What Booth Is Known For
“Why Are You Here And Not Somewhere Else?” asks the prominent neon installation on the Chicago Booth campus. Also the title of a series of essays written by Booth professor Harry L. Davis, the question reminds Booth students of the freedom they have to create their own experience.
Nestled close to the shore of Lake Michigan, on the south side of Chicago, Hyde Park is home to the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Chicago Booth is the second-oldest business school in the United States and was the first to offer an executive MBA program. Booth has a permanent presence on three continents (including campuses in London and Hong Kong, as well as access to the University of Chicago’s facility in Beijing), creating a global focus and attracting an internationally diverse applicant pool. It was the first business school to have a Nobel Laureate on its faculty, and since 1997 has had six Nobel Prize winners on board.
The Chicago Booth approach to an MBA education consists of rigorous analysis and a focus on demanding facts, questioning assumptions, and assessing problems from all angles. At Chicago Booth, you will learn the tools to examine every idea, evaluate problems and opportunities, and handle uncertainty. Dissent is not frowned upon at Chicago Booth; in fact, it is expected. However, the campus environment is overwhelmingly collegial; you’ll often hear the phrase Ideas compete, not people.
A focus on research. Research at Chicago Booth grows from the intellectual culture at the University of Chicago. Unlike most universities, Chicago is actually home to more graduate students than undergrads, and those graduate students work with faculty to drive interesting research projects across the university. Chicago Booth encourages its business school faculty to pursue any issue that interests them across a range of disciplines. Such research is regularly featured in the pages of more than 200 economic and business journals.
A focus on ideas. Chicago Booth is known globally for ideas that shape business practice and influence public policy. Focusing on ever-changing theories and principles, Chicago Booth encourages students to question all assumptions. This approach combines the very best in conceptual knowledge and academic theory with practical, real-world application. At Chicago Booth, students are encouraged to continually test ideas and seek proof that leads to new and innovative solutions.
A focus on data. The quant-heavy finance curriculum is certainly well known at Chicago Booth, yet there are not enough superlatives to describe the extreme focus at this school on using data in the discipline of marketing. Chicago Booth’s relationship with A.C. Nielsen means that researchers have access to a treasure trove of consumer data, and data is the basic tool for decision making deployed across disciplines at the school.
A focus on action. The first school with a formal leadership training program? Chicago Booth. The first school with an experiential component to the classroom? Chicago Booth. A school that led the way 30 years ago with management labs? Chicago Booth. This is a school that works to bring the fruits of its extensive research out into the world and into the hands of its students in a tangible, practical way. At Chicago Booth, you will be busy doing your MBA; you won’t just be studying it.
