Babcock Graduate School of Management

Babcock Graduate School of Management was the name of the graduate program in the school of business at Wake Forest University. It is now called the Wake Forest University School of Business. It has an enrollment of approximately 500 students, offers graduate degree programs in a variety of business disciplines and has centers devoted to entrepreneurship and family-run businesses.

Located in Winston-Salem, N.C., the Babcock Graduate School of Management was founded in 1969 and named for Charles Babcock, a businessman whose donation paid for the establishment of the school. In 2014, the decision was made to eliminate the full-time master of business administration (MBA) program and focus on the part-time program. The decision was made based on the declining enrollment of full-time students in the program, which had dwindled to 98 students. In contrast, the part-time program, offered on evenings and weekends for those employed full time, had grown to 304 students.

While some classes are available online, it is not an online MBA program. Students can still receive their graduate degree in two years, despite their part-time status, if they take classes through the summer, unlike their full-time counterparts.

Babcock Graduate School of Management was perhaps the first school to hold an elevator pitch competition—in an actual elevator. In the competition, entrepreneurial students must present their business idea and explain how it will succeed within two minutes. In response to several pitches including social causes in the last few years, the 2017 competition focused on entrepreneurs with a social focus. The finalists were given 20 minutes with venture capitalists and had the chance to win over $100,000 in cash or prizes.

According to the school's website: "This program seeks individuals who have demonstrated achievement through academic coursework, professional experience, and community leadership. To be eligible, you must hold a bachelor’s degree from an accredited institution and have at least three years of post-graduate work experience. We work with traditional and nontraditional students – intentionally seeking out diverse work experiences, realizing that each individual’s strengths heighten the learning experience for everyone."

Wake Forest University was founded in 1834 and was named for its original campus location in Wake Forest, N.C., north of Raleigh. The main campus relocated to Winston-Salem in 1956. The university is composed of six different schools and had an undergraduate enrollment of 4,955 in 2018. Annual tuition for the 2017-2018 school year was $51,400.