Elon ranks among country's top 50 undergraduate business programs

The ranking comes from Poets & Quants, a business education news outlet that released its survey results on Dec. 13. 

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

Elon’s program ranks No. 50 in the survey by Poets & Quants, a ranking that includes private and public institutions of all sizes. The survey methodology focused on three main components — school admissions standards, alumni perspectives on the academic experience and employment data. View the complete rankings are available here

Raghu Tadepalli, dean  of the Love School of Business, said that the recognition in such a competitive ranking speaks to the quality of education the school delivers and the accomplishments of its alumni. 

The Love School of Business continues to compare very favorably with nationally known universities and indeed ranks above many of them,” Tadepalli said. “It is an honor to work with a dedicated group of faculty and staff who place student learning and success front and center.”

Elon achieved its highest marks in the area of career outcomes for alumni, which looked at the percentage of students with internships before graduation, with full-time jobs within three months of graduation along with average salary and signing bonus for the Class of 2018. Elon’s ranked 39th in the country in this category. 

“The school’s dedication to having their students learning both inside and outside of classrooms seems to have paid off, as almost 90 percent of both the 2017 and 2018 classes student body found full-time employment just a few months after graduation,” Poets & Quants noted in its overview of the Love School of Business rankings. 

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.

The academic experience 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.

Elon ranked 51st for academic experience and 71st for admissions. 

“This was the most competitive ranking that we have seen since the launch of the ranking three years ago,” said Nathan Allen, project manager for Poets & Quants. “Our annual ranking and comprehensive coverage of this market is an invaluable resource for students and parents to make informed decisions about where to get the best education for a successful career in business.”

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.

Elon’s Love School of Business was one of four North Carolina schools to make the list, joining the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (No. 14), Wake Forest University (No. 17) and the University of North Carolina at Wilmington (No. 79). The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania took the top spot in rankings for a second consecutive year.