Anonymous wrote:"The kids in the business school at schools that offer it are usually the most sought after in recruiting." You're saying that they'd rather hire someone who took 1 econ class, a marketing class, something called "strategy," and maybe one finance class over a kid who majored in econ or math? Or someone who majored in industrial engineering? Interesting. That surprises me. I looked at some lists of top CEOs and they overwhelmingly had a substantive major as an undergrad and then did an MBA. So maybe it's the rank and file of corporate America who are coming from business major undergrade backgrounds? I may be oriented toward thinking of people in the private sector as needing a strong skill that they bring to the table because of time spent in California and NC where there the tech and finance industries are strong.
Where are you looking for undergrad business that only take 1 Econ, 1 finance, 1 marketing? My DC is a finance major. DC had to take 2 Econs, 1 calculus, 1 statistics, 2 accounting, intro courses in each of the following areas: Finance, management, marketing, Operations and supply chain, Info Systems, HR/Realestate/Entrepreneurship, Data analytics. This was just the "core business reqs". DC then needed 5 Finance courses and 5 additional upper level courses in anything in Business---it can be 5 more finance courses or a combination of anything else that interests you. So my DC has 10 finance courses in addition to the basic core classes for their Finance degree.
So while many people do get an MBA after having a different undergrad degree, there are plenty of strong undergrad business programs. Kids select that because it's what they are interested in. Finance degree is much more specific to business than a Math BS---targeted finance courses rather than high level calculus and theory courses that don't directly apply to most in business.