Does anyone have any reviews about this school? I like the fact it's AACSB and the online program has a waiver available but trying to get alumni information is difficult.
According to College Navigator, Clarion University of Pennsylvania only issued 43 MBA degrees in 2012-13. That's pretty small by business school standards: most business schools issue hundreds of MBAs per year, not dozens. And Clarion has both traditional and online MBA programs, so the number for online MBA students specifically is probably even smaller. There is nothing inherently wrong with a smaller program. But if there aren't very many graduates, then obviously it may be harder to find them.
However, Clarion is in a rural area, away from major population areas. That probably plays into those numbers. Shawn
I'm surprised this program doesn't get more attention....no gmat required for the online program if you have more than 5 years exp and 2.75 gpa. I guess they want people to sign up or like mentioned previously it's just too small. I will also mention that right now their LinkedIn alumni group has two memembers ?!?! LOL.
As noted above, Clarion is a relatively small school in a relatively isolated corner of the state. I don't think it has a lot of name recognition outside of its corner. Personally, I think Clarion might do better if it was rebranded as "Clarion State University". Even if people know absolutely nothing about a given school, if they see the word "State" in the name, then they will assume that it is a public school backed by state government, and that it must be totally legit. And in the case of Clarion, that would be true.
That wouldn't jive with the other 13 PA state schools that form the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education. I can't say anything specific about the MBA but my sister did her library science master's through Clarion's DL program and then moved into a tenure track librarian position at a state university in another part of the country almost immediately after graduation.
That's true -- but does it really matter ? Next door in Maryland, Salisbury State University and Towson State University have both dropped the word "State" from their names -- they are now Salisbury University and Towson University. But other master's-level schools in the University System of Maryland, like Coppin State University and Frostburg State University, have kept the word "State". So it doesn't jive, but somehow the people of Maryland are able to cope. To further confuse the issue, Morgan State University does have the word "State" -- but it is an independent public university, separate from the University System of Maryland. Morgan State has no administrative connection to Coppin State or Frostburg State, despite the name. So that doesn't jive either. If Maryland public universities can add or drop the word "State" on a more or less random basis, it seems like Pennsylvania public universities should be able to do the same thing.
