The Application Process

I am admitted to Duke Cross Continent program ( with $$), UCLA FEMBA ( with $$) and Haas Part time ( With $$ )

Which school should I join ? below are few things that are important

- Brand / Rank of the School ( Do you think one school has an edge over the other ? )
- Duration of the program ( Duke - 16 months, UCLA/ Haas - 3 years)
- Class / peer interaction ( I feel Duke will have maximum interaction because it involves 44 days of residency with the classmates. Haas / UCLA will meet weekends only, so not sure how helpful will that be)
- Career opportunities ( I live in the Bay area and will prefer to work here after graduating. I understand that Haas is local but does it really matter ? Because even if I go to Duke, I will be in Bay area most of the time since its a part time / exec MBA)
- Will really appreciate if some can tell more about the Cross Continent program. It looks very interesting.

Thanks

With one of the main goals of an MBA being the job you get afterward, I would recommend staying near to where you want to end up. Keep in mind, this comes from someone who went to Duke and loved it. I don't think you would regret your experience there one bit, but recruiting will be much more difficult. The biggest thing is that you get help from your cohorts and the school for local recruiting that you just won't get on the other side of the country.

If you want to stay in the bay area, this is a no brainer, go to Haas. The fact that it will take 14 months more to complete the program will be irrelevant at the end of the day because employers will value the PT program more than the EMBA. Haas is highly respected amongst the tech community (my firm recruits there heavily).

The cross continent program is interesting...but is it the right fit? Try not to be swayed by the idea of globetrotting...it will not be more valuable for someone in your shoes.

Thanks guys for your response. I talked to few Alumni / current students from both Haas PT( 6 folks) and Duke Program ( 3 folks) . Here's the summary:

Haas PT folks response:

- The class will have > 65% people from tech industry. According to them...."Typically, you would want students from different walks of like...doctors, marines, finance etc, just so the class is diverse and you can learn from each others experiences". So, if you are from a tech background...your MBA experience might not be great.
- Although the school offers two options Evening / weekend. Most of the folks I talked to ( they are all in tech companies) said, its almost impossible to take the evening option if you work in the bay area, because to attend the 6 pm class, you will have to leave work by 3 pm..thanks to traffic!
- Most of them ended up taking weekend classes. The professors are amazing and the learning experience was great...almost everyone said this.
- Outside of the weekend classes...cohorts do meet...but not very often. They prefer online meetings and conversations. Most of them were not able to attend club meets, seminars that are held on-campus, mixers, tech events etc. because it was practically impossible to leave work on the weekdays.
- and ofcourse...all the weekends in those 3 years will not be actually weekends
- They liked the "learning" part of the program...but as far as team interaction / learning from cohorts / forming a comradery with peers is concerned, they were not very positive. It was almost like...going for the class on weekends...studying / working on weekdays...then again class on weekends.

I will update this thread with the response from Duke alumni / current students soon...still need to talk to some more folks.

Hey randude,

Congrats on your offers so far! We think you're 100% correct by talking to current students at each school. In fact, we launched HeyIvy.com specifically for this purpose.

If you're having any trouble tracking down students to speak with, feel free to give us a try.

Best of luck, and looks like you have some awesome options so select from!

Thanks,
Tim