody