For the third consecutive year, the London-based Financial Times has given high marks to Temple University’s Executive Masters of Business Administration program high marks.
The program, offered at Temple’s Fox School of Business, has been among the Times’ Top 75 schools in the world for EMBA degrees. The Fox School degree was ranked 25th this year, 44th in 2002 and 32nd in 2001.
Temple’s EMBA also ranks 14th among U.S. schools, according to the program’s director, Melissa Wieczorek.
“There were improvements on the alumni side in terms of career progress rank and salary increase as well as on the school side in terms of our boards and international experience,” she said
The Times survey found 20 percent of the Fox School faculty is female and 95 percent of the faculty hold doctorates.
“It is a validation of the competitiveness of the Executive MBA program and the MBA program in general. Business education and in particular MBA education is very competitive,” said Fox School Dean M. Moshe Porat. “It is quite competitive not only in terms of the number schools that offer it, but in terms of students. Students are very selective.”
The rankings are based on a survey of alumni from the EMBA program who have been out of the program for at least three years. Other factors considered are the number of publications by faculty in specific journals; percentage of female students, international students, international faculty and international students, and faculty salary figures.
Students in Temple’s EMBA program are generally business professionals with an average of 16 years work experience. The average age for the typical EMBA student is 40 with 11 years of management experience and a salary of $125,683.
“EMBA students are generally leading their organizations at the middle to senior level. These are VPs, controllers, directors, small business owners, etc,” Wieczorek said. “Students have significant levels of work and management experience, which differs from a typical MBA student who generally has a few years of work experience and little to no management experience.”
Students come from all facets of business. They usually work full-time while pursuing their degree. Entrance into the program is quite competitive. Prospective students must have the required Graduate Management Admissions Test score, letters of recommendation, and have their college transcripts sent to Temple.
In addition to these strict requirements, prospective students must be sponsored by their employers. Sponsorship is mandatory in most cases because classes are held every other weekend and one Friday a month.
“Our students come from a variety of different industries and organizations including everything from Fortune 500s to entrepreneurial organizations. The companies who have sent us the most students over the years are Merck, Rohm and Haas, and GlaxoSmithKline in Philadelphia and Goldman Sachs and GE in Tokyo,” Wieczorek said.
In addition to permission to take the time off from work, many employers give students from their companies financial assistance. UNISYS, AstraZeneca, Chevron,
Hershey Foods, Motorola, Mellon Bank and QVC are some of the more than 100 companies that have sponsored students in the past.
“The EMBA Program offers a general management degree. Students take courses in each of the functional areas of business in order to obtain the knowledge and skills needed to lead at the senior level of the organization,” said Wieczorek.
The program spans 22 months and all students graduate at the same time. The program also runs is offered both in Philadelphia and at Temple’s Tokyo, Japan campus.
Tulin Ozturk can be reached at tozturk@temple.edu.
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