Post graduate (doctorate) question

I'm looking into applying to an MBA program. Most that I've looked into are not AACSB accredited. They are all however regionally accredited. Not that these schools are bad quality schools, just that in reality there are more business schools that are not AACSB than there are. Can anyone tell me if I'd be severely affected if I chose to continue to a post graduate degree, i.e. a doctorate or PhD after my MBA if my MBA were from a school that is not AASCB accredited but is regionally accredited?

 

If applying to an AACSB-accredited doctoral program, this could be a problem. You might find your application downgraded or rejected. Or, you might be accepted, but be faced with more coursework than someone graduating from an AACSB-accredited master's program. I would strongly advise you to check with a few schools that you'd be interested in now, rather than find out two or more years down the road that your degree has set you back.

AACSB accreditation isn't going to mean a whole lot in the working world, however. Unless you hope to take your master's and/or doctorate into academia, where it may very well matter a lot.

Consider the idea of earning both your master's and doctorates from non-AACSB schools. (With the cautions above, of course.)

Rich Douglas, Ph.D. (Candidate)
Centro de Estudios Universitarios
Monterrey, NL, Mexico
And holder of a non-AACSB MBA (National U., 1985)

 

Thanks for the info. I've written to several colleges that offers Ph.D or Doctors in Business and hope they will write me back soon. This is a very frustrating situation because I've found that so many good schools aren't AACSB accredited. That doesn't leave me with many choices in the area I'm in. The ones that are AACSB accredited MBA programs are very expensive, very long in duration and their evening programs aren't very well developed, i.e. courses starting at about 4 pm in the afternoon. It would make it so hard for me to complete their programs since I work full-time.

Any advise?

Thanks.

 

One more note of course. This is all in the event that I wish to pursue a Ph.D/Doctor in Business. Would I be right to assume that this AACSB thing doesn't matter at all if I decided to pursue a Ph.D in something other than business or even a J.D?

Thanks.

 

Yes. Don't worry about AACSB accreditation unless you really, really need it. We all have to make sacrifices and compromises; this might be one for you.

Rich

 

One of the colleges I wrote to (UC Berkeley) just emailed me back stating what you'd said about not being looked favorably if the degree is not AACSB accredited. They stated that the admissions committee might ask me as to why I went to a school that isn't AACSB accredited. As said, it's just so damn frustrating because these academic folks seem totally out of touch with the realities of a working professional.

 

One question. Would it be right for me to assume that if I chose to major in something else outside of business for my doctor/Ph.D, it doesn't matter at all if my MBA is AACSB accredited. Am I correct in this assumption?

Thanks.

 

If the field is closely related to business (economics, for ex), it might matter. For many other disciplines (theology, psychology, English, etc.), they probably wouldn't even know about AACSB. For fields outside of business, they will probably care more about regional accreditation or the international (GAAP) equivalent.

Alex

 

I couldn't agree more.

Rich Douglas

 

Do you think it'd matter if after my MBA, I chose to pursue a JD? Both business and law have always interested me. I have never looked into this but is there even a Ph.D or Doctor in law?

Thanks again for all your answers. You guys have been great.

 

At The Union Institute, you can design your own Ph.D. program, and major in just about anything. Our very own Steve Levicoff majored in Religion & Law at TUI, you could design a program in Business and Law. If you haven't already, check out the TUI section of Steve's website.

Steve's website: http://levicoff.tripod.com
TUI website: http://www.tui.edu

Bruce

 

A few ideas:

* Kaplan College offers an Executive J.D. for folks who are interested in business law, but who don't intend to practice.

* The University of South Africa offers LL.M. and LL.D. programs completely by correspondence, and very inexpensively, to students worldwide. I believe business law may be one of the available concentrations.

* Some other schools (Australian, mainly) offer business law programs by distance learning; I see there is actually a "Business Law" field in the Bears' Guide 14th edition subject index (page 376).


Peace,

Tom

 

There is a Ph.D. equivalent in law: the JSD. Many of the top schools have JSD programs (Berkeley for example), and many top schools don't (UCLA for example). Admissions requirement generally include an LLM (masters in law) AND a first degree in law (JD)

-dave

 

Whether to bother with the AACSB degree depends somewhat on what you want to do with it. If you work with Wharton or Harvard B-School grads and are trying to acheive parity, it's a false economy to go with a non AACSB degree that will be looked down upon (although there is no guarantee that the AACSB degree wont be.

