Waivers Can Shorten the Three Year MBA Curriculum

I mentioned in my last couple of posts that the MBA program has two standard introductory courses.  The accounting class was available for a waiver, along with five others, including statistics and finance classes.   Waiving as many of these courses as possible translates directly into fewer units being required for graduation. Graduating earlier, having spent less money, sounds like an inarguably good plan.  

When I looked into what I could possibly skip, the only waiver for which I seemed eligible was macroeconomics. This didn't work out for a couple of reasons.  Because I had taken APs in the U.S., and a year of A-levels (macroeconomics) in England, I took an intermediate economics course during my first semester of college.   An intermediate college course can potentially get you an MBA waiver. The problems are that I took the course more than ten years ago, and I have no idea if I got the required "B" in the class.  Everyone at my college, for their first semester, got pass/fail grades across the board.

So, if you're thinking of starting an MBA program this year or next, or maybe later… look into waiver deadlines.  There are waiver tests that you can take, but you could potentially cost yourself huge buckets of time and money by missing a "coursework in the last X years" deadline.  If you know that you're entering a program, get any potential waivers dealt with as quickly as possible.  Waiver eligibility might only last for the first quarter or semester.

Well, no waivers for me.  I'll get to program requirements in a bit, but the short story is that I'm lookin' at a full three years.

The basic story is that I'll be taking six potentially waivable courses, ten non-waivable "core" classes, and probably eight electives.  I'll save you from getting out the calculator:  24 classes, with an expectation of roughly 2 per quarter, comes out to exactly 3 years.  Yes, there are part time MBA students who don't quite have that fully figured out before they start.
Wai