Part-Time MBA Career Services

Question

I'm considering the part-time programs at Maryland, Georgetown and NYU, and unlike many people in part-time MBA programs, I'm doing so to change career paths. It's much more affordable than a full-time program, and I'm prepared to leave my current job to gain internship experience prior to and/or during my final year.

Is there anyone else out there who's gotten a part-time MBA and changed career paths? Has anyone in a part-time program had success landing internships?

I wish it were as simple as calling the career services offices of these schools, but they've been pretty unhelpful thus far, especially Maryland's.

cheetarah1980 · Answer

Check with each school's current students or career services literature. PT students may not be allowed to participate in interview recruiting (meaning you would have to source your own opportunities and prepare on your own). Most schools do have some type of OCR for PT students recruiting for full-time employment. Usually you need to have completed a certain number of credit hours in order to participate. Hope this helps.

packet82 · Answer

You'll have to find a school that will let you take advantage of all the full time benefits. I'm told Chicago does this. You'll obviously have to resign from your current job, but they let you to get an internship through the regular full time process.

Avoid anything like Kellogg that doesn't allow you to do recruiting though.

Avoid anything like Kellogg that doesn't allow you to do recruiting though.

rayricepudding · Answer

Thanks. I'm looking at UMD, Georgetown and NYU. UMD and Georgetown say that PT students have access to the same career services as full-time students, but NYU has a separate part-time career services office and part-time students do not have access to full-time career services.

Does anyone out there have experience with any of these programs?

Does anyone out there have experience with any of these programs?

bb · Answer

Interesting article on Business Week suggesting that Part Time MBA students need more help with their career and job search than potentially even the full time students... mostly because they are stuck in a job and will need to break out of it one way or another (and have much less time to attend recruiting events than full time folks) https://www.businessweek.com/bschools/co ... 650390.htm And here is what it says about Smith in particular:

rayricepudding · Answer

Thanks bb, that article is great. Definitely makes me more confident about getting an MBA, but also sheds light on the uncertainties of part-time MBA programs. That said, The Smith school does have part-time resources available - one career services advisor per campus. The only problem is that there are over 900 students in the part-time program and only three career services people to work with. I've tried getting in touch with the one assigned to my campus of choice this week, with no luck.

I must say, I have been very impressed by the career services at Georgetown when I've spoken with them.

I must say, I have been very impressed by the career services at Georgetown when I've spoken with them.

cheetarah1980 · Answer

Thi is not true. Chicago does not offer on campus internship recruiting for part-time students. Part-time students can participate only in OCR for full-time positions. They must also go through several months of prep workshops prior to being allowed to participate in OCR.

Posted from my mobile device

rayricepudding · Answer

Yes, I had heard that about Chicago. I'm really focused in on UMD, Georgetown and NYU, so I need to figure out what they offer. Every single admissions and career rep at Georgetown says that they offer the full gamut of career services to part-time students. As previously mentioned, I'm having a very tough time getting a hold of anyone at Maryland. I know that NYU has separate career services departments for full and part-time students, so I'm guessing they don't offer much in the way of internships, but I still have to look into this.

Honestly, I'd just really like to know if anyone out there has successfully done this at any of these programs.

Honestly, I'd just really like to know if anyone out there has successfully done this at any of these programs.

CobraKai · Answer

Apologize in advanced for not having experience with the programs, but I would take a hard-look at NYU Stern's Lagone PT program. For starters, the PT students out number the FT students by a lot (~2000 PT vs. 800 FT) Hopefully this means they have great PT resources. Also, the Lagone PT program is much higher regarded that G'Town or UMD - if you're going to invest the time and money, you may as well go top-shelf. You only get to do this once, and you don't want to look back and say, "what if...?"

packet82 · Answer

I don't know, I'm just going off what I heard from Chicago's adcom in 2 different information sessions.

rayricepudding · Answer

Have any of you heard of the QS Global 200 ranking? I recently discovered it and while it's for full-time programs only, it must at least be a decent gauge of global employer respect levels for different programs. While NYU is in the first tier, its employer index is 71, it's over 20 points lower than the top eleven US programs in the rankings (Michigan is number 11 at 94.6, Yale is number 12 at 73.7, and NYU is 13th at 71). For all intents and purposes, there are essentially 11 "top-ten" schools. NYU dropped five spots since last year.

Georgetown falls into the 2nd tier, at number 27 for US schools, with an employer index of 36.7.

Maryland plummeted 24 total spots since last year to number 77 overall, 64 in the US, and has an employer index of 11.9.

With these numbers, and the fact that Maryland has been plummeting in every other ranking, it's pretty scary to consider spending $80,000 there.

packet82 · Answer

I went to NYU for grad school (not at Stern). It's a good school, albeit incredibly bureaucratic. You're not going to get a ton of help from outside your own department. So, make sure Stern has options for career help available to their part time students and make sure you take advantage of it while you're there. To a certain extent, school is what you make of it. A school can have many options for career help, but it won't matter if you don't use them.

See if the adcoms can put you in contact with recent alumni of their part time programs and just pick their brains. It's going to be far more helpful than anything we can tell you here.

As for school rankings, take them with a grain of salt. The people doing these rankings use simple surveys that really only scratch the surface of a school. Also, there's nothing a single school can do in a year that should make it rise or fall significantly. Any ranking that does that is just promoting noise to get press.

rayricepudding · Answer

Thanks for the insight Packet82. I agree, I can't look at rankings as an end-all be-all solution. However, the fact that Maryland has been free-falling in almost every ranking is very disconcerting. There's clearly something going on there. It could be the fact that less than half of all grads of their full-time program last year had jobs lined up at graduation. Considering that I want to change my career path, that's a frightening number.

packet82 · Answer

I'm not saying that there's no truth at all to the falling ranking, just take them all with a grain of salt. The job number would certainly give me pause though.

The Langone program was one I was looking at attending years ago before I moved to the west coast. It's the most respected program on your list and if you're planning on living anywhere near NY, you certainly could do worse. The only thing that really concerned me was the stats spread between their part-time and full time programs. Again, talk to some alumni of the programs and pick their brains. They're going to know best what kind of career services the schools offer. That's one of the reasons I ended up picking Haas. They go out of their way to make sure the full time and part time programs are as identical as possible.

rayricepudding · Answer

I hear you. Obviously, NYU has a great reputation - I just need to do exactly what you're saying and find out more about career services. I do get the impression that Georgetown, while not as highly regarded, does a very good job of treating the part-time students as full-timers, opening up all of the same doors and opportunities.

That said, I'm also applying to Michigan and Duke full-time. My scores are towards the lower end of their middle 80%, but it's worth a shot. Past those two, it's very hard to tell how good an investment a full-time MBA really is these days.

Part-Time MBA Career Services

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