Over the course of its more than 100-year history, UVA’s McIntire School of Commerce has had many noteworthy milestones, but its most recent one, successfully transitioning to a three-year B.S. in Commerce Program in fall 2024 to open its doors to second-years in fall 2025, marks another significant evolution in its leading approach to business education.
The addition of an academic year to McIntire’s renowned undergraduate degree program has been the result of a lengthy and detailed examination. This faculty- and staff-driven initiative to help students chart a path to better align with industry demands and internships enhances their alternatives for learning and networking experiences and offers them greater flexibility in planning both their academic and professional journeys.
The Curriculum Redesign
In August 2024, first-year UVA students began their academic careers on Grounds, with access to the benefits of McIntire’s redesigned program, which, importantly, now admits students to the Commerce School at the start of their second year. This strategic shift synchronizes the curriculum’s coursework with contemporary employment recruitment cycles and provides students with the requisite time to take advantage of opportunities to hone essential skills, delve into various focused studies, and engage in multiple options for transformative and enriching global experiences.
Building on the success of McIntire’s hallmark third-year Integrated Core curriculum, the Comm School has expanded on its strengths across an extended timeline. The update to the innovative program aims to immerse students in the life of the School earlier in their time on Grounds through its comprehensive, team-based environment, preparing them to proficiently address real-world business challenges.

Roger Martin
Professor Roger Martin, Director of the Undergraduate Program, says that engaging with the McIntire community earlier will prove to be a real benefit to students during the first of their three years in the program. “Access to academic advising and career support will allow students to develop skills and interests that will help them throughout their McIntire experience,” he explains. “The setup of the new curriculum will also be a great advantage for students as they progress through their coursework: The second-year foundation courses will put everyone on solid footing as they enter the third-year Integrated Core courses, which will let students and faculty leverage integrative approaches even more in that third-year experience.”
Having led several collaborative facets of thorough review and extensive preparation work over the last several years, Martin is looking forward to seeing second-year students identify with McIntire as they become an active part of the learning community. “I hope that the set of foundational courses will build enthusiasm for the subject matter and excitement for how we approach teaching and learning in the Comm School,” he says. Martin anticipates that the second-year learning experience will also better support students as they begin their courses in the Integrated Core. “They will be able to leverage that broad foundational work and see how it can be so powerful to view challenges through an integrated lens,” he says, anticipating that students will more significantly demonstrate the type of multidimensional thinking they stand to develop from the new curriculum plan.
A More Personal Admissions Process
How will the expanded program impact admissions? Pierce Coughter, Director of Undergraduate Admissions and Marketing, says that, like the B.S. in Commerce itself, the application for it has also widened to include more personal input from applicants.

Pierce Coughter
“While they will still write a pair of essays as part of the application, they also have two ‘video essay’ responses to complete,” he notes. “The characteristics and qualities we are looking for in our evaluation haven’t changed, but the video responses will give students another opportunity to highlight some of those traits while discussing their experiences, goals, and values in a recorded video format. The students will also get to showcase a little of their extemporaneous speaking skills with this addition; we’re excited to see some of the personalities of our applicants come through in this addition to the application.”
The extra components included in the review process have been designed to help the Admissions team find the same types of characteristics, qualities, and stories they have always looked for in an incoming class of students but require the faculty and staff who review applications “to be open to and aware of the vast variety of ways students can display these attributes,” Coughter shares. “It will be a similar process for sure, but I anticipate a nice blend of additional input from the students to factor into our evaluations.”
An Expanded Learning Environment
This shift to admitting students into the program earlier in their UVA careers coincides with the completion of the McIntire Expansion Project into the new Breeden Family Grounds that house student-centric Shumway Hall and the renovated historic Cobb Hall. The result establishes a vibrant educational environment featuring inventive, flexible, and expanded facilities. Students and faculty will thrive in collaborative learning spaces with state-of-the-art technology features such as those housed in the Innovation Lab and benefit from the many interactive community engagement areas.
One of the central features of Shumway Hall, the Student Success Center is the nexus for both the Career and Student Services teams, offering a more streamlined approach to support all McIntire students as they prepare for their professional lives—a process that will now provide further options for exploration and preparation for second-years by virtue of being full-fledged Commerce majors.
The aforementioned shift also better coincides with specific corporate internship schedules.

Tom Fitch
“We continue to encounter early internship recruiting and interviews among certain industries like investment banking, consulting, and accounting,” says Tom Fitch, Associate Dean of Career Services and Senior Director of Operations and Analytics for Student Success. “In addition to the academic underpinnings associated with these career fields, second-year McIntire students will now have access to our focused alumni network, career coaching sessions to fine-tune their elevator pitch, and a dedicated support system to provide guidance along the way.”
Fitch also points out that while he and his team recognize that not every student will be impacted by early recruiting timelines (particularly those who are interested in pursuing careers in industries that traditionally recruit later), their intention remains the same: “We are looking forward to helping students identify a career path that makes sense based on their individual goals and interests, as well as creating a strategy that guides them on the journey to personal success,” he says.
The professional support for second-years represents an important reason for the change to McIntire’s newly established three-year program: It signals a decisive move toward enriching the student journey while upholding the Commerce School’s legacy of excellence in business education. As the newly expanded program aligns with industry dynamics, better equips students for the global business landscape, and ensures their readiness as future business leaders, aspiring students are encouraged to follow the revised guidelines for applying to seize the many educational and professional possibilities the Commerce School has long provided to generations of business innovators.