Capella University MBA Thoughts Please?

[onlinestudent101]

I am very close to earning my Bachelor's degree in Business Administration so I am thinking about pursuing a Masters of Business Administration (MBA) degree afterwards. I am aware Capella University is for-profit but I am also aware it is regionally accredited. I am interested in the FlexPath program because it seems as though it can save me a lot of money. I was thinking of taking 6 or more courses per quarter- I am not sure though if this is allowed but I will call Capella and ask. Whenever I finish a course, I will immediately start a new course. It is about $2,200 per quarter. From my understanding, each quarter is 3 months long.

The courses are self-paced. I have enough money saved up and do not plan to work so I am confident about dedicating enough time towards doing the course work.

Does anyone who has taken online graduate business courses at Capella have any advice or experiences they would like to share? I would greatly appreciate it. I have a high grade point average and have never failed or withdrawn from courses. Thank you so much for your input. I have a lot of confidence but at the same time, I am skeptical about Capella to some extent.

[sanantone]

Western Governors University (non-profit) and Patten University (for-profit with less name recognition, which is a good thing in this case) are self-paced and cheaper.

[Yanji]

I wouldn't recommend doing an online MBA full-time at all. Before even speculating on the possibility of doing 6 courses per quarter, online MBAs are almost universally intended to be completed part-time, and as a professional degree, its purpose is to increase the professional value of its students. If there was evidence that completing an online MBA full-time reliably increased students' professional values, you would see more business schools promoting this as a viable route for students, but they don't for a reason. The business community is quite accepting of online MBAs, but consensus is that if you do one full-time, you put your butt in a seat. You should consider a local 1-year full-time program if one exists or working while you do your MBA online. People respect someone who gave up their evenings and weekends for 2-3 years to improve themselves, and that is one thing that an online MBA can give you that a full-time MBA cannot... you should take advantage of that. You could also consider programs like MS Information Systems, MS Finance, etc. that are generally more appropriate to finish online in a year and would give you specialized knowledge that an MBA couldn't.

Any degree is a life-changing decision, so you should take the path that leads to the best outcome.