Wilmington University DBA

Last night on their graduate school campus, Wilmington University had an information session about their DBA program. It's about two hours from me, so I decided to drive up and check it out. The director of their DBA program, Ruth T. Norman, was the main presenter, supplemented by Claire Rudolph, the lead staff person assigned to support the program. They were both very friendly and informative.

A few points in no particular order that may interest people:

* They want to see a 3.3 GPA for one's Master's degree. It's not an absolute red line, but I got the impression that exceptions would be made really only for those who had an explanation for it and were otherwise strong candidates.

* One need not have a Master's in a business field to apply. They do expect one to have taken some coursework in accounting and economics, but they seem to be okay for applicants to catch up through Master's level courses.

* While the program has been available for a few years now in weeknight and Saturday formats, the Fall term will be the first cohort for the online format. They only plan to admit twenty people, and they already have fourteen inquiries even without any sort of promotion. There were about twenty people in the information session I attended. I gather that by the time they start deciding on online cohort applications (in May, I think they said) they'll have an awful lot of people from which to choose.

* There are fifteen courses plus a dissertation. They'll take up to two courses in transfer from a different doctoral program where no degree was conferred. For the online format, they'll have three fourteen-week terms per year, students who take two courses at a time will finish the coursework component in about two and a half years.

* They are very flexible in topics of dissertation they'll allow. Dissertation committees are three people. At least two must be from Wilmington University, but they do not have to be from the College of Business, and they do allow an external committee member if one needs a subject matter expert.

* I got the impression that they were keen to have people actually graduate the program, rather than leech off people stuck in indefinite dissertation purgatory like some schools have been reported to do. The dissertation should only take a year, they said, and could consist of practical research rather than have to be esoteric theory.

* They're non-profit and regionally accredited by Middle States. Most of their business programs are accredited by IACBE, but the DBA, as yet, is not.

* The College of Business seems small enough that those who have an issue or need a question answered can get the help they need and be quickly routed to the right person. Very small and very large schools aren't always great at this, but this department seemed to be in the "Goldilocks zone" of being small enough to be navigable and large enough to meet students' diverse interests.

The school itself is a little unusual in that they're a non-profit that's been around nearly fifty years, but they serve only commuter students; they don't have dorms. In some ways I'm not sure how to categorize them; at one point one of the others in the session asked Professor Norman who she thinks Wilmington University's peer group is, and she really had to think about it. She easily made a strong case for how WilmU is a better value than Argosy, Walden, etc., but in the discussion in the room that ensued most people seemed to think that a reasonable comparison was with UMUC's Doctor of Management program -- which costs twice what this one does.

I came away thinking that for those interested in an American online doctoral program in business, this one is definitely the one to beat. The problem, of course, will be getting in!

People with additional questions should email Claire at [email protected]. Please be nice to her, she's really sweet and I expect she's going to be dealing with an avalanche of inquiries before too long.

 

I agree, Tekman. And for many people from D.C. to New York, the every-other-Saturday program would be realistic as well. They said they have one guy who comes down all the way from Connecticut.

 

They graduated one recently, seven students from the first weeknight cohort. I think they said they just missed the deadline for their most recent renewal but will add the DBA to the next batch of changes.

 

FYI, I got this in an email from Claire today:

(By the way, Chip/mods, the "feature" where a URL is automatically replaced with the title of the web page is incredibly annoying and unwelcome. Can it be shut off? :angryfire: )

 

Hi Mohammed,

No, not enough hours in the day as it is. :smile: But if I were in the market for a doctoral program in business, and I weren't in a position to attend on campus full time, then this might be what I'd do.