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Thoguh
Nov 8, 2002

College Slice

bouncyman posted:

I thought lower GPAs were more forgivable for engineering majors, but I guess I was wrong. If that's what kept me out, should I just not bother reapplying?

Lower is more forgivable, but below a 3.0 is still kind of a stretch, though your 740 GMAT should have really helped.

I just looked up that "FEMBA" means part time MBA. In that case I'm confused, because for an evening MBA I'd think that would get you in to any school other than the best of the best. Try again next year?

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bouncyman
Oct 27, 2009

Thoguh posted:

Lower is more forgivable, but below a 3.0 is still kind of a stretch, though your 740 GMAT should have really helped.

I just looked up that "FEMBA" means part time MBA. In that case I'm confused, because for an evening MBA I'd think that would get you in to any school other than the best of the best. Try again next year?

Yeah I was pretty shocked too. The only thing I can think of is the average age for their latest class profile has an average age of 30, so it's possible I'm a little bit young and they want to see more work experience.

blugu64
Jul 17, 2006

Do you realize that fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous communist plot we have ever had to face?
I want baller status. Bad. I've got a couple questions. My gpa wasn't too hot (upper 2's) as I had no idea what I wanted to do after college and languished around. I've got 5~ years experience, 4 with a start up that got crushed by cash for clunkers and got bought out, and a little over 1 with a major bank as a Business Reporting Analyst designing reports for and working with senor management. I'm pretty sure I could get a few recommendations from SVPs, and introductions to the admissions staff at one of my chosen universities by the same. Can I even get in? are there any disadvantages to taking online classes vs. part time? and most importantly, to those of you who already have an MBA, has it been worth it? (both on a personal satisfaction and salary basis)

fakeedit:
I'm assuming I'd have to do amazing on a GMAT to even consider getting in?

blugu64 fucked around with this message at 04:39 on Jun 23, 2011

Dreadite
Dec 31, 2004

College Slice

bouncyman posted:

Decisions for UCLA's FEMBA program were released today, and I got rejected. My stats were solid (740 GMAT, 2.7 engineering gpa), and I'm pretty sure my recommendations were good. Graduated in 2007, have three years of work experience, but purely in an engineering function. Does this mean I just got my rear end kicked on the essays? Or are my stats more terrible than I thought they were?

Ugh, this scares me. I have a 2.95 GPA in a less strenuous major, and I haven't taken the GMAT yet but I don't expect to do much better than a 740. I hope the admissions officers will look at transcripts and differentiate between a 3.4-3.5 major GPA and a 2.95 overall. I wrapped up my second freshman semester with two weeks of mono, so I did poorly on all my finals, didn't write a few papers and ended up with a 1.66.

Obviously there are many other factors for acceptance but is my GPA situation going to be prohibitive?

Suave Fedora
Jun 10, 2004

bouncyman posted:

Yeah I was pretty shocked too. The only thing I can think of is the average age for their latest class profile has an average age of 30, so it's possible I'm a little bit young and they want to see more work experience.

Call the office and ask. This would get you a better response than you or us guessing.

Suave Fedora
Jun 10, 2004

blugu64 posted:

I want baller status. Bad. I've got a couple questions. My gpa wasn't too hot (upper 2's) as I had no idea what I wanted to do after college and languished around. I've got 5~ years experience, 4 with a start up that got crushed by cash for clunkers and got bought out, and a little over 1 with a major bank as a Business Reporting Analyst designing reports for and working with senor management. I'm pretty sure I could get a few recommendations from SVPs, and introductions to the admissions staff at one of my chosen universities by the same. Can I even get in? are there any disadvantages to taking online classes vs. part time? and most importantly, to those of you who already have an MBA, has it been worth it? (both on a personal satisfaction and salary basis)

fakeedit:
I'm assuming I'd have to do amazing on a GMAT to even consider getting in?

Be realistic with your options. You're not going to get into a top flight program but there should be some local schools offering an MBA program. I'm 80% done with my program, it is fully online at a state school, they didn't require a GMAT score, and they threw a $10k scholarship to boot.

