Patten MBA Questions

[craigfin]

So as some may have seen I plan to go into Patten's MBA program soon and I have done some research on it. However I was hoping to get some final bits of information from other people who are in or have gone through the program:

1) I heard their are 2 routes in each course, the standard route and the challenge route. Can anyone describe these two different routes to me?

2) How are courses graded, what affect do assignments have on your grade vs exams and projects?

3) Does any of the courses involve forum discussions or group discussions?

4) Any thing else you feel like I should know or advice?

[jsd]

Keep in mind I did undegrad courses there, not the MBA program, so your mileage may vary.

1. There's the "Standard Mode," in which you do written assignments for every other "unit" in the class (and self-graded short answer questions every unit). These are much shorter than the project you do at the end of the course. For undergrad assignments, there was about two per every other unit, each about 2-3 pages. Projects were generally 12-15 pages. I'm sure they're more in depth fro an MBA program, but I haven't heard what they're like. And you have a final exam. For "Challenge Mode," you ONLY have the project and the final exam, no assignments.

2. Standard Mode your grade is based 40% on your project, 40% on your exam, and 20% on your assignments. For Challenge mode, it's based 50% on your exam, and 50% on your project. If you have completed both your exam and your project, you can not go back and do assignments. An evaluator grades written assignments and projects, you grade some of your short answer questions, and exams are computer graded. Final grade is A-F scale, no +s or -s

3. Yes but no, haha... there were forum posts in some of my classes that were supposed to be "peer reviewed" and graded (as a "got it" "ok" or "needs work" scale, the first two giving full credit for some reason)... but the problem is, no one was ever in any of my classes with me. So I was told to go in and grade myself. There were other posts that you're supposed to self grade too, so this wasn't all that strange, I guess. MBA program might have a lot more people, so you could be having actual peers review your work, but at least for undergrad it wasn't anything too difficult.

4. Good luck on your path!