What’s Out There?

March 2006 Speical Advertising Section

Full-time, part-time, or online, graduate schools today offer a baffling array of scheduling options and program styles to fit virtually any MBA student’s situation. Here’s a crib sheet to what’s available locally.

Full-time MBA
Full-time programs are structured like undergraduate programs: You may not be in class all day every day, but you’re working on coursework every spare moment. (Expect to do four hours of work outside of class for every hour spent in class.) Most full-time students quit their jobs or find childcare to tackle this much work, which usually takes about twenty-one months to complete. Students tend to be younger, recently graduated from college or with a few years of work experience under their belt.

Part-time MBA
Part-time or evening programs are great for folks with daytime commitments or for those who can’t give up their salaried position. Classes are typically held in the evenings a couple of nights a week or on weekends, and the program can take anywhere from three to five years to complete depending on how many credits a student takes per term. Students in part-time programs can be from a variety of backgrounds, are a range of ages, and enter school with various work experience.

Executive MBA
An Executive MBA program is for professionals who have some degree of responsibility at their job, and are targeted for rapid advancement within their organization. These folks tend to have about eight years of experience and are in their forties. The program, which typically operates one or two full weekends a month year-round, can take anywhere from eighteen to thirty months to complete.

Accelerated MBA
College of Business at the University of St. Thomas. “You miss that in an accelerated MBA program.”

Online MBA
Another rarity, online-only programs offer self-starting students total flexibility in how quickly they earn their degree. These programs require excellent discipline but lack the intensive interaction found in a typical MBA program. Most schools, however, offer their MBA courses in a blended delivery format, which means classes include online components in varying degrees.