Chapter Two
Finding Information Online
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Let the search begin! Finding the right online MBA program that fits in with your academic, career and lifestyle plans requires a good deal of homework. The first pass of information that you can sift through is found on the Internet, which, at its worst, can be deceiving and sometimes inaccurate due to its heavy advertisement-laden nature. However, at its best, and even at mediocre levels of accuracy, the information you’ll find on the Internet will be a valuable jumping board for you to dig out more information about online MBA programs through e-mail and telephone inquiries, which I highly recommend, or through live campus visits with program administrators and faculty.
You can begin searching online by combing through all the links I provide on my website at www.edpath.com/onlinemba.html and saving and labeling all the URLs of the schools that might interest you into your web browser’s favorite folder labeled and categorized according to your personal preferences, such as location, tuition levels, admission levels, etc. In addition to utilizing all the information on this website, you can visit some higher education web portals .
Higher education web portals arelarge websites that offer a
comprehensive gateway to a wide variety of information related to higher
education. These web portals typically have links to other
education-related websites, access to online communities with discussion
forums and possibly live chat rooms, specialized content about specific
topics of interest, a search engine and directory function for finding
degree programs, and a variety of online shopping services.
My
favorite higher education web portals for finding information about
online MBA programs are BusinessWeek Online and USNews.com.
Located at
www.businessweek.com/bschools/
and from the publishers of the popular magazine, this website has a B
Schools section that is loaded with detailed information, mostly in
relation to traditional on-campus MBA programs. However, much of this
information, especially the career advice, admissions and financial aid
strategies sections, can be applied to online programs.
USNews.com has a portal devoted to online education at
www.usnews.com/sections/education/e-learning/.
Overall, this USNews.com section has some great content, including
articles about how online learning works, a glossary of E-Learning
terms, and a forum on the topic of E-Learning where you can start a
discussion about online MBA programs.
As
in life, first impressions can fool you, and it’s important to remember
this adage when surfing around the Internet. While I am a very strong
advocate for finding valuable information online, I know from experience
as a veteran web surfer since the early 90s – when I had a Prodigy
account and a very slow dial-up connection with a noisy modem – that
slick, impressionable websites are all over the virtual world.
Any
talented web designer can make a website shine, and any
talented promotional writer can generate content on a website that will
make an online MBA program seem like a guaranteed ticket to a six-figure
salary, promotion to the highest level of business management, and/or
quick ladder to self-employed success.
What’s presented virtually when compared to what’s real
can often be two different things. There are colleges and universities
whose websites do not accurately represent their online MBA programs or
purposely provide you with only a limited amount of information. As you
surf around, you will be surprised at the different look and
navigational feel of all these websites. An academically sound school
might have a poor website simply because their short on talented
web-development staff. A school that could be considered less
academically sound might have a truly wonderful, professional website
because they have a top-notch web-development staff.
The Advertising and
Marketing Game
Like many things in our profit-at-all-costs world, discovering the truth
behind all the advertising can be difficult. The marketing methods
utilized today over the web and through e-mail communications do not
depict the real picture of online education.
For
example, I get numerous unsolicited e-mails erroneously stating that I
can earn a master’s degree or even a doctorate without taking any
courses or studying. Or, as I mentioned earlier, a web search for
“online MBAs,” will frequently bring up results that are not, overall,
an accurate representation of what’s really available.
The
business model for many websites that promote online education, as well
as the search engines that lead web surfers to them, revolves around a
variety of marketing programs that institutions can buy into. One is
called cost-per-lead. Another is called pay-per-click.
Here the name of the game is to get prospective students, such as
yourself, to fill out and submit an online form that lets an institution
know that you are seeking more information about its online degree
program. Incidentally, the institutions pay for these completed forms.
Pay-per-click (PPC) marketing is where an advertiser pays a
predetermined amount of money to a web publisher for every time a
visitor clicks on an advertisement or link that is listed on a hosting
web site. Pay-per-lead (PPL) marketing is where an advertiser pays a web
publisher to help generate information about as many prospective
customers as possible, typically through an online form that the
prospective customers fill out and submits online.
The
entire process typically begins and ends something like this:
1. You go to Google or
Yahoo, or MSN, or any one of the many popular search engine websites and
enter something like “Where Can I Find an Online MBA Program” into the
search box.
2. The search results come
up, including “sponsored sites” listed prominently at the top and right
side of the web page. You click on one of the sponsored links, taking
you to a higher education web portal that lists about a dozen online MBA
programs that have signed an advertising contract with the web portal.
3. These listings are
flagged with “request more information” buttons that take you to an
online form. You fill out the online form and a day later a school
representative (with strong sales and public relations skills) is
contacting you by telephone and/or e-mail.
Depending on the institution you are interested in, and the person who
gets assigned to contact you, this process will most certainly get you
the detailed information and advice you’ll need to apply - i.e what
forms you’ll need to fill out, how to apply for financial aid, etc. But
it may not get you the finer information you’ll need to make a decision
- i.e. what the faculty and students in the program are really
like and detailed information about course content.
While filling out such online forms can be a quick and easy way to get information, you might want to skip this step and begin your search by visiting the actual websites of the institutions you are interested in and carefully reading through the information provided online. Then, if any particular program piques your interest, call the school’s admission’s office and ask to speak with an counselor. Before you do this, however, I strongly suggest that you read Chapters One through Thirteen of this eBook, because, combined, these chapters have all the information you’ll need to ultimately make an educated decision that is absolutely right for you, as well as what kind of questions you should ask when contacting programs.
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