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Having grown up in South Jersey, I would say that Villanova was generally perceived as being the best business school by a significant margin. However, I feel like Villanova is still a pretty regional school, outside of college basketball, and don't know how well-recognized it would be.
Never heard of Penn State Malvern despite living 15 minutes from Pennsylvania. Sorry, bud.
Yes, Penn state has a Malvern MBA that is not run by Smeal college of Business.
Have you heard about Temple MBA and how it stands in comparison with Villanova? Does Temple have better reputation outside of the region?
Don't do any of these programs FT
what do you recommend for a working professional living in Philadelphia area?
I think Villanova is the best option of the schools you listed.
That being said, I believe it would be in your best interest to improve your application and attempt to obtain admittance to a "better" program.
What are your goals for an MBA program? What do you seek to accomplish?
What better programs in the area do you recommend? My intention is not to change fields and would like to complete my MBA while I am working. My main goals are gain the knowledge and leadership experience towards more leverage at my current and future positions. I do not see myself living in the area long term and therefore, the network is not my main focus.
Well, being a working professional in the Philadelphia area my options were pretty these ones. I cannot afford Wharton nor my company reimburses for their executive program. I am not looking into changing fields and would like to use the MBA knowledge and leadership experience towards better positions in my or other companies and gain better leverage. I am seeing myself not to stay in Philadelphia area longterm and may move to west coast. In my opinion all the programs are comparable and my concern is which one is known outside of region. I personally had not heard of villanova till I moved to the area. Although I had heard of Temple university for their medical school. Do you know if Temple MBA is any good or comparable to villanova?
All of the programs you listed are incredibly regional. Additionally, brush up on your English a bit.
Villanova definitely best of the 4 but none are good MBAs it seems.
I think Villanova is the better MBA program for the PHL area. Temple is growing though. IMO, depending on where you work it might be just easier to go to Nova. They have both an on campus and downtown Philly location.
I am looking into center city campus of both programs. Are both schools considered regional? Is any school between nova, temple and drexel known outside of the region?
I would say Villanova is a lot more recognizable (not saying people think it's Harvard or something, but at least heard of it/maybe respect it a bit) than Temple.
I would definitely say that Villanova is more reputable than Temple, at least in the finance community.
Here is the thing, it all really depends. If you work out in the burbs it is going to be a pain coming into Philly for night classes and going up Broad St to Temple. Villanova has the optionality. That being said, Temple is doing really good things and the new Fox building is amazing.
IMO, you might want to look at some of the specialized masters Temple has. Might be a good way to save some money, get a degree in less time and still have a masters and get a knowledge boost.
I've taken some Nova MBA classes and a lot of them are really, really good. Frankly, when I look back at all the classes I've taken some of the ones I value the most were MBA classes I had.
One thing no one has mentioned is that Villanova's alumni network is waaaay better than Temple or Drexel.
Having said that, Villanova's MSF is very good but the MBA is not, so you're not going to add that much value to your resume. IMO, going to a weaker (outside top 30) MBA is just a bad financial decision today.
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