Rice University is nestled in the heart of Houston — one of Texas’ most vibrant cities — as well as a food and entertainment hub. Some of the best-kept secrets about Rice Business have to do with its hometown. An international cuisine destination and entertainment hub, Houston is also the country’s fourth largest city with one of the youngest, fastest growing and most diverse populations. This year, the B-school ranked No. 24 in the Poets&Quants rankings.
Rice is growing rapidly. The B-school recently expanded
their online MBA program, launched an undergrad business major, and increased
their faculty numbers by 30%. Rice’s enrollment has nearly doubled in the past
five years — with around 178 students for the Class of 2023 in the full-time
two-year MBA program fostering tight-knit relationships where students will
find themselves on a first-name basis with not only classmates, but professors
as well.
What does two years in the full-time MBA program at Rice
Business look like? All of Rice’s MBA offerings have a rigorous STEM-certified
curriculum and are nimble enough to adapt to market needs and student interest.
“My favorite aspect of the program is the ability for
students to customize and be the ‘CEO’ of their education,” says George
Andrews, associate dean of degree programs. “They start their first year with
the custom core, then the entire second year of the full-time program is made
up of electives. There were 146 to choose from this year. That translates to
50% of the full-time MBA being tailored by the students themselves so they can
focus on exactly what they want. For example, students can choose an elective
to fit their entrepreneurial goals, whether they’re starting a business from
scratch, thinking of buying an established business or planning the next stage
of growth for their startup.”
Business school is more than in-class academics. Among a sea
of electives is an abundance of experiential offerings, all interwoven with
entrepreneurial thinking. Faculty and students think about how real-world companies,
problems and data can be incorporated into the classroom case studies and
creatively work on solutions together. This emphasis on experiential learning
allows students to enhance their knowledge and skills and deepens their
understanding of the business world.
Students hone their strategic problem-solving with
experiences such as the Action Learning Project (ALP), a 13-week, team-based
consulting project, where student teams tackle a company’s challenges and
provide detailed, actionable recommendations. Rice offers similar programs with
their other MBA programs.
“They’re working with real companies,” Andrews says. “Most
often they’re actually not-for-profits, because these are really big, sticky
issues that these firms are having, and they get to go in and work on those
issues — whether it’s, ‘We want to go to Colombia and start a business there,’
or ‘We want to have a new branch in another part of the country.’”
Another opportunity for experiential learning comes during
the global field experience, built into the core curriculum. As part of the
school’s philosophy of adopting a global perspective, students travel abroad
with their cohort, take what they learn in the first year of the program, and
apply it to short-term projects for organizations and communities in diverse
cultural settings, designed to change their perception of the world and how to
do business. Besides Harvard Business School and a few others, Rice Business is
the only top B-school that requires every student to go abroad during their two
years in the MBA program.
Students can study abroad for a semester or attend seminars
at partner universities IPADE (Mexico City), INCAE (Costa Rica) and WHU
(Germany).
Rice Business’s Career Development Office works hard each
year to help students secure their required summer internship. An impressive
100% of the Class of 2022 secured internships or equivalent MBA-level work
experience for the third year in a row. Outside of the required curriculum,
students also often participate in co-curricular activities such as
conferences, student-led competitions, and interactive labs.
“We have a ton of study-abroad opportunities,” Andrews says,
citing upcoming trips to Mexico City, Mexico, and São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro,
Brazil. “We’re kind of going all over the place,” he adds, saying there is a
focus on staying in the Central time zone, meaning Latin America gets special
attention.
So, what does the ideal applicant for the Rice Business MBA
look like? The B-School places importance on bringing in candidates with
diverse perspectives. To better encapsulate their personality and get to know
them through a stronger channel, Rice gives prospective students the
opportunity to submit creative essays via video instead of a traditional
written essay.
“We try to find people who want to make a disproportionate
impact in society,” says Andrews. “We want somebody who realizes that they’re
going to be able to put their degree to use. What we look for is that they
really have proven in their past that they like to make an impact in whatever
they’re doing. And we want to be confident they’re going to continue to do
that.”
Rice Business alumni reach incredible heights of success and have a 0.32 debt-to-income ratio two years after graduation, one of the top 10 lowest ratios among business schools.
More about Rice University’s Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business FROM THE SCHOOL:
The Jones
Graduate School of Business (Rice Business) at Rice University in
Houston, Texas, has risen steadily in reputation to one of the top programs in
the U.S. and doubled in size in the past five years. With an additional
Full-Time MBA cohort, a new office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion;
innovative global programs and alumni initiatives; and surging enrollment in
its 3-year-old online MBA, the school is poised to make the next five years
even better.
Named in honor of the late Jesse H. Jones, a prominent
Houston business and civic leader, the school’s degree programs include
the Full-Time MBA, Professional MBA, Executive MBA, and an online MBA, as well
as a coordinated MBA in professional science and an MD/MBA with Baylor College
of Medicine. The Ph.D. in Business attracts candidates aspiring to become
faculty in prestigious research universities internationally. The one-year MAcc
program is designed for students with varied undergraduate academic backgrounds
and is committed to producing accounting professionals with critical thinking
skills and integrity.
The business school also offers several undergraduate
options. The undergraduate
business major provides students with a robust foundation in
leadership and business fundamentals, taught by the same top-notch faculty who
teach our MBA programs. The undergraduate business minor, the largest minor at
Rice University, is open to any degree-seeking Rice undergraduate student. The
entrepreneurship minor, a joint offering with the George R. Brown School of
Engineering, rounds out the programs offered. Our community of MBA and
undergraduate students are all housed in one building, McNair Hall, which helps
foster a deeply caring, tight-knit culture.
Rice Business Executive
Education offers non-degree open enrollment, customized and
specialty programs to the Houston business community and globally. All Rice
Business courses are taught by a team of dedicated, nationally recognized
professors who integrate insights from their own rigorous, peer-reviewed
research to help students understand topics in accounting, finance, marketing,
organizational behavior, strategy and operations management in the context of
today’s ever-changing business landscape. Learn more at Rice Business Wisdom —
clear, quick translations of faculty research from Rice Business that will
change the way you think.
In the dynamic world we live in, we must all be quick to adapt, and Rice Business leads by example. In response to the pandemic, Rice Business reacted to the change to continue to provide top-notch education no matter the situation. By investing more than $1 million in technology, installing sophisticated microphone and video arrays that allow students to be easily seen and heard from anywhere by their instructors and peers, Rice Business was able to adjust to the circumstances and avoid gaps in our students’ learning. Throughout the pandemic, students and faculty were free to choose between various classroom options, including a fully remote classroom mode or a modified mode for specific needs, health concerns and risk calculations. The world will continue to change but Rice Business remains grounded in three principles: being attentive, responsive, and kind.