 | |
| Type | Publicbusiness school |
|---|---|
| Established | 1912; 114 years ago (1912)[1] |
| Dean | Santanu Chatterjee (Interim)[2] |
Academic staff | 197 (full-time)[3] |
| Students | 10,485[3] |
| Undergraduates | 9,330[3] |
| Postgraduates | 1,255[3] |
| Location | ,, US |
| Affiliations | University of Georgia |
| Website | terry |
 | |
TheC. Herman and Mary Virginia Terry College of Business is a constituent college of theUniversity of Georgia, aresearch university inAthens, Georgia, United States. The business college offers undergraduate programs,MBA programs, specialized master's programs, anddoctoral programs. It was founded as the first business school in theAmerican South in 1912.
The Terry MBA is offered as a full-time degree on campus in Athens, as a part-time degree orExecutive MBA in theBuckhead district ofAtlanta, and a fully online MBA option was added in 2023.[4]
All of the college's programs are accredited byAACSB International – the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business.[1]
In Athens, the Terry College offers an undergraduate program, four master's degrees (the Full-TimeMBA, theMaster of Accountancy, theMaster of Marketing Research, and theMaster of Science in Business Analytics), and eightdoctoral degree tracks. It offers three online degrees: an MBA, aMaster of Business and Technology, and the newest online option is a Master of Professional Accountancy (MPAcc) for working professionals with non-accounting backgrounds. The Terry College also offers Executive MBA and Professional MBA programs at the Terry Executive Education Center in Atlanta.[5]
The Terry College offers undergraduate majors in accounting, economics, finance, management, management information systems, marketing, real estate, risk management/insurance, and a co-major in international business.[6] All UGA students who plan to pursue a bachelor's degree in business are initially admitted to the Terry College as intended-business majors. Students can apply to a Terry major once they meet all application eligibility requirements, typically during their second year at UGA.[7]
Undergraduates can supplement their degree program with one or more certificates, which are proof of skills development offered in eight areas of specialization: actuarial science, entrepreneurship, FinTech, legal studies, music business, personal and organizational leadership, sustainability, and workforce diversity.[8] There is also an academic minor in business available to UGA undergraduates.
The Terry Full-TimeMBA degree program is taught on the Athens campus, with staff, team rooms, and classrooms headquartered in Correll Hall. The curriculum is delivered in four semesters. MBA students are encouraged to complete an internship during the summer semester between their first and second year. The MBA Career Management Center assists with internships, job placement, career coaching, and networking events.[9]
The first-year core curriculum provides a solid foundation of management principles and business practices. Students focus their second-year curriculum on a choice of nine market-driven specializations and three additional areas of focus. A total of 61 credit hours are required for graduation, including 1 credit for community service.[10]
Admission to the full-time program is highly competitive, with an acceptance rate of 35%.[11] Students entering the program averaged a 698GMAT score, with the middle 80 percent of scores ranging up to 740.[12] More than 97% of students are employed within three months of graduation.[11]
In addition to the full-time program in Athens, the Terry College has three MBA formats designed for working professionals — people who plan to work full-time as they pursue their MBA degrees part-time.
Terry's Executive MBA is geared toward mid- to senior-level managers with a minimum of seven years of work experience. Instruction is delivered 50% remotely and 50% in person on weekends in Atlanta, and the program is completed in 18 months.
Terry's Professional MBA is designed for early- to mid-career professionals. PMBA class schedules are offered on either weekday evenings or Saturday-only in Atlanta. Terry's PMBA program can be completed in 17, 20, or 23 months.
Terry's Online MBA is taught 100% virtually and asynchronously. The OMBA curriculum is very similar to the PMBA program. Terry’s OMBA also can be completed in 17, 20, or 23 months.[13]
The Institute for Leadership Advancement (ILA) in the Terry College of Business was established in 2001. ILA provides students with self-assessments, coaching/mentoring, action learning and feedback focused on the development of greater emotional competence. Two undergraduate leadership programs form the centerpiece of ILA programming: the Leonard Leadership Scholars Program (for Terry College majors) and the Leadership Fellows Program (for students in any UGA major). Completion of either program earns the student a certificate in Personal and Organizational Leadership.[16]
ILA hosts the Terry Leadership Speaker Series, which brings well-known leaders from a variety of organizations to the Terry College of Business. In these student-oriented forums, leaders are asked to discuss their leadership styles and experiences.