Schools are hungry for students and sweet, sweet FAFSA dollars. Don't make assumptions as they will slow you down. Just go at it and don't stop until someone accepts you. If you can get your work to pay for all or some of tuition, so much the better.

Thoguh
Nov 8, 2002

College Slice

Orgasmo posted:

Be realistic with your options. You're not going to get into a top flight program but there should be some local schools offering an MBA program. I'm 80% done with my program, it is fully online at a state school, they didn't require a GMAT score, and they threw a $10k scholarship to boot.

Schools are hungry for students and sweet, sweet FAFSA dollars. Don't make assumptions as they will slow you down. Just go at it and don't stop until someone accepts you. If you can get your work to pay for all or some of tuition, so much the better.

How do you do an entire MBA online? Such a huge part of an MBA is the networking and the shared experiences you get from the other people in the program. I could see having a few classes available online (and I wish my program did that), but doesn't doing the whole thing online pretty much defeat the purpose of the degree?

YankeeAirPirate
Jun 3, 2006

"Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work."
Edit

YankeeAirPirate fucked around with this message at 18:52 on Aug 16, 2011

Thoguh
Nov 8, 2002

College Slice
Online works great for lots of programs, but not all. Law School, for example, would never work as an online offering. An MBA isn't that extreme, but if you are doing it entirely online you are missing out on a huge amount of the personal and proffesional growth you'd normally get from an MBA.

HeroOfTheRevolution
Apr 26, 2008

YankeeAirPirate posted:

Honestly not trying to sound defensive (I don't have an MBA), but isn't your opinion quite a bit behind the times? We live in an era where more and more strenuous and respectable schools are offering a variety of Master's degrees online (George Washington offers a PHd primarily online, I think, and they're not shitbags). Does a person who doesn't participate in class or 'network' at a brick and mortar school not deserve their degree? Is the academic work so trivial that the degree is worthless without the schmoozing? Again, seriously not trying to attack you, but out of curiosity from an outsider's perspective your opinion seems outdated/elitist/weird, I dunno what.

There's nothing elitist or outdated about it. The MBA is not an academic degree and should not be compared to PhDs; one of the primary benefits of the degree is for the networking opportunities with your classmates. I don't know why you think networking is some sort of elitist or old-fashioned thing - business is driven by human interaction so until companies can be run by robots it's not only important but essential. It's also extremely useful for your career development.

Unless you are required to have an MBA to be promoted from your current position, an online degree misses the point. And if that's the case, your employer will likely pay for you to get an MBA at a brick-and-mortar program anyways.

Mandalay
Mar 16, 2007

WoW Forums Refugee

Jer posted:

After graduating high school, I worked my way up in the real estate field from an office assistant to agent to commercial leasing agent before starting my own commercial land development company. It was successful... before the crash, of course :)

It seems like a big portion of Haas student become finance analysts after graduation, and I'm not interested in going into finance or investment banking at all. I have great people skills and I'm more interested in business development/strategy and general management (possibly consulting).

What's the best path for me? Should I graduate and spend a few years back in the workforce, or should I kill the GMAT and go straight for my MBA? If I went that route, would I be able to get into a top business school (or would the competition be too stiff for someone with my background)?

Jer posted:

Thanks a lot for the reply. After reading every single post in this thread, I think I'm actually leaning toward going back to work for a couple of years after graduation. The way I see it is this:

Scenario 1: I graduate from Cal and try to get my MBA. I'll probably get into a fairly good school, go into significant debt to go through two years of post-grad work, then get let loose into the job market with no work experience in the past 4 years outside of internships. I'm 30 years old.

Scenario 2: I graduate from Cal and get a job with an amazing company like Bain & Company or Deloitte. I work for two years. I ask my employer for tuition assistance, which cuts down on my debt big time. My work experience at (insert amazing company here) combined with my life story makes me an awesome MBA candidate and I get into wherever I want. I graduate and come back to my original employer for a 120k+ job. I'm 32 years old.

Career prospects for Haas grads are pretty drat good, and I'm confident that I can find a decent position after I graduate in 2013. Scenario 2 looks pretty good to me...

