Distance Education

[furls]

I have been shopping MBA programs and given my current employment status a full time program was not really an option. I was forced to look at either a local (New England) Executive MBA program or a distance program. I was surprised at some of the schools that offer distance programs; Duke, UNC, Indiana, Florida, Penn St. are some off the top of my head. All those programs are listed as top 30 Business schools.

Here are my questions:

If you are a hiring director or VP and you get a resume and it has an advanced degree accomplished by distance learning, do you treat it the same as someone who attended the in resident program? The degrees say the same thing.

How credible do you think the programs are? I would assume Fuqua (Duke) would be very credible as it is a top 10 school, but what about places like University of Phoenix?

Would you consider a CSU MBA completed in resident as being superior to a Phoenix MBA?

There was a lot of talk about the degree mills a couple of years ago, I can tell you that if I were a hiring manager I would be very skeptical of any degree from a school I had never heard of (and some that I have).

FWIW, I have decided on a local Executive MBA program (assuming I gain admission).

[danwismar]

Not a VP or hiring manager, but an search consultant who identifies, screens and refers candidates to them, and knows what they want and like. Not an expert on distance MBA programs either, but can attempt an answer to your questions.

If you are a hiring director or VP and you get a resume and it has an advanced degree accomplished by distance learning, do you treat it the same as someone who attended the in resident program?

No. Just no.

How credible do you think the programs are? I would assume Fuqua (Duke) would be very credible as it is a top 10 school, but what about places like University of Phoenix?

Phoenix is gradually gaining some acceptability, but its degrees are still looked at with a lot of skepticism by hiring authorities. Fair to say the better the rep of the resident MBA program, like Duke, the more credible the distance program will be.

Would you consider a CSU MBA completed in resident as being superior to a Phoenix MBA?

Yes.

There was a lot of talk about the degree mills a couple of years ago, I can tell you that if I were a hiring manager I would be very skeptical of any degree from a school I had never heard of (and some that I have).

They are in general, but the person reviewing the resumes doesn't always catch it. After 30 years of doing this there aren't many schools I haven't heard of, and I check them out before referring to a client. If it's a degree mill, the resume gets deleted and never gets close to my client. But that's a different category from, say, Phoenix.

[peeker643]

Not a VP or hiring manager, but an search consultant who identifies, screens and refers candidates to them, and knows what they want and like.

What kind of search consultant Dan?

Are you solely executive search or do you work all different levels?

[danwismar]

Not so much "executive" (C-level) as "professional"...that is, staff level up through Director/VP level. Focused mostly on engineering-technical-manufacturing areas, though over the years I've worked in sales, IT, finance too.