Does the name of the school really change anything? In your opinions.

Hello everybody,

I have several possibilities for a Master. I actually have a possibility to do a semi-distance Learning between a recognized (By the state) University where I live in cooperation with Lincoln University in US. I personally don't know much about this University. But does the name of the Uni change anything. I have other options aswell that are with more 'well-known' universities in UK. The course I'd follow is MBA with specialization in Financial Management and Investment Banking. The program looks very decent and interesting.

What are your opinions?

 

I would say it really depends on your personal situation. If you need the degree just to have the "qualification" or for an internal promotion almost any degree might do it. But if you are looking for a new job or a job change it might get more important. The more competitive the field is, the more people want to work in this sector, the more the sector is cultivating an elite image, the more the University name matters. You can't argue with someone reading your resume for the first time so my intention at least is to be on this piece of paper the best one I could be. And associating myself with a big brand school is a part of the game. For most people (outside of this forum) a degree is somewhat a marriage for life. You carry this one around with you until retirement. It gets of cause less and less important but it is still there. And I just couldn't settle in something like this for the second best. Of cause someone could also argue with the quality of the instructors but you weren't asking for that

 

Woho covered the topic pretty well. I would like to add that sometimes a local university will serve you as well as a large brand name university if the local reputation is solid. If you plan on moving around or don't know where you will end up then I recommend you get a recognizable university name on the resume so as to maximize the utility of the degree.

 

If you're looking for a brand name in that field of study, Boston University offers an online program;

http://www.bu.edu/online/online_programs/graduate_degree/master_management/banking_finance_management/index.html

Just keep in mind that BU's programs are very expensive, but you're partly paying for the name brand.

 

I am of the opinion that it really does not matter unless it is a TOP tier school (top ten in nation) or a local school.

I have heard rumors that the local school district will not hire someone who does not have a degree from the local school.

 

If you are keen on Finance, have you looked at Henley College at the University of Reading? They have a good reputation for Finance.

 

Agreed with the caveat that "top tier" doesn't necessarily mean top 10. For example, Tier 1 for US News means Top 25, BusinessWeek MBA rankings list the top 30.

 

Lincoln University in Pensylvania, USA, is regionally accredited which is good.

 

...and all of these, of course, are really just a crude and simplified picture of the very complex system that higher ed in the US is. Good for a first general orientation, but nothing one should make one's individual decision dependent on.

For those of us who plan to use a foreign degree in our home countries, never underestimate how differently name recognition works in your own country than in the US. Of course, Harvard and Oxford work everywhere. But beyond that... Chances are your potential employer has never heard the name Swarthmore before (neither has the spell checker of this board engine, apparently ). San Francisco State, on the other hand, will be associated with all kinds of cool stuff.

 

To true. But as my grad school's full-time program is ranked #15 I always tend to like these rankings

 

I think the name/ranking plays more of a role in what you intend to do with the degree. If you want to apply to top tier PhD programs, having a highly ranked masters degree will help. Also, I'd imagine that applications to work at some top investment banking firms might be helped with a recognized school with a high ranking. For most uses, however, I think it doesn't matter that much. Being that you are in the UK, you might get better networking benefits out of a local, more well-known university in the UK, however.

 

There have been some good points made in this thread and I only want to add one or two or three things. You can't really know what the name of a school means to someone else. Maybe you went to Stanford and because it's a top tier school you think everyone will welcome your employment application. That is, except for that guy who got turned down by Stanford and so he's had a secret grudge against the school for the last 20 years. He's the guy who's going to interview you. It can happen the other way just as easily. You got a distance learning degree from a school in wherever. The person interviewing you used to spend her summers at a spot just down the road. You share wonderful memories together. Everyone says that they're objective about these things but personalities inject themselves into every aspect of life, including job interviews. The original question was, does the name of a school change anything? I'd say that it does. It may not change everything but it can definitely strike a chord (sweet or sour) with the person who is in charge of hiring and the tone of that chord is somewhat unpredictable. So what do you do? You make the best decision you can knowing that there will always be someone out there who will see it in a bad light. Also, I generally feel that it's a good idea to go with the best program that you can afford. I do not believe in going heavily into debt in order to earn a degree. But that's just me.

 

At the Master's level (and even more so at the Doctorate level), the department is often more important than the school. It is not uncommon for a given department to be more highly regarded than the school as a whole.

I've written about how my wife chose Vanderbilt over Harvard, Princeton, and Berkeley for her PhD, because she felt that in her specific fields of interest (ethics, and eastern philosophy), they had the best (and best-regarded) department.

And one daughter chose Oregon Health and Science University over some probably better-known schools, for her nursing degree, in large part because of their well-regarded specialty in hospice nursing.

That sort of thing.