Excelsior MBA

[mack72]

I'd like to get some feedback from those who have completed Excelsior's MBA program. I'm looking to do the dual BS in HealthCare/MBA fast track program. Are the exams proctored? Is there a considerable amount of essay writing? How is the communication with professors? I've done online courses with other schools, so I'm pretty independent. However, each school is different, so I want to know what I'm getting into with EC. Thanks in advance for the feedback.

[P00057870]

Let's keep this one going. I think the fast track you are mentioning is fairly new, so unlikely anyone has finished it yet.

Perhaps we can catch Marianne202. I know she finished the BS in Health Care Management but think it was prior to them offering the combination.

[mack72]

Thanks. Has anyone had experience with EC's exams? Are they proctored, essay, etc? I'm curious to get some feedback.

[marianne202]

Judy, is correct. I completed my BSHS last year and a few months later they finally opened the dual BSHS/MBA program...about six monhs later than expected and too late for us. The EC exams are very much theory and application based, as opposed to DSST and CLEP which just make sure you have memorized the material. You have to apply it to scenarios in most EC exams. They are also longer exams than most DSST and CLEP exams. I highly recommend the practice exams for the ECE's as the same scenarios are used on the actual exams which is an advantage IMHO. It is well worth the extra money for the practice exams, especially since the ECE's are now much cheaper than when I took them! All ECE's are given under heavy proctoring at Prometric test centers.

Now the rub about the MBA. EC's MBA's are not accredited by the two main organizations that accredit MBA's. I can't remember the acronyms right off the top of my head, but they don't have it, at least they didn't when I was a student. That can be a problem for some people, so I would encourge you to look at the jobs you are interested in obtaining with your degree and find out what is required locally. If the MBA needs to be from an accredited program you may be further ahead to do a different MBA program. I enrolled in Bellevue's MHA program because I intent to stay in healthcare or healthcare related fields, so I felt that was a better avenue for me personally. I'm almost done, thank goodness! It is an accelerated program, 18 months, so I only added a few more months from the EC dual program and I will graduate in March.

As for the EC courses, I took 7 for the BSHS core and tested out of the 2 that had that option. The classes are very writing intensive. You have to do discussion boards each week, with posts and replies, then you usually have to write at least one paper each week and sometimes do another assignment. These all have minimum lengths, so you will do a ton of writing.

The courses were not managed as well as I thought they should have been, with errors in content posted and instructors that were horrible and that is being nice! Some were great, but I did have a few that were clueless to DL and the course content so beware you will have to be very independent and be willing to stand up for yourself. I only had a two classes that had one exam each. These were not proctored and they both had errors in the exam and key, so you have to check behind the instructors and be willing to fight them sometimes.

At the time, I really didn't think the course work was very challenging and I certainly wasn't being "taught" anything as it was all book work and writing. The APA skills learned have helped in grad school and some of the content I read in their required texts did help me in my grad school classes. I'm happy that I did the BSHS at EC.

I wish you luck in your decision and as you progress through your degree.

[mack72]

Thanks so much for the feedback! I'm not sold on the EC MBA, but I like'd the idea of a the dual degree program. I'll keep researching and thanks again for the info!

[pixaloop]

The MBA accreditation agency:

AACSB (Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business)
AACSB International-The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business

[ryoder]

There are also the lesser business school accreditations: ACBSP and IACBE

NCU is regionally accredited and ACBSP accredited which was good enough for me.
It is an accelerated 30CR program that you can complete at your own pace. Classes start every week too.

My pace is very fast and I will probably be finished in a couple of months. Some of these classes can be completed in 4 weeks while others may take the full 8 weeks. It will take me about 8 months to complete this program all said and done.

[motuterry]

I can’t offer any info regarding the Excelsior BS/MBA track however I will share some thoughts about the MBA program overall. Firstly, all EC degrees are regionally accredited, including their MBA program. The EC MBA degree does not currently have additional accreditations from the alphabet soup of business school agencies - ie- AACSB; IACBE; ACBSB; EQUIS; FIBAA; AMBA ….etc. In my view, most of these additional accreditations have little or no value other than marketing for the school. Regardless, EC reportedly has one or more pending.

This past year, EC introduced non-credit challenge exams for 5 foundation courses. This allows students to reduce the required 48 credits to 33 credits. Additionally, a waiver is allowed for foundation subjects if the student has completed and earned at least a B for corresponding UPPER level undergraduate course work. If you don’t qualify for a waiver and need to take the foundation subject as an MBA course, expect graduate level work.

The EC foundation exams are also graduate level. I have taken many upper level DSST’s and EC exams during my undergraduate days and none, in my experience, compare to the difficulty level of these foundation exams.

In summary, I have found the EC MBA to be a challenging well-rounded program.

Best wishes to you!

[mack72]

Terry, thanks so much for the feedback. I'd particulary be interested in the non-credit challenge exams for the 5 foundation courses. I'll search around on EC's site and try to locate that information.