I just saw this on Florida Atlantic University (www.fau.edu) PHD admission requirements An MBA or related master's degree from an AACSB accredited institution is most desirable. Applicants whose master’s degree is focused on a non-business discipline or is not accredited may be required to take additional courses to for ensure sufficient background on fundamental business subjects. Entering students are also expected to be proficient in computer skills, calculus and statistics. Any similar situations?
Semantics will get you (and me, just watch and see) into trouble time and again. There is a big, BIG, difference between Atlantic's "desired" and your "required." I doubt they will turn down any regionally-accredited MBA. 'Tis a matter of money unless they are reaching overenrollment. According to you, Atlantic said, "may be required," and there is a lot of waffle room in that statement. To take my MBA (not having any business classes in my bachelor's program) I had to take an extra course in "bonehead" accounting. No great shakes. jim
Schools vary in this regards. Some of the top schools - such as Michigan, OSU and others - accept people directly from undergrad studies based on high GMATs and GPAs and course work in specific areas (especially math). Undergrad degrees in business are typically not required - such schools are looking for extremely bright people from any discipline. In fact Michigan and Vanderbilt advise students against trying to combine an MBA and a PhD - they consider MBA's to be to be professional degrees, separate from PhD work. Their websites say that an MBA in hand has little impact on the length of a PhD program. Other schools (such as Harvard) have the student take the equivalent of the first year of an MBA to get a general education in the 5 core areas of business. Some schools such as the one you cite actually require an MBA for admission. For these schools the quality of the MBA earned is one factor in admissions. The 20% or so of MBA programs that are AACSB accredited are arguably the top 20% in the U.S. Hence, an MBA from an AACSB school does carry more clout than an MBA from a "commodity" program. As for Jim's comment about dollars driving admission decisions - he's exactly right for the DL programs we talk about here (e.g. Capella, Walden, etc.). They are tuition driven and are looking for enrollment. For the other 100+ traditional PhD programs in business in the U.S., most students don't pay tuition. They work as teaching or research assistants and hence don't pay tuition. Enrollments at these schools are effectively capped by the school's need for cheap labor. There is one other difference - the GMAT. Virtually every traditional DBA/PhD program in business that I've seen requires the GMAT for entrance. It is not uncommon to see average GMATs in the 600's at such schools. The DL crowd (except for NSU) tend not to require the GMAT. At NSU the DBA program once had a "portfolio option" for admission in place of the GMAT. Recently, that was removed. I've been told that NSU finds the GMAT is a predictor of eventual success in the dissertation phase of the program. Regards - Andy
