Patten University MBA and Exam questions

I have spent most of my forum surfing time on degreeforum.net, but as a start my adventure working towards an MBA I think this forum is becoming more valuable. I am in the Military, and because of this, regional accreditation is more important to me than Business Accreditation. Patten University seems to have the fastest and one of the cheapest routes to gaining my MBA. I know that a couple of you on here have tried out their courses so i'm looking for feedback.

There are a lot of other schools that I am looking at but this is the only one that I can do completely self-paced that I know of. Being in the military makes it difficult to commit to a 16 week schedule when I could easily be tasked to do something unexpected.

So here are my pros for Patten University:
Self-Paced
Reasonably priced
20% discount for active duty military
Regional accreditation (no longer on probation)
Unlimited course with a flat rate
No GMAT requirement
(if you have a BA/BS you are in)

Here are my cons:
Unknown School that is For-Profit
No ACBSP or AACSB accreditation
Unknown strength of Alumni
Unknown if the school will last

So can someone tell me the following:
1. What are the projects like for the MBA? (length and detail--rubric?)
2. Are the final exams open or closed book?
3. How good is the communication (non-sales related communication) with the university? Do they get confused when speaking with them weather or not you are calling about New Charter or Patten?
4. How are the ebooks, do they provide a quality learning experience or are they hard to navigate, and unable to print and highlight?
5. How accurate is the readiness bar?
6. Do the quizzes for each unit accurately reflect what is asked during the examinations?
7. What is the average exam length.

I have been able to answer most of my questions from their FAQ page, but the ones above do not have answers.

Any help would be appreciated!

~Armby77

 

Keep in mind that Patten's MBA program is brand new: it was only announced on July 11, less than 3 months ago. So there may not be very many Patten students out there to answer your questions. In fact, the page for Patten University at WASC (Patten's regional accreditation agency) indicates that Patten has only 33 graduate students total. And that number probably includes students in their MA Education program, so the number of MBA students could be even smaller.

As your post noted, Patten is an "Unknown School". It may be hard to get good info about a school that is unknown.

 

I would need a school to be a bit longer in the tooth before I made them a potential candidate. I hear you on the difficultly of juggling college life and the military; considering it took me 10 years to finish a 4 year degree while on active duty.

I would focus on schools that have a relationship with the military, and if you find yourself in a situation, just email the instructor and ask for an extension. I always found that 99% of my instructors would cut me a break. The remaining 1% were just hippies who hated the military and anyone serving in it . . . but this was not atypical.

Good luck.

 

Thanks for your reply, and your service. I personally tend to try to stay away from Military "friendly" schools because they seem to inflate their prices because they know that TA will pay a large portion of it.

The other Colleges on my short list are:
Western Governors University
Webster University
Eastern New Mexico University
Amberton University

The only problem is that I don't want to take on any tuition assistance from the military because of the 2 year obligation from when you complete your final class. I'm at 18 years of service (enlisted and warrant officer time),and I don't know how much time past 20 years I will got. Both of my degrees have been out of pocket, with no incurred debt. I would like to do the same for my MBA.

Eastern New Mexico University is the most cost effective out of the schools listed above, but I would most likely need to take the GMAT to gain entry (additional cost). Based on all of this, I decided that Patten would be a good fit for me. Once I start a new career, I can always go back to school and earn a higher "quality" degree.

Hopefully someone can give me some insight to the college. I know that there are postings about it, on the forum. None of them unfortunately answer my questions.

 

I have been talking with Patten University off and on all day. I can tell you that there are currently 22 Online MBA students enrolled and none have graduated but the program, as stated above, did just start in July. As for my questions earlier here are some of the answers:

2. Are the final exams open or closed book? All final exams are CLOSED BOOK. - answer provided by support.patten.edu

4. How are the ebooks, do they provide a quality learning experience or are they hard to navigate, and unable to print and highlight? Ebooks come from multiple sources - some downloadable on pdf- some embedded right on the page. They can be printed if that works best for you. - answer provided by support.patten.edu

Other interesting things:
I also found out that you can take 6 credit hours from New Charter University and transfer it into the MBA program. Many of the courses are the same because they are sister colleges. This could save a couple of hundred dollars for us penny pinchers.

Admissions:
Admissions simply needs you to fill out a form, with your SSN to verify your degree, and an unofficial transcript to ensure you have microecon and college level math. Once they have that information you can fully enroll. I still sent in an Official Transcript, but they said they are good. I think the best method of enrollment will be with an Admission Advisor rather than online. They just seem to have the best grasp of how to go forward and can answer questions.

The only thing holding me back from starting the program now is money...:laughing: I'm paying for my wife's LPN program at the same time so it may be a couple of weeks~months before I can fully enroll. I will post reviews of each course in the MBA - General Management program as I complete them.

I can say the one benefit people may gain by going through this University is the personalization. They have so few students that they have the time to answer your questions.

~Armyb77