Poets&Quants Top Business Schools

University Of California, Davis, Graduate School Of Management

#45

Contact our general manager with any questions. Profile updated: June 15, 2023.

Contact Information

Location:
One Shields Avenue
Gallagher Hall
Davis, CA 95616
Admissions Office:
530-752-7658

School Data

Annual Tuition: $44,317

Acceptance Rate: 44%

Full-Time Enrollment: 40

International: 43%

Minority: 30%

Average Age: 30

Female: 34%

Male: 66%

Application Deadlines: Round 1 - October 26, 2022 | Round 2 - January 18, 2023 | International Applicant Deadline: Round 3 - April 12, 2023 | Final Full-Time MBA Deadline: Round 4 - May 31, 2023 | Final Part-Time MBA Deadline: Round 5 - July 12, 2023

The Davis Graduate School of Management MBA: What You Need To Know

The UC-Davis approach to teaching prepares students to be collaborative leaders and make a positive difference in the world. The school’s general management education aims to provide a strong foundation, perspective, and balance to be an effective manager. The school opened its doors in 1981 and began offering its full-time MBA in 1987. The MBA program spans two full academic years plus a summer internship.

Davis’s location at the northernmost edge of California’s vast Central Valley allows for the School of Management to be an economic driver for dynamic growth in the region and serve as a hub for the agricultural industry. The University’s agriculture and environmental sciences college often tops ranking lists for research.

The school is close enough to the San Francisco Bay Area and Silicon Valley that students can benefit from the tech ecosystem – Apple, Intel, and Hewlett Packard are Northern Californian neighbors with operations in the Sacramento region. Proximity to Napa is also enticing for those with a taste for the wine business, and the state capital Sacramento is a short drive away.

Diversity is another feature at UC-Davis. In the full-time MBA program, 34% of students are women, 30% are from ethnic minorities, and 43% come to the program from outside the U.S. The melting-pot philosophy is embedded in the MBA, as candidates work in carefully selected multidisciplinary teams.

To earn their MBA, students must successfully complete 72 hours of credits with a cumulative grade point average of 3.0 or better.

In the first phase of the program, students build a foundation, anchored by the IMPACT experience, where students team up on a quarter-long strategic consulting project for a client company and present their solution to top executives. The core curriculum is designed to provide a foundation in the functional areas of business, like accounting, economics, finance, marketing, organizational behavior and statistics through the use of case studies, lectures and the analysis of select companies.

A key element of the MBA are the four Industry Immersions, which ensure that MBAs get cutting-edge insight through live case studies. Students can choose from immersions in several areas that are well represented in the region and draw on UC-Davis’ research leadership, including food/agriculture, sustainable energy, biotechnology, and technology finance.

A highlight of the program is an optional two-week study trip to study business abroad, with recent destinations including Japan, Cuba, Switzerland, China, and Turkey.

“I wanted to move into agriculture because I felt it is an industry where you can have an impact on a global scale in both developing and developed countries. In the Industry Immersion programs at UC-Davis, you really get to know a sector, with visits to food and agriculture companies like growers and packing companies, seed-breeders, and Coca-Cola distributors, to see the challenges they deal with. And working on interdisciplinary case studies with lawyers and food scientists helps to understand the interconnectedness of this vast value chain. I’m now working in agribusiness, and I’ve launched a startup based on my experience and network at UC-Davis,” says MBA Yuan Jonathan Cheng.

H. Rao Unnava, Dean, Graduate School of Management

“We believe MBA graduates will add significant value to any company if they apply their learnings from the MBA program to an industry for which they have passion. Such passion complements their IQ with EQ and makes them relate to the mission of the organization readily and easily. While all MBA programs teach analytical and problem-solving skills, those skills have to be applied in a certain context; having prior exposure and preference for the context enhances the quality of decision making.”

In the first phase of the program, students build a foundation, anchored by the IMPACT experience. The core curriculum is designed to provide a foundation in the functional areas of business—accounting, economics, finance, marketing, organizational behavior and statistics. These management disciplines are examined through the use of case studies, lectures and the analysis of select companies. In the capstone course sequence, Integrated Management Project and Articulation and Critical Thinking (IMPACT), students team up on a quarter-long strategic consulting project for a client company and present their solution to top executives. Elective courses at the Graduate School of Management place an emphasis on real-world application of management principles through executive guest speakers who present “live” case study analyses, such as the Industry Immersions, and other hands-on, experiential activities.

Its Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship focuses on helping students and faculty across the campus to build powerful networks to turn their ideas and research into sustainable ventures.

Davis Graduate School of Management MBA Rankings Data

Davis Graduate School of Management MBA Employment Stats

Total Class of 2020 job offer rate three months after graduation: 76%

Davis has not published in its employment report its top employers, preferring to list all of the firms that hired the school’s graduates.

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