Online MBA Programs

Although earning an MBA brightens one’s prospects, the path to acquiring one is expensive and requires intensive study.  Gaining entry into most MBA programs requires that one take the GMAT and hold a bachelor’s degree.  Once accepted, students must balance their work lives with their school lives, and in the case of online MBAs, students must be self-motivated as well.

No matter what an MBA candidate majored in during his/her undergraduate days, or what prior experience the candidate may have, admission to many advanced degree programs in business requires that one take the Graduate Management Admission Test, or GMAT.  Like one of the other major standardized tests for graduates, the GRE, the GMAT is graded on an 800-point scale.  However, the the Analytical Writing Assessment Section is scored on a scale from 0 to 6, and both the quantitative and verbals sections each on a scale from 0 to 60.  The average GMAT score at the top business school in the country, Standford, is 728 as of 2011, according to the U.S. News and World Report.  However, the average at Duke’s Fuqua School of business, which offers an online option, was 697.

Bloomberg Businessweek recommends that students who are studying for the GMAT begin with a practice test and determine what score they want (which should be comparable to the average score of the MBA program they seek to attend) compared to that they are already getting.  From there, students should practice reading online content for the verbal portion, which assesses reading comprehension, argument analysis, and grammar/usage.  Alina Dizik suggests puzzle-solving techniques and mental exercises, such as chess, can help with the quantitative section, which tests basic-level arithmetic, algebra, and geometry in the form of problem-solving and data-sufficiency tests (during which students must determine whether or not there is enough information to arrive at a mathematical solution).

Admission requirements vary, including an institution’s emphasis on the GMAT.  On the low end of the spectrum, according to Lorenzo Associates, Inc.’s free e-book about online MBAs, the University of Phoenix requires an undergraduate GPA of 2.50 and Capella University a GPA of 2.30, and neither require students to take the GMAT.  More typical are programs like Florida State University’s online MBA program, which requires two recommendations from past professors or employers, GMAT scores, and a resume with detailed work experience information. (Work experience can, in many MBA programs, count as credit or qualify students for certain courses.)  At the upper end of the scale, Syracuse University’s iMBA program requires a bachelor’s degree and five years of full-time experience; however, the GMAT is not required.

After a student has been accepted, courses are a mix of traditional business and finance.  While the electives vary according to a student’s concentration, all MBA students take the a number of very similar core classes.  The following are some examples from the Thunderbird School of Global Management’s Online Global MBA program:

• Business and Managerial Communications: Besides studying oral communication, including public speaking, students learn about how the context of their discourse changes due to audience, culture, subject matter, and other factors.
• Fundamentals of Accounting: Students learn both the practical side of finance (reading spreadsheets and  company budgets) and the strategic side, which involves choosing among the several accounting frameworks and interacting with political organizations, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission.
• Data Analysis: Students engage in the somewhat scientific process of interpreting data well enough to understand the results of their decision-making, which can inform future choices.
• Global Strategy: Students learn about running a an international business in the face of corporate regulations that change from country to country and how markets differ depending on region and culture.

Other core courses from Thunderbird, which are representative of many online MBA programs, can be read about here.