Evolution of admission standards in response to curriculum integration

Abstract

Admission standards are commonly employed as a means of maintaining the quality of an academic program’s student pool, and as a result, the program itself. The past decade has seen a number of efforts to integrate academic content and incorporate models of team‐based learning. While the emphasis and demands of these programs have changed, as well as the expectations of incoming students, admission standards have not. This study considers whether undergraduate business admission requirements developed and validated for traditional curricula remain valid admission standards for integrated programs. The relationship between student performance in various predictor courses and performance in upper level business courses is compared for students in an integrated program and those taking the traditional curriculum. Results indicate that the traditional predictor courses remain valid predictors of performance for the integrated program. Additionally, opportunities for improvement exist in the addition of courses emphasizing communication and reasoning skills.