The Music Business Certificate Program was launched in January 2006 as a response to the growing music and entertainment industry in the state of Georgia. In starting the program, former director Bruce Burch often said Atlanta is now recognized as the "fourth music center" in the country behind New York, Los Angeles, andNashville, and is growing rapidly as a hotbed for music and film production.[17] Since August 2010, the program has been under the leadership of Athens-based musician and producer/engineerDavid Barbe.[18]
Students can earn an interdisciplinary certificate in music business by receiving a hands-on education about subjects like music and business fundamentals, copyright issues, creative content, artist management and production and technology. Music and entertainment industry executives are brought in from across the country to speak to classes, providing not only "real world" perspective, but also networking opportunities. Only 100 students are annually enrolled in the program.
TheActuarial Science Certificate Program is designed to prepare students for an actuarial career. Actuaries apply mathematical models to assess the financial cost of uncertainty. There is a high demand for actuaries across all industries. This certificate program is open to all undergraduate students currently enrolled at UGA.[19]
This certificate program prepares students for the complex legal environment of business and helps them also to gauge their interest in pursuing aJuris Doctor degree. To obtain the certificate students must complete 15 course hours with a minimum grade of C (2.00) in those courses. A number of pre-requisite courses are necessary before this program may be undertaken.[20]
The Entrepreneurship Program is a campuswide initiative that is housed in the Terry College of Business and open to all UGA students, regardless of their major or area of study.[21] The program focuses on the four key tasks of entrepreneurship: opportunity identification, resource acquisition and deployment, goal setting and strategy formulation, and implementation. This highly active concentration hosts a multitude of seminars and events on and off the UGA campus, including "UGA's Next Top Entrepreneur Competition" and "UGA Startups."
UGA's Next Top Entrepreneur was dubbed the "American Idol" of business plan competitions. Both a competition and a seminar series lasting the full academic year, it is open to all UGA students. Competitors participate in a series of interactive seminars and individual coaching sessions focused on starting a business. The first year of competition (2008–09) resulted in eight businesses being launched, $212,000 of initial revenue, and procurement ofangel funding.
The UGA Startups series was designed for entrepreneurs to have access to some of the most seasoned entrepreneurs in the Southeast. Topics include innovation, funding, opportunity analysis, business communications, purchasing businesses, and franchising. UGA Startups events are held at the Terry Executive Education Center.
Terry Executive Programs offer business professionals value-added education with certification and development programs in areas such asfinancial planning certification,human resources leadership,project management, andbusiness analysis.
The M. Douglas and V. Kay Ivester Institute for Business Analytics and Insights is an academic program that expands analytics throughout Terry's different areas of business education by targeting and expanding the business school's process of transforming historical business data into insights to improve business decisions by focusing on areas including, but not limited to, data management, data visualization, predictive modeling, data mining, forecasting simulation, and optimization that are some of the tools used to create insights from data. The Institute involves several academic areas, pursues interdisciplinary research involving both students and faculty, involves the business community, and advances new programs and courses.[22]
Dedicated in December 1990, the Selig Center improves upon its predecessor, the Division of Research, which was established in the late 1940s.[23]
Through its range of projects — major economic impact studies, economic forecasts, publications, information services, and data products — the center's efforts help to guide business decisions and public policy directions. In doing so, the Selig Center has become the Terry College of Business's most visible public service unit.
Each year the Terry College hosts the Georgia Economic Outlook series in 12 cities throughout the state. The series provides more than 3,000 business and government leaders the foundation to make informed decisions based on economic data from the Selig Center for Economic Growth.[24]
| Business school rankings | |
|---|---|
| U.S. MBA Rankings | |
| Bloomberg (2026)[25] | No.23 |
| U.S. News & World Report (2025)[26] | No.29 |
| Global MBA Rankings | |
| FT (2026)[28] | No.55 and No.1 best-value[27] |
Business and Technology (Specialized Master's)
Executive MBA
Professional MBA
Full-time MBA
On the University of Georgia’s main campus, the Terry College of Business is housed in the Business Learning Community, which is situated at the center of UGA’s 760-acre campus next to the intersection of Lumpkin and Baxter streets. The Terry College’s state-of-the-art home is a modern, collaborative, learning, teaching and working environment for students, faculty and staff.
