CKQ College Profiles: Babson College

Each quarter, The College Knowledge Quarterly will feature a different U.S. College or University for families to get to know a bit better. The aim is not to tell you about a school you know (or at least you think you know) well, but to introduce you to a school you may have not considered a viable candidate before. In this edition, we are pleased to feature a school with a prominent record as one of America’s top business/entrepreneurship programs, Babson College.

Babson (U.S. News ranked #32 – Undergraduate Business Programs), is a small, private college of business (approximately 2,100 undergraduate students) in a large town in a suburban environment, about 15 minutes west of Boston, MA.

For those students looking to unlock the entrepreneur inside them, this is the place to be. Babson is considered the top entrepreneurship program in the nation; they even created their own methodology, called Entrepreneurial Thought and Action, which permeates business fundamentals with action, experimentation, and creativity. Students boast the ability to run a company, create a company, and work within a national or international framework as graduates of Babson’s business programs.

However, one of Babson’s secret weapons is tying that great business learning, both in the classroom and experiential learning opportunities, such as internships, externships, and service opportunities, to a liberal arts framework. This gives students the ability to tie their creative abilities into real-world scenarios – which is built into the curriculum.

Babson is a small school and administration works diligently to give their students opportunities to participate in the day-to-day operations of the school itself. The school acts as a community and students are involved from the get-go. The Greek system on campus is large and the opportunity to meet and interact with peers is frequent and encouraged.

This feeling of integration is also shared by the faculty, who teach both graduate and undergraduate courses and have only one college to work within, so there are no artificial divisions amongst the professorship.

Babson students are, generally-speaking, diverse (namely because nearly 1 in 5 undergrads is from an international location), driven, bright, outgoing, and generally dressed for success. Interaction with faculty and even deans is common, especially at on-campus eateries. You will find it hard to discover more than a handful of dissatisfied customers!

Babson Park is a quaint, yet college-friendly town, adjacent to Wellesley. Its proximity to Boston allows students to have their cake and eat it too; a quiet town for residence, but one of the world’s most dynamic cities just a short drive away. If you want to find an area students are not all that happy with, it’s the off-campus housing, which received low marks in recent surveys.

The reputation of professors at Babson is equally impressive. Students report that their instructors are knowledgeable, open to students, offer plenty of office hours, and are friendly to work with. A strong study abroad program round out the myriad of great options Babson students have at their fingertips.

All of this information lends itself to the high retention rate that Babson boasts (96%). Retention rate refers to what percentage of freshman students are still enrolled in the sophomore year. So we know students are happy, but do they make any money when they graduate? One would hope a school with a unique pursuit of the business world would fare well… and they do. Babson’s Payscale.com Return on Investment (ROI) ranking is #11 nationally!

As you would expect, the top entrepreneurial academy, as it would be, is a target for a lot of great young future business professionals, especially being a stone’s throw from Boston. The admission rate last year was only 28%. It’s also a pricey venture, at nearly $65,000 per year, but the average student can expect 98% of their demonstrated financial need to be met (and 79% of that money is in the form of grants and scholarships that do not need to be repaid). Those kind of numbers have kept Babson on Princeton Review’s ‘Colleges That Pay You Back’ list for some time.

The average admitted student boasts strong grades and test scores (about a 3.75 GPA and a 28 on the ACT). According to the admission office, application essay, academic GPA, recommendation(s), rigor of high school curriculum, standardized test scores, character/personal qualities, are the most important admission factors, followed by class rank and extracurricular activities.

According to the Collegeboard, the school offers a total of 26 majors, has a student-to-faculty ratio of 14-1, and operates on the semester system.

Babson College offers both an Early Decision and an Early Action application; both are due by November 1st. A regular admission decision deadline is also available on January 3rd.

For more information, please visit: http://www.babson.edu/Pages/default.aspx