Online BS to Brick/Mortar MS?

College Search & Selection Online Degrees
1

I couldn’t find anything on this, so I apologize if its been asked.

I’m just about done with my BS from a public state university. It is mainly an online degree, but just about most of the classes are recorded live and put online and assignments are submitted online… basically, its a “hybrid” online degree I guess you can say.

Anyway, how does brick/mortar schools look at online degrees when applying to grad school? Would scoring well on the GRE back up an online degree, or do they generally look at the application and see it was an online degree and go onto the next applicant? Also, no where on my transcript will say anything about being an “online” degree, either as like I said- its basically just classes that you need to submit your work online. I think I would just have to worry about them seeing I’ve been working full time while at school, and researching/knowing how the degree is done at my school I assume.

I’m looking at schools for MIS-type masters (my BS is in information systems), and I want to avoid an online degree for this so I don’t hurt my chances of ever going for a PhD if I choose to in my time.

(FYI- my early GPA for my “GenEd” days was only about a 2.9-3.0, but my final 48 hours has been an average of about a 3.8-3.9 putting my GPA to around a 3.3)

And if it really isn’t a problem, how about “top” schools with this type of degree for kicks such as GWU, Carnegie Mellon, and others for MIS and IS type MS degrees? Will they laugh? Or do online degrees actually have a fighting chance for brick-and-mortar-grad-school-world?

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Is there anything on your degree that says it was online?

If not, I don’t see any reason to tell them.

3

I have to agree that regardless of whether you attended online or physically attended at the school, you are not under any obligation to say. Your resume or graduate school application will only request the college you obtained your degree from, your graduation date, and your GPA. This is where it comes in handy to have attended a college that students primarily physically attend that also offers online degrees. If your degree is from a strictly online degree school, some employers and graduate schools may not see your degree as equal.

However, online degrees are become more popular and many accredited, established brick/mortar schools are now offering them. My personal opinion is that employers and graduate schools are giving online degrees more weight. In your case, I don’t believe this will be an issue since they will not know that you took hybrid or online courses versus physically attending the classes.