Recently, the Wall Street Journal surveyed over two thousand students and alumni of 48 business schools to access the quality of Accelerated MBA (One Year) programs. The respondents were surveyed on a variety of topics such as: program flexibility; career services; usefulness of the training; and whether or not their degree protected them from the recession.
The results were then used to put together a ranking of one year accelerated MBA programs. While the rankings themselves offered few surprises – European schools took the top three spots and Kellogg and Babson rounding out the top five – the students’ responses yielded some interesting insights.
Most respondents said that the determining factor in their decision to pursue an accelerated MBA was, unsurprisingly, the ability to re-enter the workforce more quickly. More importantly, most thought that their degrees prepared them to land higher-paying jobs and adequately prepared them to excel in a global business environment. According to the respondents, recruiters and hiring managers view the accelerated MBA degree no differently than a regular, two-year degree. Many also cited the ability to gain international exposure, although this was not the case for most U.S.-based programs.
So was the Survey a good one?
One could argue that comparing both U.S.-based students and European students was a major flaw in the survey – domestic students actively chose a one-year program versus a comparable two program, while many international students had little choice; a decision to attend a European school automatically meant that they would have to attend a one-year program. A survey of only U.S. based students probably would have yielded a more accurate overview of why students chose an accelerated MBA program and how they felt about their experience.
An even better experiment would have been to compare the experience of students in a one year MBA program versus those at two-year program – at the same school. The results could shed light on some of the more pressing concerns, such as whether some schools focus more of their recruiting efforts on two-year MBA students relative to their one-year counterparts.
