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The Daniels College of Business will be implementing a secondary admissions process beginning in the fall of this year.
This will mean that incoming freshmen as well as transfer students who are hoping to be business majors will be placed into one of two groups. Students placed in the smaller group will automatically win acceptance to Daniels. Those placed in the large group will have to go through a separate application and acceptance process in their sophomore year.
To apply as a sophomore, students will have to have taken a number of business and general education classes and must have a 3.3 GPA.
This change is one of several Daniels is implementing in response to a surge in the number of business majors at DU and to a more competitive business marketplace, according to Dan Connolly, the associate dean for undergraduate programs. The changes reflect an effort by Daniels to continue to provide a small, personalized educational environment, Connolly said.
Student numbers at Daniels has risen from about 1,500 to about 2,400 in recent years, Connolly said.
The School of Accountancy has also seen unexpected growth in student numbers, with the population of the school more than doubling in the last few years. The number of students in the school, predicted five years ago to be only 250 in 2010 has exceeded 300 this year.
The accounting school, like Daniels as a whole, is also looking at changes to keep its program standards high. This may mean an increase in the minimum GPA for accounting majors, according to Kathleen Davisson, a professor in the School of Accountancy.
“It’s a possibility, but it hasn’t been presented to any faculty committee,” Davisson said. “It’s still in discussion.”
Some students in the accounting major, one of DCB’s more popular programs, say they are feeling the school’s efforts to keep the program small in the classroom as well.
“In the classroom it’s a very uninviting environment and it’s very intimidating, and I believe that the environment is like this because they want to cut students from this program,” said a junior accounting major who asked that her name be withheld. “There are always comments about ‘if you survive through this week,’ or ‘if you survive through this next exam.’ There’re no words of encouragement. It’s all about survival.”
“It’s a very negative environment. They say if you don’t have above a C that you should leave the major,” said another accounting major who also asked to be kept anonymous.
Some students, however, say that the atmosphere in the class is reasonable.
“I think if everyone in the class was at the level they wanted them to be at, they wouldn’t really have the problem with the size,” said Michael Rex, a junior who recently declared accounting as his major. “The thing is they want people who are going to be good. They don’t want people who aren’t going to be good accountants graduating through their program.”
All three students confirmed that the intensive Accounting Core class has shrunk from over 50 students to a number in the high thirties in the first three weeks of the quarter.
The accounting department requires majors to maintain a 2.5 GPA, compared with the 2.0 GPA required to maintain good standing with the university.
According to Connolly, the increased rigor of the accounting program is to keep pace with a competitive professional world.
“I will say that we’ve made some curricular changes in accounting because of some things we’ve heard about the marketplace. We have changed some courses and made some things tougher, and raised the standards, and we’ll continue to do that. We want to make sure that the people we’re putting out in the marketplace have what they need to succeed. We have the very best interests of our students at heart,” Connolly said.
