Knox College students finished on the first-place and third-place teams in a competition that brings together undergraduates from all over the country to solve the same kinds of problems faced by real-world business leaders.

The Early Leaders Case Competition, sponsored by the Simon Graduate School of Business at the University of Rochester in New York, is an annual event that challenges select college undergraduates to solve business problems with the "case study" method used in many graduate-level business programs.

Through a partnership between Knox College and the Simon Graduate School of Business, highly qualified Knox juniors and seniors can apply for an M.B.A. through the Direct Admission program.

The November 2013 Early Case Leaders event was by invitation-only, and the invited students included five from Knox: Si "Sharon" Chen '14, Viet-Huong "Anna" Nguyen ‘14, Mydel Santos '14, Esther Farler-Westphal '14, and Molly Loudon '15. The students were accompanied by Knox faculty member John Spittell, Professor and Chair of Business and Management, and Executive-in-Residence.

At the competition, participants were assigned randomly to teams that worked together to decide how best to deal with a particular business problem.

Team members analyzed the case study and prepared a formal presentation for judges, who selected the top three teams. Loudon was a member of the first-place team, which shared a $5,000 award. Nguyen was a member of the third-place team, which shared a $2,000 award.

"I had to use all the knowledge I've learned throughout (my time at Knox) and use that in the limited time," said Nguyen, a double major in economics and environmental studies. "I feel like now I'm a little more confident about myself because I know that under stress like that, I can still perform."

Farler-Westphal, a psychology major with minors in German and business and management, has landed a job in commercial lending with Fifth Third Bank, which she will start after graduation. She described the case competition as an excellent experience that "really thrust us into the world outside of Knox."