BYU is ranked seventy-first in the 2010 edition of U.S.News & World Report’s “America’s Best Colleges,” with the Marriott School’s undergraduate program ranked among the top fifty “Best Business Programs,” coming in thirty-first.

The September 2009 issue ranks more than 1,400 four-year accredited colleges and universities by mission and region. BYU falls into the category of “National Universities,” which includes schools that offer a full range of undergraduate majors plus master’s and doctoral degrees.

This year the university is also listed as twenty-ninth in the “Great Schools, Great Prices” category. Additionally, it is listed as eleventh in the category of “Least Debt,” which compares the average debt carried by departing graduates.

In specialty categories, the Marriott School ranked third in accounting, eighteenth in entrepreneurship, twentieth in international business, and twenty-fifth in management. The top five institutions in the National Universities category were Harvard and Princeton (tied for the top spot), followed by Yale, the California Institute of Technology, and MIT.


The Marriott School is one of the top twenty-five colleges for students looking to start their own business, according to rankings published by Entrepreneur magazine and The Princeton Review.

The magazine’s October 2009 issue ranks the Marriott School undergraduate program eighteenth in the annual survey, citing the Student Entrepreneur of the Year competition and the BYU Business Plan Competition as strong distinguishing features.

“We feel we have a world-class program, and we appreciate the recognition that Entrepreneur and The Princeton Review have given the school,” says Bill Price, executive director of the Rollins Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology. “Our mentoring program lets students see how other successful entrepreneurs have built their businesses, and I think this has enabled students to thrive in their own ventures.”

BYU’s focus on entrepreneurship has received recognition from the magazine in previous years, placing in the top twenty-five from 2003 to 2007.

Stephen Liddle, academic director for the CET, says students deserve the recognition.

“BYU students have a lot of energy, love to build, and can be very creative,” he says. “The center encourages students to set their sights high and develop businesses that can grow in a scalable way.”

To calculate the rankings, The Princeton Review compiled information from 2,300 schools in three categories: academics and requirements, which includes information about degrees and courses offered; students and faculty, which considers how many students are enrolled in the program and how many students and faculty have launched their own businesses; and outside the classroom, which takes into account club activity and competitions.


BYU is among the top schools to offer MBA students the most bang for their buck according to Forbes magazine’s biennial list of best business schools. BYU placed sixteenth for return on investment—two spots ahead of its position in 2007, the last time Forbes published the list. This ranking is published in the magazine’s 24 August 2009 issue.

“Our students are known for having a rock-solid ethical foundation and an understanding of the value of work,” says Gary Cornia, Marriott School dean. “Our program combines those valuable characteristics with the technical skills needed to succeed. As a result, businesses and firms respond in increasingly positive ways in terms of opportunities and compensation.”

BYU MBA graduates earned $41,000 over five years by attending graduate school, breaking even after nearly four years. Their average salary five years after graduating was $105,000, compared to $45,000 before entering the program. The BYU program also had the lowest tuition of any school in the top twenty.

Forbes compiles the rankings by comparing the salaries of MBA students before school and five years after graduation. The magazine reports the total return on investment after subtracting what a student’s salary would have been and the total cost of attending, including tuition and foregone compensation.

Stanford ranked first on the list, with an $85,000 return on investment, followed by Dartmouth at $80,000, and Harvard at $79,000.

Finalists for the SEOY, from left: John Keller, Taylor Turnbull, and Craig Guincho, stand with their prizes.

BYU students are out to prove there’s no need to wait until after graduation to get a big idea off the ground. Many of them had a chance to demonstrate how they’re turning ideas into reality at the 2009 Student Entrepreneur of the Year Competition.

During the annual event, hosted by the BYU Collegiate Entrepreneurs’ Organization, student business owners competed for a chance to win a combined total of $10,000 in cash and in-kind contributions. Finalists presented their businesses in front of a group of successful entrepreneurs, who selected the winning individual or team.

Paul Dickson, a junior studying public relations from Cedar Park, Texas, and Taylor Turnbull, a junior neuroscience major from Alpine, Utah, won first place with an idea inspired by the desire to give college students an alternative to summer sales.

The duo’s company, Meter Solutions, installs utility meters that remotely report usage to the utility company, a technology that cities around the country are rapidly adopting. Because they have been able to keep their overhead low with a simple business model, Dickson and Turnbull’s company has landed big contracts that should keep seven-figure revenues coming in over the next few years.

“We wanted to build a company that would provide an opportunity for hardworking college students to make money,” Dickson says. “We identified an industry with large growth potential and created a business model that would fill the need we saw in that industry.”

John Keller, a first-year executive MBA student from Salt Lake City, came in second place with a business built around the idea that making money and positively affecting the world aren’t mutually exclusive.

“I’d been on a number of humanitarian trips where I visited villages that had few if any books,” Keller says. “I also vividly remember trying to find a solution for all of the leftover books I had when I was getting ready to graduate.”

The result of these two observations was Worldwide Book Drive, an organization that collects used books and donates the majority to developing countries, while selling some of the books on the internet to fund the enterprise.

Third-place winner Craig Guincho, a junior studying history teaching from Miami, addressed what he saw as high prices in the hair cutting and styling industry with his venture $7 Cuts. The business manages to keep its prices well below the industry average by focusing on only one aspect of the trade: the haircut itself.

Guincho says building his business has provided valuable lessons. “Being an entrepreneur is about building relationships,” he says. “Since I can’t cut hair, our barbers and stylists are a very important part of our team, along with our investors and managers. As owner, my job is to put it all together.”

