MBA Recruiters Still Wary Of Online Programs

Discussion in 'Business and MBA degrees' started by smartdegree, Aug 1, 2021.

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  1. smartdegree

    smartdegree Active Member

  2. cacoleman1983

    cacoleman1983 Well-Known Member

    I believe the stigma of online education will never truly go away. Employers will honor online schools and programs but they will likely tend to prefer the traditional route of education from 20+ years ago. They want to see sacrifice with people not having a choice but to go to classes at night, during the weekend, and sometimes during the day which limits work flexibility. These recruiters who feel this way are probably much older (45+) and had to do it the brick and mortar way.
     
    smartdegree likes this.
  3. smartdegree

    smartdegree Active Member

    It doesn't help that online programs still haven't solved the problem of cheating. I saw this article a few days ago as well.

    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/online-education-cheating-business/

    Theoretically, it is possible to "subcontract" your entire online degree to someone else. I won't be shocked if this happens a lot.
     
  4. cacoleman1983

    cacoleman1983 Well-Known Member

    It is much easier to cheat in online programs. I can even attest to that, particularly with quizzes and exams. I've even found YouTube videos that teach people how to cheat on online exams that are proctored by companies.
     
    smartdegree likes this.
  5. sanantone

    sanantone Well-Known Member

    It's not surprising, although, a similar article summarizing a survey of HR professionals said the same thing, but the HR professionals admitted that they couldn't always tell when degrees were earned online. If I earned an MBA down the road at UT-Arlington, no employer is going to be able to tell that I earned it online. Everyone assumes that I earned my first master's in San Angelo because I've always lived in the same state, but I've never lived close to San Angelo.
     
    Vonnegut likes this.
  6. Vonnegut

    Vonnegut Well-Known Member

    Personal thought - don’t think it’s as much to do with the delivery mode, as it is with institutional reputation.
     
  7. sanantone

    sanantone Well-Known Member

    Agree. These survey questions need to be revised to ask about online education at certain types of institutions. When you ask about online degrees, people think of WGU, University of Phoenix, Liberty, Capella, Walden, AMU, etc.

    No one has asked if my University of Florida degree was earned online even though they have a huge online presence along with Arizona State University.
     
    Acolyte and Rachel83az like this.
  8. Acolyte

    Acolyte Active Member

    I thought this same thing. I don't think some people realize that most colleges and universities have some online options - they just hear "online" and think of the big "online only" schools like UoP, Capella, Walden, etc. I also wonder how it pairs up with your undergrad credentials, for example if the reputation of your undergrad institution was pretty solid, does that bolster the grad school work reputation?

    Also, I wouldn't worry too much about this stuff - I went to American University in D.C. Here in the Midwest people think that it's some kind of a generic online school. They have no idea. You have to educate them. And if you are a mid-career professional, your previous work experiences are probably going to have a lot more influence than where you went to school, and a part-time online MBA that you completed at Walden or wherever while holding down a full time job is more likely to look like ambition and solid time management at that point. It's probably different for a newly minted 23 year old with an MBA that is expecting to get plucked from the crowd for their "dream job" by a recruiter. YMMV.
     
    Dustin likes this.
  9. cacoleman1983

    cacoleman1983 Well-Known Member

    The more work experience you have, the less your educational credentials matter as far as where it is obtained. I agree with online degrees needing to be viewed and counted statistically different than online schools. My Masters degree was 100% online (Technically 96% because I had one hybrid class that could have been taken fully online) but it comes from a brick-and-mortar university.
     
  10. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    On the other hand, is it hard to cheat on campus? You can still hire someone else to write your papers for you, and at least in big lecture courses how will the TAs really know who it was sitting there filling out those answers on a test?
     
    Dustin, Rachel83az and chrisjm18 like this.
  11. cacoleman1983

    cacoleman1983 Well-Known Member

    That's true too... I have first hand experience with cheating with a family member who was hiring someone to write her papers for a literature course. Another way would be some of these alterative credit programs like sophia.org and study.com. I'm sure someone could complete those credits for someone else and have them transferred.
     
  12. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Some researchers at Friends University did a study suggesting that online students cheat less, not more, perhaps in part because online students tend to be working adults who have more of an immediate interest in learning the material to use on the job.

    https://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/fall123/stuber123.html

    However, this was a while ago, so there may be more recent research, and I believe they had to rely on self-reporting, with all the concomitant potential pitfalls.
     
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  13. LearningAddict

    LearningAddict Well-Known Member

    People cheat on-campus all the time in various ways. They get ahold of answer keys, buy papers, have others write their papers, and there have been plenty of issues over the years where people have faked IDs and arrived to take exams in place of another student.

    Cheaters cheat. The mode of delivery may change the prevalence, but it doesn't change the reality that those who intend to cheat will find a way no matter what.
     
    Acolyte, Dustin and Rachel83az like this.
  14. Dustin

    Dustin Well-Known Member

    A few years ago, there was an exposé at the University of Toronto about cheating which included a story about a woman who appeared at her midterm and final in a full burqa despite not wearing it any other time throughout the course. The proctor suspected it was not her.

    Her performance on the tests was significantly better than the rest of the course. Eventually they proved she cheated when she was unable to duplicate her great performance in a follow up exam that was substantially similar to the final.

    The worst part is, in addition to being expelled, even with the 95s the assisting student got her, due to her poor marks she still would have failed the course even if the cheating was undetected.
     

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