Check out the Undergraduate Real Estate Club on campus. I co-founded it like 8 years ago, hope it's still going strong. We had some pretty sweet connections for a brand new club as well as a mentoring program with the MBA RE club BREC. The Fisher Center also has an annual RE conference in the city which is kind of interesting.

As you know, option 2 is definitely the superior choice. I don't think you're going to learn much at all in MBA classes after doing your Haas undergrad (gently caress, the MBA courses might even be easier) and studying for the GMAT is just going to cut into time you could be doing case comps, Berkeley Consulting, or drinking.

PS: Consider taking IEOR 190A from Burgstone. It was my favorite business class--we did HBS case studies pretty much every day--and it's taught by a HBS MBA who successfully profited off the dotcom bubble and is now a VC.

YankeeAirPirate
Jun 3, 2006

"Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work."
Edit

YankeeAirPirate fucked around with this message at 18:53 on Aug 16, 2011

HeroOfTheRevolution
Apr 26, 2008

I don't know enough to say one way or the other, but considering how much professional advancement comes about as a result of networking, I'd venture a guess that they might not have the same opportunities that they would have if they had attended physical classes in the same program and gotten to know their classmates and teachers.

Obviously I can't say whether this will make a significant difference in their careers, but it's not going to help. I also don't see where interacting with other people, especially your peers, is ever a bad thing.

edit: Oh, I missed your edit that made you come off like more of a misanthropic goon who has a bizarre preconception of the type of people you meet in higher education.

HeroOfTheRevolution fucked around with this message at 19:18 on Jun 23, 2011

shrike82
Jun 11, 2005

YankeeAirPirate posted:

All your points are well taken. Do you believe that my friends who recently graduated with online MBAs from the relatively prestigious local state university will be at a noticeable disadvantage when stacked against their peers? How about in 5 years time? My thought is that networking at school is A) not something everyone does B) not something every program encourages well. That's not to say that folks who decide to work that angle don't gain a lot, but there are plenty of folks who I guarantee do not. I think it's specious and dangerous to the perceived value of your degree if you claim that value lies primarily in hanging out with a bunch of peers (who are, depending on your school, mostly retards anyway). Totally open to more discussion.

Err, an MBA is 90% networking and 10% coursework. The curriculum at a place like HBS or GSB isn't that much better than a mid-tier B-school but they present a lot more career opportunities.

I honestly think an online MBA is a waste of money. What do you get out of it?

Thoguh
Nov 8, 2002

College Slice

YankeeAirPirate posted:

My thought is that networking at school is A) not something everyone does B) not something every program encourages well.

Please go back and read through this thread, and any other MBA related resource until you are capable of telling the difference between an academic/research based degree and a proffesional degree.

YankeeAirPirate
Jun 3, 2006

"Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work."
Edit

YankeeAirPirate fucked around with this message at 18:55 on Aug 16, 2011

shrike82
Jun 11, 2005

YankeeAirPirate posted:

As someone not in the field of business, how often do you use your connections with classmates outside your field? I could see it being quite a bit, or not. What's your experience. Regarding your comment that higher degree in a professional pursuit will not help them without the networking piece- again, I think it's a symptom of different worlds. Most folks I know mostly use their Master's degrees as a foot in the door to show that they can devote the appropriate time/energy/focus/thought to a subject for a sustained period of time, then use the work ethic and thinking skills they hopefully honed while studying, then finally and tertiarilly use actually content from the courses. Networking is important in any field at any time, granted, but I'm also still missing the particular advantage of networking at school (as opposed to in the workplace, as these two did while pursuing their online degree).

As for my shameful and misanthropic nature, let me clarify so I don't hurt your feelings more: Networking is important. However, the people you meet at school are not likely to be particularly special. In fact, unless you are at a university with standards of admission that modify the base population, 90% of them are probably not in the top 10%, if you get my drift. This is all compounded by the fact that while they have different perspectives, backgrounds, and will go to different places, they are all inexperienced students whose potential and final destination is hard to determine. I'm sorry that I was not more specific and hope you can overcome your disgust at my truly unforgivable characterization that your contacts are not all special snowflakes.

