I have recently been accepted to many colleges, and am hoping to major in business administration. One thing I have noticed that some of my schools are AACSB accredited, while others are not. I am wondering if the AACSB accreditation will play a big role in getting accepted to graduate school, the value of my degree, or if the accreditation is all that important. Any help I can get would be greatly appreciated. Thanks
Assuming you want to go to graduate school in business, the biggest factor will likely be work experience. I think Stanford averages four years of work experience for their MBA program and UCLA averages five years.
As long as you go to a respectable school, work hard, and do well on the GMAT, you should have very little problems getting accepted into a good graduate program. And if you do well enough on some of those factors, you might be able to offset doing really poorly on other factors. (e.g. someone with several years of work experience might be able to get into a good graduate program with a low GMAT score.)
AACSB accreditation for business schools does not appear to be a very high bar, as many low selectivity schools have it and graduate large numbers of business majors. So it may be best thought of as a minimum standard for a business major degree program, but not otherwise of that great importance.
However, many students do go into “business” jobs after graduating in non-business majors. As noted above, MBA program admissions tend to expect work experience after bachelor’s degree graduation.
Right, AACSB is a pretty low bar, so I’d be wary of non-AACSB schools.
If you go to a non-AACSB accredited schools I’d try to find out:
- why it is not accredited (ex. did it not pass the accreditation standard or is it just because it is a new program which can’t be accredited yet?);
- what type of career and grad school placement the school has; and
- what courses are offered and required and compare to other accredited business schools.
OP - you have not mentioned what schools you are considering. I wonder if the schools that do not have AACSB accreditation are smaller LAC’s with business programs?
To be accredited, AACSB requires a certain level of research that smaller programs, even at more selective LAC’s, might not be able to support. This can explain why less selective directional state universities can be AACSB accredited and more selective LAC’s not accredited. You should also be aware that there are other accrediting agencies called ACBSP and IACBE that accredit smaller business programs. These, especially IACBE, are not as respected as AACSB but provide some comfort beyond regional accreditation as to the quality of the program.
As mentioned above, as long as a school is regionally accredited, it likely will not matter for acceptance into MBA programs - since good GMAT scores and significant work experience after graduation are required before admission to any quality MBA program.
For an idea as to the quality of an undergraduate program, look at the companies that recruit on campus and the statistics regarding offers received. If the big accounting firms, banks and corporations in the area are consistently recruiting and hiring graduates - that is what is important.
AACSB is difficult to get and only about 5 % of the business schools worldwide have it. The national figure is higher
The best business schools in this country ( Warton, Harvard) all have AACSB accreditation. Why would they spend the money and go through the lengthy process to get it if it did not matter.
I graduated from a small fairly elite ( top 50 on the USNews best LA school list) LA University that has had a business school for well over 75 years. It has placed students in top businesses and has some very well known graduates including some current top CEOs and founders of well known corporations. It always resisted getting AACSB but recently realized it was a strong signal of a quality b-school and needed it to be competitive and attract strong students. It applied and got it fairly quickly because it was already a quality b-school.
So I would definitely select a school with AACSB if given a choice.
I am really confused about the value of an AACSB accreditation. I am researching a college (UCF) with that accreditation, but the only thing their College of Business raves about is their AACSB accreditation. Business schools at other colleges rave about their high rankings, are ranked by Bloomberg, Forbes, and US News, mention their rate of getting their graduates employed or in graduate schools, etc. But not the one I am researching. I can’t find anything about how good its business school is. The only clue that it may be a good school is the accreditation, but where’s the proof that it really is?
If you are really interested in UCF, I would suggest you contact the career services area of the business school. You are correct that many AACSB schools tout their wonderful placement and recruiting statistics. The fact that UCF doesn’t is something that needs to be investigated. I wonder if the fact that UCF is so huge causes the placement percentages to not look as good as some smaller schools.
Following up on my post above, looking at other large business schools, most do not provide exact statistics for the entire college. A few might give certain department or program statistics, most likely about accounting - since that area has some of the best on campus recruiting.
Some smaller schools might list statistics, but with a smaller program it is easier for the school to obtain sufficient information from the class to have valid results.
The AACSB school means the business school meets certain minimum standards and is more prestigious than a non AACSB school. If you are thinking of getting a PhD, I believe it is better to graduate from a AACSB accredited school.