Online MBA Programs May Offer Easier Admissions Path

At the 10 highest ranked business schools with online MBA programs, the average acceptancepacefor 2012 was 64 percent.

 

Mark Green was anxious about getting into the online MBA weapons platformat Marylhurst University.

The 47-year-old Louisiana resident had GMAT scores that were solid, butnotexcellent, and an undergraduate degree that had nothing to do with business.

 

 

But as hard putas he was, he says he would have been outlying(prenominal)more worried had he tried to apply to an in-person, full-time MBA program.

"The perception isfull-timeprogramsargona bit morestringent," says Green, who graduated from Marylhurst in 2012. "I sayit's easier to get into an online program. I think they atomic number 18targeting themselves more to an adult learner."

[Learn more about applying to business school.]

Online programs have a variety of benefits for students like Green. They provide theflexiblenessto work and maintain family commitments during school and give students access to a network of professionally established classmates.

And there's another, rarely mentioned benefit: Theywhitethornbe easier for adult learners to get into.

At the top 10 full-time face-to-face MBA programs ranked by U.S. News, the average acceptance rate for the exceedentering class of 2012 was 19 percent. At the 10 highest ranked business schools with online MBA programs, the average acceptance rate for 2012 was 64 percent.

The archseems to extend beyond the top programs, according to afamily2012 report by the Graduate Management Admission Council, the nonprofitorganization of management schools behind the GMAT.

The 29 online MBA programs that participated in the reexaminewere expected to have a median acceptance rate of 82 percent in 2012, compared with a median 45 percent acceptance rate at the 145 actfull-time, two-year MBA programs in the same year, the report found.

"Typically the full-time programs are a little more selective," says Larry Chasteen, assistant dean and directorof the online MBA program at the University of Texas—Dallas, one of the top 10 programs of its kind. "They implorea higher GMAT because they are only selecting a particularnumber of students."

[Explore how to boost your GMAT score.]

While a full-time, in-person program may only accept 50 or 60 students, online programs apprizeoften enroll hundreds of students at a time, Chasteen says. In somewhatcases, schools enroll as many students as they'd like.

"Full-time, on-site MBA programs a good dealhave limited space capacity and designated faculty," Susan C. Aldridge, senior crackat the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, said via email. "In an online environment, surplussections can be easily added, faculty can be recruited globally, and it's easier to scale the volume increase than in a traditionalisticclassroom-based environment."

Although admissions officials often say their online MBA programs have the same standards as their brick-and-mortar counterparts, they are quick to point out that the programs attract different kinds of candidates with extraordinarystrengths.

In a traditional full-time program, applicants tend to bejr.and recently out of college, says Philip T. Powell, faculty chair of the online MBA program at Indiana University—Bloomington's Kelley School of Business. With those students, factors such as undergraduate scorepoint average and GMAT score tend to be habituatedmore weight, particularly since there is little else to go by, he says.

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Materials taken from US News