I'm considering doing an MBA to open new opportunities for myself. I already hold a Ph.D. Since I travel a good deal (and I'll likely be in Beijing for 6 months in a year) I need distance ed. I looked at a number of schools, and am seriously considering Warwick. Yes, it requires 1 week a year of residency, and yes it takes 4 years and requires a thesis, but it is AMBA, EQUIS, and AACSB accredited. Is it a Wharton degree? No. But I expect that if someone makes a comment about my degree I can point to the residency, time, thesis and the AACSB accredation and the end result will likely be better than it would be if all I could say was "regionally accredited" or "largest program in the world". Like it or not, the utility of an MBA is only 1/2 in the things you learn. The other 1/2 is perception.

-dave

 

Rich:
By the way, how is National University? Is it good?

 

It depends. Nothing about it was--or is--bad.

When I took my MBA, the only option was to do it in a classroom. Fifteen classes taken one per calendar month earned the MBA. I don't know how the online programs are.

National was the model for what is now a routine thing: the school set up to deliver degree programs to working professionals on evenings and weekends. A novel idea in the early 1980's; now you can't swing a dead cat without hitting one. Webster, Phoenix, Strayer, Chapman, on and on.

These schools are particularly good at credentialing working adults. Their programs are as much experiential as they are academic; studies tend to be a lot more pragmatic. I don't think I learned as much about the business adminstration academically as I would have at a more prestigious school, but I came out of National much better prepared for continuing my career (that I'd been in for several years) than most new MBA's were. And I didn't have to take a two-year break from a my career (and paying my bills, raising my family, etc.). I graduated from National when I was 25, yet I'd been in the Air Force for six years and had been elevated to commissioned officer status. I retired from active duty when I was 36 (five years ago). If I had waited until finishing my education (I did my u/g work at Regents while on active duty, too) I'd still wouldn't be eligible to retire.

Funny thing about AACSB accreditation in my case. I graduated from Regents when it was still USNY. Its business programs are not accredited by AACSB. When I started applying to graduate schools, I applied to San Diego State University. SDSU had a two-year MBA program. The first year was made up of prerequisite courses that were waived for graduates of AACSB-accredited bachelor's programs. Graduates with non-AACSB degrees were evaluated on a course-by-course basis. I had done almost all my business education by examination. SDSU didn't give me any credit for this; they only gave me credit for one of the 10 first-year courses. So, even though I had a degree in business, I was treated the same as someone coming from a non-business bachelor's. Needless to say, I passed and attended National instead. Oh, my bachelor's degree wasn't good enough for SDSU's business school, but my bachelor's plus my National MBA was good enough to enjoy a four-year appointment to the faculty as an assistant professor! I was an assistant professor of aerospace studies and the Air Force ROTC commandant of cadets from 1988-92. I found the whole experience enlightening. I really thought the administration and faculty were out of touch with the real world. Since I've entered industry after my military career, I'm even more convinced of that.

Rich Douglas, Ph.D. (Candidate)
Centro de Estudios Universitarios
Monterrey, NL, Mexico

 

Do you know anything about IACBB (International Assembly for Collegiate Business Education) accreditation?

 

I don't have any idea how effective their accrediting processes are, but they are not recognized by the U.S. DOE or CHEA. Even if they were (and Bear says in the 14th ed. that they are applying to CHEA), it would have about the same uselessness as AACSB, only more so. Just another club designed to do little more than make its members conform and to keep everyone else out. No big deal.

Rich Douglas

 

Very interesting to know this for I didn't look them up to see if they are recognized by CHEA. I know that they're soliciting a lot of mgmt schools to get accreditation from them.

You are very right about all these elite clubs called accreditation bodies. School clubs, I call them.

 

Whoa. I was referring to AACSB and the like. While I've detested traditional accreditation's negative impact on nontraditional higher education over the years, things are getting better. And there really is no reasonable alternative available. People can trumpet non-GAAP recognition (like state approval) all they want; there are still serious limitations in using these degrees. No, the RAs are a bit more than clubs. It's the programmatic accreditors in some areas I find useless, AACSB being the most so. It is a good ol' boy club that has no purpose beyond its own means. No one cares about it except other AACSB schools.

On the other hand, take an organization like the National League for Nursing. The NLN accredits nursing programs. Many states, hospitals, even the military, require one to have one's nursing degree from an NLN-accredited program. To ignore this is to put one's future prospects at serious peril. This simply cannot be said of the AACSB. If you want to get into some aspect of their club (graduate school, or a job at an AACSB-accredited school) then fine. But if not, it really doesn't matter. Oh, and they really serve to squelch innovative programs, too, encouraging cookie-cutter programs that fit their paradigm. Big deal.

Rich Douglas