What choice is best for me?

What are your long term goals? Maybe the view on online MBAs is shifting, but generally the ranking goes: FT MBA > PT MBA >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Online MBA

If your company is literally telling you that you need to just check the box and get an MBA and they will give you some career boosting promo (like manager to director, or director to VP- not analyst 2 to analyst 3), then maybe an online MBA is the way to go.. but if someone were asking whether they should get their MBA online or at some tiny school in their city, I would recommend going to the no-name school in the city because at least you'll be with other local business people and you can build your network that way.

The value of an MBA can be thought of as follows: 1) Recruiting. The firms that hire out of that school for internships and FT jobs. 2) Signaling. Companies like people with a quality pedigree in their management. Others will view you and treat you as high powered, high potential. 3) Network. The people you meet in the program, the alums who you have an in with where you can chat about your time at the school. 4) Last, and least: education. What you learn. Top schools aren't much better than average schools. You could probably read books and learn just as much.

So with an online MBA you certainly miss #1 and #3. #2 is missed as well because of the stigma around online programs- they're just seen as money makers for the schools and that participants aren't really Ross or Marshall alums.

Another thing I would say is that if you want to keep getting work experience you should go for a PT MBA. But don't put too much weight on early career work experience- excel, learning how to sort and present data.. those things are good, but how many CFOs or VPs of finance do that stuff? they are more focused on digesting the data- what it means, not how to present it. Being on the receiving end of those graphs and charts, not the building end. Your goal should be to speed through the grunt years as quick as possible because 80% of what you are doing in those years is a different skill set from what you'll be doing later. Also- in my MBA, I had a PT classmate who had 4-5 years work experience and got a decent consulting job but wasn't able to get an MBB offer. I had another classmate who was a FT MBA- went into his MBA straight out of college. He landed MBB. He had no work experience and it showed, yet the quality recruiting from the FT program was all he needed.

Think of an MBA as one of your precious few "Jokers" in your career- one of the few times you can push the reset button and get back on the VP/Exec track. You want to be careful about how you burn that joker. Do it right and you can start tripping the dominoes that lead to you being a CEO. Do it wrong and it can cost you a few $k and do absolutely nothing for you.

Random anecdote- a previous coworker of mind at a F100 company was planning on getting his MBA online because the company would give an automatic 5% pay bump if you had your MBA, and that's what he was going for. Talk about aiming low