“I Want My, I Want My, I Want My MBA”

By Dr. Laura Palmer Noone
CEO of University of the Potomac

Ok, that isn’t really how the song goes, but it has been a long time since I wanted my MTV. But this time of year, I do hear a lot of recent college graduates talking about graduate school as an option (especially if the job search hasn’t been going so well) and the MBA is always a popular option. While Potomac does not yet offer the MBA (we hope to in the near future), I thought I would share some thoughts.

I was a business major in undergraduate school and went on to law school and my MBA. Lesson number one – not all business programs are alike – some are very quantitatively driven, while others are a bit more shall I say, ‘holistic.’  Between my undergraduate program and my MBA, I experienced both.  If you are phobic about numbers, calculations and formulas, etc, look for the latter type of program.  There will always be numbers in MBA programs, but the really super quantitative programs won’t let you work with the formula until you know how to derive it from calculus.  (I feel about this somewhat the way I feel about Einstein’s theory of relativity: I am good with his numbers. I don’t need to re-work it. Or better yet – I don’t know have to know how to make a watch in order to tell time!)

One thing is for sure – if you have a business major as an undergrad, you don’t have to generally take as many courses.  Yet plenty of other majors go on to get MBA degrees because it is what we in education call a generalist degree.  That means even if you were a poetry major, you can get an MBA.  As mentioned above, it might just take a few extra courses – namely:

1. Accounting
2. Finance
3. Economics
4. Statistics

If you can get those courses before going into the MBA program you can save yourself some time and probably some money because graduate tuition is almost always higher than undergraduate tuition.   Once you have these courses under your belt, you will be prepared to take the advanced versions of these courses in the MBA curriculum.  A word of caution – make sure you check with the institution that will need to accept these credits that you are getting the right courses at the right level that will transfer and if possible – get it in writing.

The other thing you can do to prepare for entry into an MBA program is to take a Graduate Management Admissions Test (GMAT).  Many colleges require such a test and even if the program you are applying to doesn’t require it, the test will something you can provide to the school in support of your application.  It will also give you an assessment of your relative strengths and weaknesses in relation to the rest of the MBA seeking population.