Starting in the fall 2025 semester, the McIntire School of Commerce undergraduate business program will transition from a two-year to a three-year model, with students now applying in the spring of their first year. The new structure is slated to give students earlier access to Commerce coursework, enhance career preparation and further align McIntire with top undergraduate business schools nationwide, according to Commerce professors.
In a statement to The Cavalier Daily, Roger D. Martin, director of the undergraduate program and associate professor of Commerce, provided information regarding the course requirement changes and additions made to the new three-year undergraduate business program.
In total, newly admitted students will complete six credits in the fall and nine credits in the spring. Each course will be three credits, except for COMM 2005, “Foundations of Management Communication” and COMM 2006, “Foundations of Managerial Decision-Making,” which will be 1.5-credit courses.
According to Martin, Commerce’s new curriculum introduces six required second-year courses which students will take across their fall and spring semesters. In the fall, students will be required to take COMM 2001, “Foundations of Financial Accounting” along with either COMM 2002, “Foundations of Finance” or COMM 2003, “Foundations of Information Systems”, with the remaining course to be taken in the spring. The spring semester will include COMM 2004, “Foundations of Quantitative Analysis for Business Decision-Making”, COMM 2005 and COMM 2006.
Additionally, Commerce will introduce co-curricular programming in the summer ahead of students’ first official year in the school, focusing on personal development, academic skills and career exploration in the second year.
The new courses and length of the redesigned curriculum will continue to build on Commerce’s Integrated Core Experience, a team-based, case study-driven program where students analyze business problems and work in small, consulting-style groups to develop solutions.
Each set of classmates will have a team of instructors who coordinate content for their entire set of Integrated Core courses. Additionally, as part of ICE, students will complete a semester-long project in their third year in which they work with a University-partnered company on a real-world business challenge and deliver a presentation to executives at the end of the fall semester.
According to David C. Smith, professor of commerce and associate dean for center development & research at McIntire, the second-year curriculum will have students coming into ICE better prepared than they had previously been under the two-year model because of the foundational skills students will develop during their second-year coursework. To further help second-years be prepared for ICE, McIntire has introduced the “COMMence” program, a structured initiative designed to help second-year students build career skills earlier and integrate into the school’s community.
In the spring semester of their second year, students will continue working through the self-guided COMMence curriculum. Part of this phase is participation in the Backpack-2-Briefcase series, where second-years collaborate with third-years to gain insights into networking, resume building and professional communication.
Students will then convene for another event that will reveal ICE block assignments, the organization method where students take 15 credit hours of Integrated Core coursework with the same group of classmates.
In the spring semester, second-year students will also gain access to the McIntire Alumni Mentoring program, which connects students with alumni who can offer academic guidance, career advice or other insights. The program will include sessions focused on industry education, networking, materials building, interview readiness and career connections.
The new COMMence program will launch for second-year students entering the program in the fall. The program begins before students start their second-year coursework with a two-day kickoff conference, where they engage in workshops on growth mindset, career exploration and McIntire’s academic expectations.
Alongside these academic changes, Commerce is also undergoing a physical transformation to support its expanded student body and enhance the Commerce school’s learning environment. The McIntire Expansion Project, a multi-year initiative, includes the construction of Shumway Hall, renovations to Cobb Hall and the creation of new outdoor and collaborative spaces, all adjacent to Jefferson Park Avenue near South Lawn.
Smith identified three main factors which led to the move to a three-year program — the need for earlier preparation of students for internship recruitment, the need to compete with other undergraduate business programs and the benefits of extending the program to allow students to take more courses outside of Commerce.
According to Smith, nearly all undergraduate business programs follow a three- or four-year model, including the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina and the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. He said other schools were getting ahead in internship recruitment because McIntire’s two-year program put its students at a disadvantage.
“I wouldn't say that by itself, [the new program will] cause a big change, but I do feel like we were slipping behind in our in our rankings and that was because the two-year program was a drag on our ability to stay competitive with our peers,” Smith said. “I believe going to a three-year program is going to help alleviate that.”
According to Smith, the two-year program was originally designed to give students experience in both the College and Commerce. However, he noted that this was being hindered by the extensive amount of prerequisite courses as well as the heavy concentration of Commerce courses once students were admitted. This made it difficult for students to fit classes outside of Commerce into their schedule. Under the new model, Smith said that students will have more room to explore other majors and courses outside the Commerce program.
“By extending the length of the amount of years that the students are in the Commerce school, it actually makes it easier to take courses that are not Commerce oriented throughout their time at U.Va.,” Smith said.
The change also aims to reduce uncertainty for applicants. Under the previous system, students spent two years completing prerequisites before applying in their second year, often making it difficult to pivot to another major if they were not accepted. With the new timeline, students will apply at the end of their first year, giving those who are not admitted more time to explore alternative academic paths.
With the shift to a three-year program, Commerce has adjusted its admissions process to accommodate first-year applicants. The application process for first-years includes a written section covering extracurricular involvement, leadership experiences and career interests as well as two video essay responses. One of these video responses prompts students to explain their interest in Commerce, while the other is randomly selected from a bank of behavioral questions to assess student fit and qualities for the program.
Smith cited this new application as another positive change to happen under the move to a three-year model, as it places greater emphasis on students' backgrounds, experiences and potential, rather than just prerequisite coursework performance.
“We believe that by actually having an application that comes earlier in their college career … [it] becomes less about what they did in the first two years that they took pre-Commerce courses, and more like who they are as an individual,” Smith said.
With several general education requirements removed, applicants are now only required to take three prerequisites — COMM 1800, “Foundations of Commerce,” ECON 2010, “Principles of Economics: Microeconomics” and the first writing requirement.
Previously, prospective Commerce students also were required to take two completely online accounting courses with upwards of 600 students. According to Smith, the two online accounting courses have been replaced by the in-person accounting course that students will take during their first year in Commerce, and the statistics requirement has been removed in lieu of the new quantitative analysis course that students will also take in their second year.
McIntire admission decisions for current first-years will be released June 13, and students will have until noon of June 23 to accept or decline their offer. First-year applicants will continue to enroll in a full schedule of classes during the April enrollment period, and if admitted, students will have approximately a week to revise their schedules. Enrollment instructions will be provided at the time of admission.
Additional details about prerequisites, application requirements, the selection process and curriculum changes can be found on the McIntire website’s admissions and news pages.
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