Is this some kind of ironic goon posting?

The vast majority of coursework-based graduate degrees (whether online or not) are poo poo and give you no real advantage over someone who's had a proper undergraduate degree in that major.

I know for STEM graduates degrees, you really want to go down the research path (PHD preferably) and a class-focused MSc usually results in lab-tech/code monkey work.

For MBAs, it's usually for people who've had some work experience and want to either switch careers or jump to management. Networking is vital to this.

I'd also like to say that 100% of online graduate degrees are poo poo. No reasonable employer is going to pay you postgraduate pay for an online diploma.

Thoguh
Nov 8, 2002

College Slice

YankeeAirPirate posted:

However, the people you meet at school are not likely to be particularly special.

This is exactly 100% of the reason people stress out about getting into elite schools. The better the school, the better the networking, both among your classmates and alumni.


shrike82 posted:

I know for STEM graduates degrees, you really want to go down the research path (PHD preferably) and a class-focused MSc usually results in lab-tech/code monkey work.
...
I'd also like to say that 100% of online graduate degrees are poo poo. No reasonable employer is going to pay you postgraduate pay for an online diploma.

Now you're going overboard on the other end. Online degrees actually work great for STEM type classes (labs excepted). There are a large number of highly ranked universities offering online options in STEM areas. YankeeAirPirate is just failing to grasp the difference between those degrees and an MBA. Every single large engineering contractor in the country will not only pay for their employees to get online based STEM graduate degrees, they will encourage them to do so.

Online degrees aren't inherently bad as long as they are from a respected school. They just don't work for the purpose of an MBA.

Thoguh fucked around with this message at 19:48 on Jun 23, 2011

YankeeAirPirate
Jun 3, 2006

"Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work."
Edit

YankeeAirPirate fucked around with this message at 18:56 on Aug 16, 2011

shrike82
Jun 11, 2005

YankeeAirPirate posted:

I don't really disagree with any of this. A lot of my point boils down to the last sentence, though- there's no way to tell the difference between an online and a "real" degree from the many business schools that offer completely online MBAs. It's the same degree on the same diploma, etc etc. I'm not saying you're wrong, I just feel like either the difference is not as great as you guys seem to imagine, or there's a sea change coming in the way things work.

Any school that offers a fully-online MBA is poo poo e.g. Kaplan University & University of Phoenix.

Thoguh
Nov 8, 2002

College Slice

YankeeAirPirate posted:

I don't really disagree with any of this. A lot of my point boils down to the last sentence, though- there's no way to tell the difference between an online and a "real" degree from the many business schools that offer completely online MBAs. It's the same degree on the same diploma, etc etc. I'm not saying you're wrong, I just feel like either the difference is not as great as you guys seem to imagine, or there's a sea change coming in the way things work.

When any ranked, or even locally respected, Business school starts offering a fully online degree then you might have a point. But that isn't happening and I don't see that happening any time in the forseeable future.

YankeeAirPirate
Jun 3, 2006

"Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work."
edit

YankeeAirPirate fucked around with this message at 00:23 on May 9, 2013

HeroOfTheRevolution
Apr 26, 2008

The only legitimate MBA programs that one can do fully online are specifically designed as supplemental degrees for people working in other professions like healthcare. In this case, the MBA is generally a formality to get to a top position like CEO of a hospital so it's not particularly important to network, and it being online makes it more attractive to people like doctors who keep weird hours and can't attend a brick and mortar school. Nor are the classes particularly important either so long as you get the degree.

This does not apply to about 98% of people looking to get an MBA.

YankeeAirPirate
Jun 3, 2006

"Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work."
Edit

YankeeAirPirate fucked around with this message at 18:56 on Aug 16, 2011

HeroOfTheRevolution
Apr 26, 2008

The Penn State website does not mention an online option for any of its MBA programs besides a Masters in Supply Chain Management, and Oklahoma State's online MBA is a professional MBA that specifically mentions healthcare professionals.

