Media Relations
news@marshall.usc.edu
213-740-8674
USC Marshall's Greif Center named No. 1 entrepreneurship program
Princeton Review, Entrepreneur tab grad program as tops
The Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at USC's Marshall School of Business has been named the nation's No. 1 graduate program in just-released 2007 rankings from Entrepreneur magazine and the Princeton Review.
The rankings will appear in Entrepreneur's November issue, on newsstands Oct. 23. This is the fifth year of the rankings, and involved evaluations of entrepreneurship programs at some 900 schools.
The magazine's editors said surveys found that budding entrepreneurs are strongly interested in programs with "strong alumni networks, an emphasis on feasibility studies and activities for engaging the local business community," all areas that play to USC Marshall's strengths as a center for entrepreneurial study and research. Schools were evaluated in such areas as academics and requirements, students and faculty, and outside-the-classroom support and experiences.
The Greif Center is the nation's oldest integrated entrepreneurship program. Fortune magazine recently named Greif Center Director Tom O'Malia one of the nation's top 12 entrepreneurship professors.
USC Marshall Dean James G. Ellis has identified entrepreneurship and innovation as core areas of emphasis for the school, which is headquartered in the heart of the one of the nation's most entrepreneurial regions.
Students are required to meet and extensively interview entrepreneurs in the field they'd like to pursue, and routinely take part in networking opportunities. As with all USC Marshall graduate students, they are required to have an international experience, during which they work on business problems facing real companies.
Graduates become part of USC Marshall's 70,000-strong alumni network, which comprises about a third of the University of Southern California's entire Trojan Family.
USC Marshall's many successful alumni entrepreneurs include Marc Benioff of SalesForce.com, Paul Orfalea of Kinko's, Chris DeWolfe and Josh Berman of MySpace and Gordon Marshall of Marshall Industries, a pioneer in Internet-enabled electronics distribution.
About USC Marshall School of Business
Based in Los Angeles at the University of Southern California, at the crossroads of the Pacific Rim, the USC Marshall School is the best place to learn the art and science of business. The school's programs serve nearly 5,000 undergraduate, graduate, professional and executive-education students, who attend classes in facilities at the main Los Angeles campus, as well as satellite facilities in Irvine and San Diego. USC Marshall also operates a Global MBA program in conjunction with Jiao Tong University in Shanghai, China.