Reputed AACSB MBA for under $25K?

I see similar sentiments to this expressed on this board all the time, and I can't for the life of me understand where they come from.

It's true that most employers don't know much about MBA rankings, but that's because most jobs don't require an MBA degree. The people that are hiring for jobs that do require the MBA most assuredly know all about the rankings, because at the very least, job applicants from the top schools are going to point it out to them.

 

Very true, forgot the State in Penn State. The Smeal College of Business is Penn State and Wharton School is Penn.

 

The same can be said of the Indiana University Kelley degree. It is offered by IUPUI, a part of the Indiana system, but not "Indiana University" which is in Bloomington. There's been a lot of discussion on this issue in another forum (Businessweek). Some alums have expressed their disappointment that Indiana University hid the fact that the degree is offered by a satellite university in the Indiana system, and not the main Bloomington campus (which is the one ranked by US News).

 

Not exactly true. The back-office admin is at the IUPUI site, however most faculty are from Bloomington. The same full-time profs as the TOP 20 FT MBA. At least one of the residencies is in Bloomington.

You earn a Kelley School of Business MBA either way. At Penn State's online program you will NOT earn an MBA from the Smeal College of Business.

 

There is no Indiana University System. Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as an IUPUI or IUB degree. At all campuses, degrees are conferred by the Trustees of Indiana University. You'll also note that Business Week makes no distinction in ranking Kelley-Bloomington or Kelley-Indianapolis -- they simply rank Kelley. The full-time MBA is only offered in Bloomington and the part-time MBA is only offered in Indianapolis. Consequently, Bloomington students tend to be recent graduates and the Indianapolis students tend to be there at their employer's expense.

Business degrees at IU are a bit of an odd animal, though. The Kelley School of Business is located at both Indianapolis and Bloomington. Recipients of business degrees from those two campuses have degrees from Indiana University Kelley School of Business. Recipients of business degrees from all other campuses simply have Indiana University degrees from either the School of Business and Economics or the Division of Business.

My two cents are if you're at the point in your career where you need to rely more heavily on the on the name of your degree instead of your qualifications you should attend in Bloomington so you can make the contacts that will be helpful for your professional growth. If you've established yourself and you need a highly-ranked MBA to advance, then go with the part-time or Kelley Direct program.

 

Forgive me for being naive, but isn't Indiana University a university system? It has several separately accredited campuses, just like the UC system, UMichigan system, etc. Also, there is no such thing as a UCLA or UC Merced degree either. At all UC campuses, degrees are conferred by the regents of the University of California. Same goes for the UMichigan and UIllinois system. The fact that the diplomas are identical does not mean that UC, UM and UI are not university systems.

Also, any person in California will tell you that a UC Merced degree is not the same as a UC Berkeley degree regardless of whether the diplomas look identical. Of course, I am not an academic, but just a person who loves discussing education-related issues. So could anyone please enlighten me?

If an IUPUI MBA can be listed as "MBA, Indiana University" without the IUPUI identification, then can I not get an MBA at UM Flint and list "MBA, University of Michigan" on my resume? Following that reasoning, I can also get an MBA at UI Springfield and list on my resume "MBA, University of Illinois". Or what if I got my MBA from Indiana University Kokomo or IU Southeast? Can I also list "MBA, Indiana University"?

 

Penn State is one university with its flagship campus and a gazillion of Commonwealth (whatever that means) and special missions campuses. It is of course true that the Penn State is the College Park campus.

Yes, but good HR managers know that good people come from all kinds of places and walks of life, and that the university is one of many factors to consider. Rankings are, to some extent, arbitrary categories, not objective truths. So a top school can get you a foot in the door, but it is one factor among many.

 

I don't really know why you would list "MBA, Indiana University" in the first place. When a business school is named, people tend to refer to the school by the name such as Fuqua (Duke), Wharton (Penn), Stern (NYU), etc. Since Kelley is located at Indianapolis and Bloomington, a graduate from either campus has an equal claim to being a Kelley grad. Someone who received an MBA at the Kokomo campus would list "MBA, School of Business and Economics, Indiana University, Kokomo, IN", since they do not have a Kelley degree. Instead of locating Kelley at Indianapolis and Bloomington, the university could have made the Kelley school a Bloomington-only school as they did with the Maurer School of Law; the university chose not to.

I have graduated from programs at both Bloomington and Indianapolis, and I have been a non-academic staff member at both campuses. I am not knowledgeable about the structure of the universities/university systems that you mentioned, but I suspect a graduate of UC Berkeley would list his or her degree "MBA, Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley, CA".

 

I think you mean University Park.

As a theoretical concept that's great. But I'm not sure how you can defend a statement dismissing rankings when the average salary coming out of a NYU MBA is two times higher that of a Portland State MBA. This is not an "extreme" case, it's the average.

And Portland State is a decent school - it's AACSB. The differential would be even more drastic at a non AACSB or for profit.

 

In that case, the appropriate thing to write on a resume with a Kelley direct degree is "MBA, Kelley School of Business, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, IN". I have nothing against the Kelley school of business. As I said, I even considered doing the online Kelley MBA at one point. But after doing some research, I saw posts from Kelley alums who complained about the degree/transcripts being from IUPUI, not IU Bloomington.

I just recently visited the Kelley direct MBA website. Apparently all MBA students starting the Kelley direct MBA in the fall of 2009 will get their degrees from Bloomington. However, all current students and past alums will still get their degrees from IUPUI. I wonder how current students must be feeling about this rule. Shouldn't they also get the IU Bloomington degree? After all, they pay the same tuition and go through the same curriculum/professors as you have mentioned.