You are correct in that Northeastern and Colorado State appear to have general online MBAs, however. But you're still not getting the same utility out of an online MBA as you are a classroom education. If you just want the degree, then yeah they're fine for that though.

YankeeAirPirate
Jun 3, 2006

"Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work."
e

YankeeAirPirate fucked around with this message at 03:48 on Nov 7, 2013

Thoguh
Nov 8, 2002

College Slice
Have you read any of this thread other than the current page?

Jer
May 23, 2003

nba balla/entrapenour

Mandalay posted:

Check out the Undergraduate Real Estate Club on campus. I co-founded it like 8 years ago, hope it's still going strong. We had some pretty sweet connections for a brand new club as well as a mentoring program with the MBA RE club BREC. The Fisher Center also has an annual RE conference in the city which is kind of interesting.

As you know, option 2 is definitely the superior choice. I don't think you're going to learn much at all in MBA classes after doing your Haas undergrad (gently caress, the MBA courses might even be easier) and studying for the GMAT is just going to cut into time you could be doing case comps, Berkeley Consulting, or drinking.

PS: Consider taking IEOR 190A from Burgstone. It was my favorite business class--we did HBS case studies pretty much every day--and it's taught by a HBS MBA who successfully profited off the dotcom bubble and is now a VC.
Thanks :) I remember your post earlier in the thread and was definitely going to look into the UREC. What did you do after graduation, if you don't mind me asking?

Small White Dragon
Nov 23, 2007

No relation.

shrike82 posted:

Err, an MBA is 90% networking and 10% coursework. The curriculum at a place like HBS or GSB isn't that much better than a mid-tier B-school but they present a lot more career opportunities.

I honestly think an online MBA is a waste of money. What do you get out of it?
Not everyone wants an MBA for the same reason.

Some people are looking to switch careers, while others may already be involved in a startup or a candidate for a management position in a company. While networking can always be advantageous, it's going to be far more valuable in the former case than in the latter.

YankeeAirPirate
Jun 3, 2006

"Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work."
edit

YankeeAirPirate fucked around with this message at 00:22 on May 9, 2013

shrike82
Jun 11, 2005

I'm surprised the idea that the nature of an MBA being antithetical to it being taught purely online is controversial.

Networking :- At top-10 schools, you'll be classmates with future global business leaders and presented the opportunity to hobnob with existing top business leaders. Even at non-target schools, you're likely to be studying with existing/future local business leaders. I don't understand how you can discount this factor. It's not just an opportunity for that 1st job after the MBA but a contact list for future career changes or networking for business leads. I've seen MBA graduates at all my companies leverage their alma mater connections to do high level recruiting or when searching to fill business needs.

Soft-touch factor :- The curriculum is very high-touch. No one really gives a poo poo about you passing paper exams. It's about group presentations, discussions, public speaking. Courses focus on stuff like leadership, conflict resolution, and management. How the gently caress do you teach that through online coursework.

There's literally no justification to do an online MBA. If you're really that strapped for time, do a part-time EMBA. The only reason I can think of is a rubber stamp to get past company requirements to be promoted but you're doing yourself a serious disservice.

Carfax Report
May 17, 2003

Ravage the land as never before, total destruction from mountain to shore!

Alright, I'll bite.

I attended the full-time MBA program at Columbia Business School. Our class of 700 people was divided into clusters of 60-70 people, who you take your classes with your first year. In the first year you spend much of your free time with them- you play sports with them, do events like put on skits with them, and also work in teams for all your homework. To encourage you to meet people outside your cluster, we have weekly happy hours sponsored by the school with free drinks, dinner and music, and dozens of "interest" clubs where you get to know your classmates in different fields, as well as alumni.

In my cluster alone we had the son of the CEO of Cadbury Schweppes, the daughter of a famous political pundit, an Israeli rockstar, a NYT bestselling author, etc. They are my friends now.

I got my current job after running a study tour to Japan for forty of my fellow students, where I met our head of HR at an alumni networking event. One of my classmates is now a portfolio manager at a fund which owns our stock and we are in regular contact. Another classmate who I didn't know well my first year but we had pho after a party and became friends is now an analyst at a company in my industry; we ran into each other at a hotel during an event recently. His boss and my colleagues all know each other- it was a good hook up. I also have classmates in my industry and if I need to reach out to their firm, I go through them to get to the person I need to meet.

