UMUC accreditation

I wrote them about a week ago questioning their accreditation- is regional not as good as aacsb, when it comes to mbas. After two get your mba at umuc form letters I finally received this reply-

Dear John,

Greetings from UMUC, I have received your e-mail regarding the AACSB accreditation. AACSB accredits college/university that are mainly have an on-site focus for education. We are mainly an online university, with a global reach. We are however, accredited by the Commission of Higher Education of the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools.

I am sending you some information about our university. Please see the following link.

http://www.umuc.edu/gen/about.html

To answer your question I do not believe that we are disadvantaged by not having this accreditation, due to our focus.

Sincerely,

Mr. DeWayne C. Scott



Does anybody buy that?

 

There is a debate, but here is my two cents. Mostly (there are always exceptions), if you want to teach at an AACSB school, you need to hold degrees from an AACSB school. If you are in industry, it is not of concern.

The statement of an online school does not hold, as there are several schools in Europe that hold the accreditation, so it is a global recognition.

AACSB is a professional accreditation for business, so it considered the gold standard. RA (which is what they have) is what I would consider the silver. If silver is all you need, go for it, but with so many DL MBA's out there, I am not sure why anyone would preclude their options in the future.

I do think their response is not accurate, but they are trying to sell their school, go figure.

Back to your question, I think you will be at a disadvatnage in some instances, it really depends on your goals. (If you have even a remote chance of teaching, go AACSB!)

 

http://www.timewarptv.com/site/programs/Star_Wars_Screen_Tests/

Well Im not really thinking about teaching, I just want to get into the business field and get on the track. From everything Ive read, I agree the AACSB is the gold standard when it comes to business schools, hence my trepidation with UMUC. I am a PSU psy grad and dont have any real experience, plus I took the general GRE and not the GMAT. As I understand it, I need to take the GMAT and have a few years of business experience to get into a decent AACSB accredited school. UMUC would take me (my money) right now but Ive heard so many disparate things about it that Im not very confident and I surely wouldnt want to waste all that time and money (even if it turned out to be a good education) if my degree was going to be questionable at best in terms of employability.