John Bear asks for help in thinking about MBA programs

Oh, yes! How could I have forgotten one of my pet peeves - a given institution conducting its resident program with tenured faculty and its distance program under a different, largely adjunct faculty - the "second string", the "B Team".

 

1. Curriculum, to fit personal interest. Whether it's general or specialised matters, but depending on personal interests
2. As an extension of (1), theory-based, case-based, or practice-based
3. Interactivity among students, faculty, and alumni, some realtime online activity is a plus here.
4. Strong and active local alumni presence
5. School Reputation and recognition.

 

Some elitism aside, (adjunct does not necessarily equate to "B" team, for instance), I think some of these parameters need percentages: cohort/individual or in terms of case work. Placement has to be in terms of the student being traditional or non-traditional. Someone working for a company using the degree to enhance the career or salary level might care less about placement. Nuances, always nuances.

Raters such as US News seem to be falling into disfavor. If this accelerates - ???

 

Yes, how they address accommodations for ADA compliance would be interesting to readers.

Dave

 

26. Contact point: when you have questions or issues is there a contact at the school who provides great service to their on-line students, or do e-mails or phone calls remain unanswered.
27. Support: when you have problem does the school try to quickly resolve the issue and prevent it from occurring again, or do they try to pin the blame on the student when a problem occurs.

My opinion is that these factors rank higher than most other factors especially when you are a long distance from the school. For example, if you are located outside of the U.S. and the school is in the U.S. I can provide examples if you need them for your book and I am pretty sure that lots of other students can provide examples as well.

 

These are good additions.
With everything being equal in the minds of the students, the credit hour transfer rates would be nice. With the cost of graduate programs a three hour course could be the make or break factor for some who move to another program for whatever reason.
Maybe?

 

If possible, go to a public university for the online MBA, which is more creditable.

 

Available terms: some schools offer three terms in a year such as Fall, Summer, and Spring. This means a student has only three chances per year to take courses. Other schools (such as Texas A&M Commerce) have seven terms in a year such as Fall, Winter Mini, Spring, May Mini, Summer I, Summer II, and August Mini. This gives a student seven chances per year to take courses and allows the student to finish their program more quickly or to take courses during a term when they might have more time available to study.

Accepts credit transfers: some schools have a policy where they do not accept transfer credits from other schools while other schools might accept credit transfers but with certain restrictions.

 

If you are in the US and will be using federal financial aid make sure you know their policies upfront about using funds to cover courses you might need to drop or, if needed, retake. Make sure that the amount they estimate for the books and supplies is accurate - according to the program I'm in they estimate that new books for an MBA class will only set you back $100 per course. Find out if the school will "certify" an amount over tuition and their estimated expenses if you need special accomodations (i.e., audio books, computers with special features, text readers, tutors, etc) for disabilities or want to take an unpaid internship. Also make sure that they will allow your own bank or credit union to underwrite your federal student loans and that they don't have a policy of "not certifying" loans from non-preferred lenders.

The program I'm currently enrolled in outsources its financial aid and bursar's office which results in lots of time spent trying to get things squared away. It has also resulted in extremely high blood pressure for moi

 

Breadth and availability of elective subjects.