This company is one of the world's biggest game publishers- not a small company. I used to report to one of our executives. After nine months on the job, I now report to the CEO as corporate business development manager. He was impressed with how many people I knew. If he wanted a meeting at Google, I knew who to get to. Facebook? Same deal. That's how the job works.

This is a small sample of ways that it's helped me personally. Of the hundreds of friends I met at business school, I keep in touch with a good deal through Facebook and other means. Many are steadily growing in their careers and will be amazing resources in the future. Several are now lifelong friends, and whenever I fly to LA, SF, Paris, London, NY and other cities due to my job, I always spend my free time hanging out and catching up. They're spread out all over the world.

Furthermore, this is just my classmates. Then there's the massive alumni network, many of whom are eager to help and reach out. Sometimes I email them out of the blue, sometimes I met them at events. The CEO of Wendys Japan, an alum, took me out to lunch a few days ago and explained his upcoming business launch strategy to me. While eating with him at the Tokyo American club, I ran into a guy from McKinsey who covers my industry, and who I had just met the night before as part of a possible hiring. He's the boss of one of best buddies from b-school, knew the CEO I was meeting with, was impressed by the wide range of people I was friends with. In business, it's always about who you know.

That is all thanks to the b-school. And I haven't even brought up the amazing personal stuff that's happened thanks to the people I met. One of my buddies from our follies circle, the CEO of a major mining company in India, flew me and a few others to Dubai last year.

I understand that there are some MBAs where you need to get a piece of paper to get a promotion. If you're satisfied with that, cool. But as you go up the executive chain, you find that no one cares about the MBA as a degree. And most don't really care about what you learned in classes unless, for example, you are changing careers into an investment bank and you need the financial skills (though CBS teaches those quite well.) They care about how your skills and network will help their company grow.

Carfax Report fucked around with this message at 08:51 on Jun 24, 2011

melon cat
Jan 21, 2010

Nap Ghost
Anybody familiar with how Canadian MBA grad employment success (defined in terms of full-time meaningful employment) stack up vs U.S. grad employment success? I live in Canada and I've been exploring Canadian MBNA programs at Richard Ivey and Rotman, but I haven't really had to chance to hear from anyone about their experiences, there.

melon cat fucked around with this message at 02:54 on Jun 24, 2011

TheChimney
Jan 31, 2005

Carfax Report posted:

Alright, I'll bite.

I attended the full-time MBA program at Columbia Business School.

Can you tell us what your application looked like? Work experience, GMAT, etc.?

Carfax Report
May 17, 2003

Ravage the land as never before, total destruction from mountain to shore!

TheChimney posted:

Can you tell us what your application looked like? Work experience, GMAT, etc.?

I had a strong application.

Attended Fairfield University in CT as a triple major/double minor (History, Politics, Philosophy/Asian and Judaic studies) with a 3.6 GPA, followed that with a Masters in Japanese History from Columbia University, followed that with a stint as Japanese government research fellow, then spent several years working in Tokyo and New York at a small consulting firm that does Japanese business development for US firms. Also founded a tiny company in college that sold books and did tours in Japan.

GMAT was 740. I had recommendations from Columbia alums, professors, and one of the trustees of the university who wrote directly to the dean on my behalf.

Columbia wants to know that you're the right fit for the school. The GPA and GMAT don't help; it just doesn't get you rejected. They like the fact that I went to Columbia beforehand, had contacts at the university, and my significant international experience as well as fluent Japanese meant I fit with their interest in having an internationally oriented student body. Founding a company and being a Japanese gov't fellow gave me that uniqueness that their admissions department loves. Recommendations sealed the deal.

Columbia is also the only school with an active Japanese Business and Economy Center; Stern has one, but it doesn't do much. So I was a particularly good fit for the school and they knew I would pick them over HBS and Wharton. (Technically I had to, as that was my agreement with the trustee.) I received an international business fellowship from CBS as well, though it only covered a fraction of the huge cost of attending school in NYC.

