I got accepted into Pepperdine MBA and Cal Poly Pomona MSBA programs. I also got into Cal State Fullerton MBA and Cal State LA’s MS in Information System, but narrowed them down to two schools/programs in the title.
I am an IT professional with long-term specialty interest in Cyber-security. CPP’s MSBA emphasizes Information Assurance with its MSBA program. But Pepperdine also offers a concentration in Information Systems (though not IT security focused) with its MBA.
I am really having a tough time deciding between the two. Cost wise, it really does not matter. Pepperdine over all has the better reputation and rankings. CPP does have the better curriculum for my career aspiration.
Any advice?
Thank you in advance.
This should be posted in the Graduate School - MBA forum. Will you be working full-time and attending the program part-time or will you attend the program full time? The programs you mentioned above are about the same. Most of the students are part-time and working. You should find out about the recent history of full time employment after getting the MBA and how difficult to find a job after graduation. From my experience, most recruiters recruit from the top 25 to 30 MBA programs and these programs generally have significant number of full time students. I believe programs such as Pepperdine and CPSLO have much fewer recruiters to their campuses. You don’t want to be strapped with MBA debt and not have a job.
Thank you for your advice, UCBUSCalum.
As for your question, I will be attending the program full-time. My current job does not have much of an upward mobility, and I have a better chance winning a lotto than getting another raise.
Because I will be utilizing my GI Bill, fortunately I won’t be strapped with debt. But it does have an expiration date, so I would have to graduate within the next few years.
Good call about looking up the recent history of full-time employment after obtaining a MBA degree. I had also considered USC’s Marshall School of Business, but I think it is a reach for me. But do you think Pepperdine’s reputation is much better than Cal Poly Pomona’s? From what I heard, Pepperdine’s academic level is equivalent to mid-level UCs (for undergrad anyway).
Thanks!
In terms of reputation, in my opinion, I think Pepperdine and CPP, at the MBA level, are about the same with maybe Pepperdine a tad higher. Since you are IT focused, I believe there is not much difference between the schools. You should research their employment history for recent grads with IT focus, the number of corporate recruiters to these schools looking to hire IT focused students, and how much students were hired from this process.
However, if you were in finance, accounting, or consulting (IT), the big name schools like UCLA or USC would make a huge difference since these are targeted schools for many firms to recruit.
Also, I believe the other two UCs in Southern California (UCI and UCR) have good graduate business programs but I am not sure if they offer IT concentrations. UCI and UCR are much cheaper, cost wise, than Pepperdine. I also believe their undergraduate reputation, academically, including business, is better than Pepperdine’s.
Fortunately, you are working which is a plus on the resume and helps keep your educational costs down.