The complex of six buildings was jointly funded through a partnership between the state of Georgia and private donors. Correll Hall was the first building to open in 2015. The next phase, which included Amos Hall, Benson Hall, and Moore-Rooker Hall, opened two years later. The third and final phase of construction was completed in 2019. It features two buildings — Ivester Hall and Sanford and Barbara Orkin Hall — separated by the Coca-Cola Plaza.[37]
One block north of the Business Learning Community at the edge of downtown Athens, Studio 225 is home to the UGA Entrepreneurship Program, which is taught and led by business faculty. Located on West Broad Street, Studio 225 includes a mix of offices and multipurpose educational areas — such as a maker space, a pitch deck and study nooks — where students interested in entrepreneurship can meet, collaborate and form teams.[38]
Pre-dating construction of the Business Learning Community, the Terry College of Business was formerly located in three buildings on the University of Georgia’s historic North Campus: Brooks Hall, Sanford Hall and Caldwell Hall.
Brooks Hall, designed by architectNeel Reid, was originally known as the Commerce-Journalism Building before being renamed in 1974 forRobert Preston Brooks, who was UGA’s first Rhodes Scholar and the School of Commerce’s first dean, serving from 1920 to 1945. Construction of the building was completed in 1928, with a three-story annex added in 1972.[39] The original structure was seriously damaged by fire in 1995 and restored a year later.
Sanford Hall was funded through private gifts and dedicated in 1997.[40] The three-story building opened with 15 classrooms, a student advising center, and a student lounge. UGA alumnusCharles S. Sanford Jr. gave the largest donation for the building that bears his family’s name.
Caldwell Hall was built in 1981.[41] The classroom building is named for Harmon W. Caldwell, a UGA alumnus who served as university president from 1935 to 1948 and chancellor of the University System of Georgia from 1948 to 1964.[42]
The Terry College of Business has two satellite campuses located inGriffin andAtlanta, Georgia.
The Terry College's "home away from home" in Atlanta is the Terry Executive Education Center, located in theBuckhead business district.
Classes for the college's Executive and ProfessionalMBA programs are taught at the center, in addition to non-degree programs, such asLean Six Sigma andFinancial Planning Certification. The center also serves as a focal point and meeting place for Terry students, alumni, faculty, and staff to interact with Atlanta's business community. The 38,000-square-foot facility located inside Live Oak Square on Lenox Road features tiered executive classrooms, conference rooms, break-out meeting spaces and interview suites.[43]
UGA's Griffin campus, located 40 miles (64 km) south of Atlanta, was established as the Georgia Experiment Station in 1888.[44] UGA Griffin offers graduate degree programs and undergraduatedegree completion programs, including a bachelor's degree in general business from Terry.[45]
First established in 1912 by the state’sBoard of Regents, the business school was named the School of Commerce until 1940. The early years of the school were "fragile" as the program struggled to secure the faculty and funding needed to serve the several students who had declared their intention to pursue the new Bachelor of Science in Commerce degree.[46] The first such degree was awarded in 1915 to Willis Brazeal Sparks Jr.[46] The first woman to receive a degree in commerce from UGA was Anne Ruth Moore in 1922. And in 1966, Harold A. Black and Tyrone Barnett were the first Black students to graduate from the college.[47]
The school was known as the College of Business Administration from 1940 until 1991, when it was renamed the C. Herman and Mary Virginia Terry College of Business. The name honors Mr. and Mrs. Terry, who were distinguished benefactors of the college and endowed faculty chairs, research fellowships, scholarships, and funded facility upgrades.[1]
In its early years, business school enrollment was very small. In 1930, there were only 12 faculty members and 50 students in the graduating class.[46] By 1965, total enrollment in the College of Business Administration was 2,091 and more than 500 degrees were conferred that year.[48] By the turn of the century, undergraduate enrollment at Terry was 6,080 and graduate enrollment totaled 500 in the fall of 2000.[49] And by 2024, the college had eclipsed 10,000 students enrolled, with 9,330 undergraduates and 1,255 graduate students.[50] More than 3,100 students graduated with degrees in business during the 2023-2024 academic year.[51]
The Terry College of Business and Tull School of Accounting are accredited byAACSB International. The college holds the distinction of being continuously accredited since 1926.[1]
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)33°57′09″N83°22′37″W / 33.95258°N 83.37708°W /33.95258; -83.37708
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
