Taking additional courses

[changingcourse]

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?

[Paxton Helms - Kaplan]

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

[changingcourse]

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?

[changingcourse]

help me please!

[Paxton Helms - Kaplan]

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