My Grad School Thoughts - Masters/PHD

[Doodlebabe]

@bjcheung77 just wanted to clarify since your OP had a few parenthetical sidenotes: Hodges and Patten will accept any bachelor's degree for their MBA programs, correct? I know one of them requires microeconomics to be done during undergrad but beyond that have found nothing. Can't call them until Monday. I ask because BALS will be much quicker and cheaper for me and my husband than BSBAs will be but it was mentioned on my thread that most MBA programs won't take students who didn't major in BA.

[davewill]

... I ask because BALS will be much quicker and cheaper for me and my husband than BSBAs will be but it was mentioned on my thread that most MBA programs won't take students who didn't major in BA.

Well if they did, they are wrong. It's very common for MBA students to have quite a bit of business experience, and to have other degrees than BA. As I said, you might have to take some extra courses (accounting, for example) that business undergrads would have already taken, but it's certainly no roadblock. MBA programs are money makers for schools, and they aren't usually too exclusive.

[bjcheung77]

Doodlebabe, don't let prerequisites scare you. Most MBA programs require X courses for business preparation, there are many that don't require any prerequisites and if there are, a couple up to 3 or 4 courses are required. My suggestion is to "find the Masters" degree program of choice, and see what prerequisites there are, while you're taking the BALS, take those required courses.

The BALS is so flexible, it has 17-20 credits for general education (take any arts/science course you need), and 27 free electives that can be anything (take all business courses here), there are up to 47 credits of your choice to prepare you for the MBA. You don't have to have a BSBA to get into an MBA, but you still need to have X courses to full their requirements, each school is different.

Excelsior: None, no GRE/GMAT required (but expensive)
Hodges: None, no GRE/GMAT required
Patten: No GRE/GMAT, requires Microeconomics, College Algebra
TESU: No GRE/GMAT, (but expensive), requires Financial Accounting, Statistics, and Microeconomics
WGU: No GRE/GMAT, Bachelors + 3 years experience

Heriot-Watt (UK) - None (no bachelors required, 10 exams, roughly $10,000 total)
New Charter (Nationally Accredited) - Same as Patten (Microeconomics, College Algebra)
Taft (Nationally Accredited) - None, pretty inexpensive
UofPeople (Nationally Accredited) - None, pretty inexpensive
TLDR - Find whatever school you're looking for and their requirements, complete them en route to BALS

[dfrecore]

@bjcheung77 just wanted to clarify since your OP had a few parenthetical sidenotes: Hodges and Patten will accept any bachelor's degree for their MBA programs, correct? I know one of them requires microeconomics to be done during undergrad but beyond that have found nothing. Can't call them until Monday. I ask because BALS will be much quicker and cheaper for me and my husband than BSBAs will be but it was mentioned on my thread that most MBA programs won't take students who didn't major in BA.

Most MBA programs do NOT require a BSBA!  Almost any of them will take non-business majors, for sure, even the most exclusive of the bunch.  I actually don't know of any MBA programs that will NOT take a non-business bachelor's holder - although many of them will require business experience (even if you do hold a BSBA).

Many will also require that you have some prerequisites before going into the program, and I'm guessing it's because they've found that students who don't have these courses struggle more than average.  ENMU for example, requires core courses - but will let you test out of them for free.  WGU doesn't require anything.  Harvard says this about their MBA program: "There is no particular previous course of study required to apply; you must, however, demonstrate the ability to master analytical and quantitative concepts."

[yb1]

I wish we had forum members who started Hodges MPA and or MIS and could shed some light on their experienes. Not much info on either one of the tracks.

[bjcheung77]

YB1, I agree. There are many schools out there without reviews. Check out this thread for other Masters programs if you wanted to see which one are competency based. http://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/showthre...?tid=27775

[bjcheung77]

So, last night I revisited this Kaplan thread: https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/showthr...?tid=26902
It stirred the thought of going to Kaplan University for my MBA (no concentration) vs going to Purdue's own online MBA. Purdue's a big name, public university, but it's lacking in online offerings! I only see a few Masters that can be completed online. For undergrad, they practically have nothing but an associates, they do have grad certs/pro development courses as well though.

I did a little digging and came up with this. I wonder if I should go for the program as it hits all the checkmarks! Cheap/Easy/Fast - Better as well, since it has ACBSP programmatic accreditation for ~$3500 to ~$5 grand, see below. The program reminds me of "ALEKS" as it's mainly based on assessments - readiness assessment, prepare/practice/study, final assessment. I want to start the program when they change their name first quarter of 2018 and after everything pans out properly & settled.

*sigh* It maybe better to start now and finish just right after they get everything done in first quarter, so I graduate with the "NewU" name. Details: View Kaplan website https://www.kaplanuniversity.edu/ and click link below "Why Kaplan U?" (Exciting News). If you want to read more, well - click the read more button on that page! duh! Kaplan Degree Links: https://www.kaplanuniversity.edu/student...-learning/

MBA Degree Basics: $1,550/6 week term - all you can take courses (assessments) MBA Degree Requires: 60 quarter credits (40 credits)
Two traditional courses worth 8 credits, 52 modules worth 1 credit each after you get to a "B" grade level on the assessments.
To keep the $ down, I can do this: Up to 75% Credit granted for Assessments, Life/Work Experience, etc at a cost of $1,500 PLA.
OR, if it's like ALEKS, I can go through those assessments ASAP and get everything done in TWO terms for the same price as PLA.

[Ideas]

Details: View Kaplan website https://www.kaplanuniversity.edu/ and click link below "Why Kaplan U?" (Exciting News).  If you want to read more, well - click the read more button on that page! duh!  Kaplan Degree Links: https://www.kaplanuniversity.edu/student...-learning/

So you have to take 2 traditional courses worth 8 credits? It seems hard to get this done in 3 terms since it's 40 credits. So many degrees are 32-36.

We don't know what the new name is?

[eriehiker]

http://www.sunjournal.com/decision-on-pu...-february/

[jsd]

NewU is a terrible name.