Supported by the Rollins Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology, the SEOY competition was founded in 1992 to reward degree-seeking students who manage their own businesses. Past winners of the SEOY competition include Jonathan Coon, founder of 1-800-CONTACTS; David Bateman, founder of DearElder.com; and Jonathan Freedman, founder of DownEast Outfitters.


The Marriott School was ranked the most family friendly business school in the United States, according to The Princeton Review’s “The Best 301 Business Schools.” The Marriott School was also ranked third for most competitive students and fifth for best professors.

Since The Princeton Review’s 2006 rankings, the Marriott School has been ranked No. 1 four times in the family friendly category. The Princeton Review’s entry on student life at BYU notes that students and their families receive “excellent support” thanks to organizations like the MBA Spouse Association, which offers a network of support and a variety of activities for MBA students and their families.

“I know several people who chose the program because of how family friendly it is,” says Kricket Barnum, MBASA president. “They know, and the professors here know, that families matter.”

Barnum says MBASA benefits both students and their spouses. Spouses can foster friendships and find support during an often hectic time. And for students it’s a great way to network and get to know others in the program.

“We just want to ensure that the spouses have as good an experience here as the students do,” Barnum says.

Perhaps one of the most significant factors in students’ experience is the faculty, which was also highly rated by The Princeton Review this year.

“Excellent teaching is a rich tradition at BYU and in the Marriott School,” says Michael Thompson, Marriott School associate dean. “The core mission of this university is to be a place where students can be stretched and supported in all aspects of their development—intellectual, social, and spiritual. That requires a deeper engagement with students than many schools offer. For our faculty, teaching is a mission, not just one of our professional responsibilities.”


Individuals and organizations interested in eliminating poverty worldwide met at BYU for the twelfth annual Economic Self-Reliance Conference in November. The BYU Center for Economic Self-Reliance hosted the event at the BYU Conference Center and invited researchers, practitioners, faculty, and university students to participate.

“The conference provides a wealth of knowledge and connections for participants who attend yearly,” says Todd Manwaring, managing director of the center. “It also creates a platform to discuss new and innovative ideas for alleviating poverty.”

The conference highlighted leading research and practices of social entrepreneurs who are creating positive changes both domestically and internationally. Plenary and breakout sessions focused primarily on the intersection of social entrepreneurship and the fields of education, engineering, and business. Featured presenters included representatives from pioneering economic development organizations, such as the Grameen Foundation Technology Center, Unitus, and VisionSpring.

The Social Innovator of the Year award was presented to Jim Fruchterman, CEO of Benetech, a nonprofit that focuses on creating technology for underserved communities. Fruchterman spoke on using technology to benefit society after receiving the award.


In a recent article in Supply Chain Management Review, the global supply chain management program at BYU was ranked fourteenth by academics and nineteenth by practitioners—marking BYU’s debut on the highly visible list.

“The rise of our supply chain program in rankings is reflective of a number of good things,” says Bruce Money, business management department chair. “Our faculty members are delivering excellence in the classroom and in academic journals. Our students are truly top-rate and have won many case competitions. And overall, supply chain recruiters are happy with the end product: our graduates.”

As Money points out, BYU supply chain students have made a strong showing at case competitions, such as the FedEx Freight International Graduate Logistics Case Competition. In BYU’s first year competing at the FedEx competition, the team placed second, and most recently, the BYU team took top honors.

Stephen Jones, a second-year MBA student and president of the Graduate Supply Chain Management Association, says the relevancy of the program’s course content has been essential for his success outside the classroom. This summer, Jones and four of his classmates were the first BYU supply chain interns at Frito-Lay, where they found ways to reduce costs and improve efficiency.

“The program’s competitive but collaborative atmosphere helped me prepare for my internship experience,” Jones says. “The faculty’s depth of knowledge and the quality of the classes gave me the framework I needed to be able to go into the company and make a difference.”

Undergraduate team, from left: faculty advisor Robert Gardner, Jordan Mendez, Devin Davidson, Joe Orien, and Brian Hazen.

Graduate team, from left: Jaymie Farr, Ryan Dayton, Emma Douglas, Brent Monson, and faculty advisor Ron Worsham.

BYU accounting students swept the 2009 Deloitte Tax Case Study Competition, taking first place in both the graduate and undergraduate divisions. The two teams each received a $10,000 school award and $2,000 scholarships for each team member.

BYU accounting students have excelled in the competition in the past, with either a graduate or undergraduate team placing first or second every year in the eight years since Deloitte has sponsored the competition. This is the first time BYU has taken the top award in both the graduate and undergraduate categories.

“I think this honor is a reflection of the quality of students we have in the school of accountancy, and it acknowledges their hard work,” says Ron Worsham, associate professor of accounting and faculty advisor for the graduate team. “It comes down to a combination of great students, a great program, and great preparation.”

The graduate team was made up of MAcc students Ryan Dayton from Woodinville, Washington; Emma Douglas from Indianapolis, Indiana; Jaymie Farr from Royal City, Washington; and Brent Monson from Orem. The undergraduate team consisted of senior accounting students Devin Davidson from Othello, Washington; Jordan Mendez from South Jordan, Utah; Joe Orien from Anchorage, Alaska; and Brian Hazen from Temecula, California.

“It was a fun opportunity to step outside of the classic textbook scenarios and see some obscure, yet realistic, tax issues that we might face someday in the workplace,” Dayton says.

Published by the Marriott School at Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah. Copyright 2012 by Brigham Young University. All rights reserved. All communications should be sent to Marriott Alumni Magazine, 490 Tanner Building, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah 84602. Email: marriottmag@byu.edu. Telephone: (801) 422-5083. Fax: (801) 422-0501. The views expressed are those of the various authors and not necessarily the Marriott School. Change your mailing address here.