Ask an MBA Admissions Consultant

When taking extra courses to boost an application, are continuing and professional education courses acceptable, or should one just take regular undergrad or grad courses?

That's a very good question.

The real issues here are:

- Does it address your gap (e.g., accounting, finance, stats, calculus, etc.)?

- Is it rigorous enough to actually be useful to you in business school (these should be demanding classes not "adult enrichment" type classes).

- Can you prove that they are rigorous and address your gap?

Continuing education by the CFA Institute would probably go a lot further than a one-day accounting offsite put on by an advertising agency for its copy writers.

Does this answer your question?

Paxton

Thanks Paxton,

This answers my question but leads me to another question. The course(s) I'm considering are 5 sessions long and each session is 2 hrs 30 minutes. Would seeing this format lead to an admissions person questioning the rigor of the course or would this be an acceptable format?

help me please!

That sounds on the short side to me. Based on my experience in the corporate world (Motorola and various consulting firms) courses of that length are more about developing a basic knowledge rather than the technical knowledge that you will need.

To draw from my experience again, I took intro accounting at Georgia State and wrestled with all of the journal entries, debits / credits, etc., etc. My accounting class at UCLA was not as technical but having really worked w/ the nuts and bolts of accounting in my Georgia State class was SO valuable.

My guess is that committees will see what you have done as a nice to have but not a dial mover. I suggest you take a community college or undergraduate class.

Paxton