I want to point out, though, that I had no special family background in achieving the above. My parents were both Iraqi-Jewish immigrants with only pennies to their names when they moved to the USA, and I attended a Jesuit university for undergrad because it was a short drive from my house. I took out $200k worth of loans to attend school even with the fellowship.

Mandalay
Mar 16, 2007

WoW Forums Refugee

shrike82 posted:

There's literally no justification to do an online MBA. If you're really that strapped for time, do a part-time EMBA. The only reason I can think of is a rubber stamp to get past company requirements to be promoted but you're doing yourself a serious disservice.

The MBA from Western Governors University is pretty drat cheap. A family friend is a physician who's picking up an online healthcare MBA for less than $10k.

e: Carfax Report, your story is amazing.

Suave Fedora
Jun 10, 2004

Thoguh posted:

How do you do an entire MBA online? Such a huge part of an MBA is the networking and the shared experiences you get from the other people in the program. I could see having a few classes available online (and I wish my program did that), but doesn't doing the whole thing online pretty much defeat the purpose of the degree?

Through group assignments. I found myself a new friend throughout the course of the program that just got a job offer post-graduation at an investment bank. He understands M&A and forex better than I so we agreed he'd help me with that after the program. That satisfied me from a networking perspective. I also joined the Facebook group for our class of MBA students, so another opportunity there should I need one. Each semester we're assigned different groups so I have saved their contact info for the future. We collaborated on projects over the phone and over Skype.

The purpose of the degree is to learn something new and apply it in one's professional life.

Suave Fedora
Jun 10, 2004

shrike82 posted:

For MBAs, it's usually for people who've had some work experience and want to either switch careers or jump to management. Networking is vital to this.

I'd also like to say that 100% of online graduate degrees are poo poo. No reasonable employer is going to pay you postgraduate pay for an online diploma.

I've been working full time for over a decade in IT. My goal with the MBA was to learn about other areas of business that interested me and then position myself to other career options when I graduated. These areas are Mergers & Acquisitions and Corporate Finance. The company I work for is a F500 and is active in both these areas.

My 100% online MBA is through Florida International U., same accredited state school I got by BBA from. I chose the online program because I have two kids under 2 years, one was born while I was in school. The program being 100% online was something I could not negotiate down.

Networking within the program is not going to be as influential on my success as much as 1) learning and 2) networking outside the program is going to be. I've already started meeting with the movers within the company to get a better handle on those areas I mentioned and none of them were students in my classes.

I suspect your blanket statement about online degrees was more in reference to the diploma mills you see advertised on TV late at night. There is a difference between those and what the brick n mortars offer online.

aaannd Carfax's story was pretty cool.

Suave Fedora fucked around with this message at 18:40 on Jun 24, 2011

Newbsylberry
Dec 29, 2007

I Swim in drag shorts because I have a SMALL PENIS
I am looking to go back to school and get my MBA with the intent of a career change. I may wait another year to bolster my resume more, but regardless I would probably end up at a top 25-100 school at best because of a low undergrad GPA. My question is whether getting an MBA from a less prestigious school is a waste of time for a career change? I'm not looking to go to wall street, just find a job that is stable and has room for upward movement.

I'm guessing there is a point where the degrees from the schools one would be accepted to aren't worth the money being spent. I'm wondering where that is.

Newbsylberry fucked around with this message at 01:49 on Jul 6, 2011

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CaptainEO
Sep 24, 2007

Found Something Great Here
I think it would help to flesh out your career plans in more detail. "Stable and has room for upward movement" covers a lot of jobs, many of which don't require spending as much as the MBA (accounting? financial planning? pharmacology?). If you come out of business school without a more detailed plan, you'll probably gravitate towards consulting, operations, or general management - areas where hiring can be very competitive (especially consulting).

I would first come up with some more detailed career ideas, and only then evaluate whether an MBA makes sense. For instance, if you are interested in general management, look at what kinds of employers are hiring for those jobs in the area you live, and find out whether there are any MBA programs that have networks or recruiting channels for them.

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