BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – In the first weeks of the 2024 spring semester, the Undergraduate Program at the Indiana University Kelley School of Business has been abuzz with activity and good news.
Before students even had arrived back on campus, Poets & Quants for Undergrads recognized an alumna, Casey Curtis and her startup, Elevate. The 2023 graduate, now an innovation development analyst at JP Morgan, was one of 24 business school students or recent graduates as having one of the “Most Disruptive Business School Startups” in 2023.
Casey Curtis
A week later, while much of the country was being hit by a series of winter storms, the Kelley School successfully hosted nearly 120 students from 30 universities and colleges who came to Kelley to compete in the 13th National Diversity Case Competition. A team from the University of Nevada at Las Vegas finished first.
On Jan. 22, the program learned that it has moved back into the top 15 programs in Poets & Quants for Undergrads’ ranking of “best undergraduate business schools. Program leaders are especially thrilled about a No. 2 ranking for academic experience.
The academic experience ranking is based on three factors:
- Alumni responses to questions about how they feel about their core experiences with professors and career services,
- The percentage of alumni who participated in a “significant experience” such as consulting projects and global immersions, and
- The percentage of students whose first jobs after graduation were in their desired industries and companies.
Thus, it also shouldn’t be a surprise that the Kelley School ranked high – sixth overall – when alumni of 91 undergraduate degree programs were surveyed were asked would they recommend their business school to others.
The school also ranked in the top 10 in several subcategories – third in terms of the program’s effectiveness at instilling both soft and business skills, fourth in terms of respondents who had a signature experience or global immersion, eighth in career outcomes, ninth in terms of alumni’s perceived return on investment; and 10th in advising and professional networking and career development.
Overall, Kelley ranked 14th in the new ranking, having moved up from 16th last year.
Last fall, U.S. News & World Report ranked the Undergraduate Program eighth overall and No. 1 in the state of Indiana. Eight specialty programs are ranked in the top 10 and nine are in the top 15.
Among those recent graduates who are happy with their Kelley experience is Curtis.
Curtis describes her venture as an automated “building management platform” that uses analytics to help residents call for an elevator – saving energy and cost in the process. Among the support she received while at IU and Kelley was being able to test her concept in partnership with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
“This test was four years in the making, and seeing as we had an incredible number of barriers to entry with actually getting the product implemented at IU, having that full test was an incredible feat,” she told Poets & Quants for Undergrads. “Little did I know that when I started school at Indiana University that Bloomington, Indiana was going to be the most amazing entrepreneurial eco-system that I could have been a part of in college.
“My education and time at the Kelley School of Business was nothing short of the best four years of my life and taught me an unbelievable amount about myself and business both inside and outside the classroom,” Curtis said upon being honored. “To every professor I had, class I took, and club I was part of, thank you from the bottom of my heart for helping to shape me and my company.”