On another point, I highly doubt the majority of resumes list the actual school name of a university. Don't the majority just list the degree and school name? I mean, do you really say, "MS Economics, School of Arts and Sciences, University of Pennsylvania" or "Master of Education, Graduate School of Education, University of California at Berkeley". I would bet that majority would just say "MS Economics, University of Pennsylvania". Education experts, what do you think?

 

I actually meant State College. I wish they had been a little more creative with their names.

Of course. No one doubts that there is a correlation between reputation of the school and professional success. But you can't just infer success from one variable. Because...

You have to consider who goes to (e.g.) NYU and who goes to (e.g.) Portland State:

• NYU - People from all over the world seeking the best of the best, able and willing to fork out a ton of money for tution and (in case of non-DL students) living in Manhattan.
• NYU - Portland State - Mostly people from the region and neighboring states, probably seeking a compromise between quality, affordability, family, and other commitments.

Now, which group is more driven to land that VP position in a F500 company, and which group will be happy with a good job in a regional company? Exactly. So, which group will probably have their whole resumes geared towards professional success? Right, the NYU people.

If you consider yourself part of the former group, by all means go for the top-tier school. But you'd better make sure that the rest of the resume live up to what your school promises, work experience and impressive internships included. No F500 HR manager will give you a job just because you went to NYU.

If you are part of the latter group, which I would assume most people on this board are, you should keep in mind what is important to your non-multi-billion-heavy potential employers. A good regional school, local work experience, and a down-to-earth aura may be your best bet.

 

There is no such thing as an IUPUI degree. All faculty on that campus are either Indiana or Purdue University faculty members. All degrees at that campus are issued by either IU or Purdue. An IU transcript will denote which campus coursework was completed at, and the diploma will state which campus the degree was awarded at.

No one would think of telling a graduate of the IU School of Medicine that she has an IUPUI degree (all medical degrees are conferred at Indianapolis, though classes may be taken at satellite locations). Many of the IU graduate degrees in sciences are only conferred at the Indianapolis campus. IU spends nearly twice as much money on research at the Indianapolis campus as it does at the Bloomington campus.

Several of the IU schools are system-wide schools. Kelley is not - it only exists on the residential and urban campuses.

 

I specifically referred to business programs. The first resume I found searching for stern mba resume used this convention:

New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, New York, NY
Master of Business Administration, May 2000 (Double major: Corporate Finance and Management Strategy)

The first resume I found searching for Wharton MBA resume used this convention:

THE WHARTON SCHOOL Philadelphia, PA
* M.B.A., Strategic Management and Management of eCommerce

In business most of the top-ranked schools are named and the school name is typically used more prominently than the university's. After all, some alumnus paid a lot of money for that name. You even see it outside of business where the school is named and highly-regarded, e.g. Tisch School of the Arts, Kennedy School of Government, Newhouse School of Public Communications, Medill School of Journalism, etc.

 

I respectfully disagree with you on this one. Even Indiana University's faculty members list their degrees as (Degree, Indiana University) on their own CV's. Check out the Kelley website.

I think this discussion about Kelley IUPUI is a moot point since Kelley now gives new students the option of graduating from Bloomington. Problem solved. That's good news for anyone considering the program.

While I understand a lot of your comments about Kelley being one school spread over two campuses, it is still hard for me to believe that the IUPUI and Bloomington campuses are just part of one "Indiana University", particularly when the two campuses have separate accreditations, separate law schools, separate US News rankings. The two Kelley campuses even have separate web sites and separate brochures.

It will take a lot of discussion to explain to a non-Indiana University student/employee how this Kelley arrangement across two campuses works. I think this is what frustrates the Kelley students on the Businessweek forum (i.e. that they have to explain this arrangement each and every time even though they paid a lot of tuition for the Kelley MBA name).

Perhaps the Kelley administration should have been more forthcoming about this issue before past students enrolled (of course, now it is a moot point). For example, in the past, the Kelley direct website stated nothing about the degree/transcript being awarded by the Indianapolis campus. That would have avoided the outrage of some Kelley direct students.

 

I'm going to agree with Randyp on this. I earned my MBA from Vanderbilt.
On my resume it is listed: VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY; Owen School of Management; MBA.
My friends that earned theirs at Georgtown, Duke, UGA and USC list theirs in the same manner.

 

Here's a pretty good post highlighting Distance MBA's. The ones that are AASCB accredited are identified.

http://illegitimatedegrees.wordpress.com/2009/04/19/regionally-accredited-mba-online-programs/

 

This convention must be unique to those graduating from highly ranked, prestigious, or well known schools. I would be interested in knowing how these same folks list their undergraduate. I am consistent in listing both my undergraduate and MBA with the university listed not the individual college or school within the university. Can you explain your thoughts on listing the business school? Vanderbilt is signficant in and of itself.

 

I didn't realize this until Bruce point it out to me, but many universities with highly-ranked, prestigious business schools don't offer undergraduate business degrees.

 

True. But if fols also have an undergraduate degree, regardless of major, I doubt they would list the particular school within the university on their resume. I might be missing the point but it would seem that listing an MBA would indicate that it was earned in the school of business.

 

I earned my bachelors degree from Auburn University and never listed the college name next to it until I began my MBA program. It was more for consistency than anything else.

I've never really thought about why I do it. I suppose conformity. That is how our career services department recommended we list it and it seems to be pretty standard practice with people who hold MBAs.

I actually remember during my summer internship between my first and second year. We were doing an introduction session and all of the MBA's referred to the business school they attended, not the University it was housed within.