When Part Time Is the Right Time

(page 3 of 3)

Why do you think that percentage isn't higher?

I think part of the reason is that the post-MBA jobs are not appropriate. Our average part-time student has five, six years of experience. And so they're in a lot of the jobs right now that would be considered post-MBA, entry post-MBA jobs. And so the jobs are not the jobs they would be looking for.

The other part of it is a lot of people want to stay with their employer and they just want the ability to move forward in a different way. I have a lot of folks who were engineers in a manufacturing facility who've moved over within the same company, over to finance or over to marketing. So there are a number of folks who are happy with their company, they're just looking for a broader role.

Are part-time students allowed to participate if they're being sponsored by their employer?

You're allowed to do it, but you have to get your supervisor to sign a letter to say they're aware that you're going through recruiting. So, in other words, like we're real happy to have it all happen, but it can't be fibbing. We don't want to be a participant in dishonesty.

How many part-time students at Chicago are employer-sponsored?

It was as recently as 15 years ago when about 80% of them were being paid for 100% by their employer. Now we only have 48% that are employer-sponsored. And that sponsorship ranges from $5,000 a year—which is one course—all the way up to full, and everything in between.

And even for those 48% who have some sponsorship, the sponsorship isn't what it used to be. It's gone the same way that insurance has gone. There's got to be some co-pay, the employer believes, or the student doesn't have enough skin in the game.

I think that's the biggest thing that has changed in the part-time world, and it's driven a consumerism amongst part-time students that was different back when your paternalistic employer would say to you, "Yes, you've been selected to go to school. All you have to do is show up."

If someone starts as a part-timer, do you allow them to full-time the second year?

We used to. And now that you can do recruiting together, we don't transfer any more. We also allow people to accelerate or decelerate their program, based on their life. So you start as a part-time, you lose your job, and you want to take a full load.

We also allow people to register for classes across both. So in the Thursday night class, you'll have a bunch of full-time students. On a Saturday class, you'll have a bunch of full-time students. And less so a part-time student can sign up in a daytime class. So because we allow all that flexibility anyway, the big thing that people wanted to transfer for at one time was recruiting. Now there isn't that barrier, so we don't allow it any more.

Why do some recruiters still avoid going after part-time students?

I think there are a couple of reasons. I used to be a recruiter—I was in consulting with KPMG for many years and I was part of our recruiting team from the business side. And I recruited everywhere.

I frankly think that two things happen with recruiters. Number one, you're biased by your own experience. So, for a lot of people, if I came out of a full-time program and I have that sort of pride in my full-time program, I'd prefer to recruit the full-time program. So I think some of that is just tradition and recruiter bias. I also think that because full-time students have more time to work on soft skills, they tend to be more polished, traditionally polished, if you will.

What would your advice be to part-time students on how to overcome that?

I say this to students at the beginning of every quarter at orientation every time around, and I don't know how many of them listen. But I say, you don't have as much access—either by time or by circumstance—to improve those skills. And those skills are vitally important.

And I have seen some of our part-time students make a tremendous commitment. I just think it's a little bit tougher to do as a part-time student, to easily achieve that soft skill transformation.

I've also heard from full-time students that they don't really want to mix with part-time students.

Yeah, there is some of that. I don't know why that is. I think a lot of it is we have about 30 student clubs in the part-time side. And full time has about 60. Almost all of them fully mix, and the ones that don't are the big industry groups, where they kind of sense that they're competing with each other.

The investment banking group and the consultant clubs don't mix, and they each have their own club and there's some competition, there's some competitive spirit. And on the full-time side, some elitism, which I think is so goofy in today's world, but I understand where that came from.

Are there common mistakes you see in the applications of part-time students?

I'm amazed by the number of applications I see on the part-time side where the person has never set foot in the school, never spoken to anybody at the school—they're just kind of lobbing in an application. Another thing I say to part-time students is that because you're busier, you think the people on the other side are saying, "Oh, well, you're busy so it doesn't matter as much, the quality of your essays, the quality of your recommendations." And that's really amiss.

What's your best advice for someone trying to decide between going to B-school full-time or part-time?

I'd say talk to a lot of the people that are doing it. If you're considering both, talk to people in both. Sit in classes in both. Most of us are cognizant of our surroundings and the people we're sitting with.

And, again, when you're sitting at a table in a conversation with a group of people that are doing a full-time experience and also a group of people that are doing a part-time experience, you're going to get a sense for what they have to do to make it work, and you'll get a sense, I think, for where you belong. I think administrators aren't as valuable a resource as students themselves.

Want to learn more about part-time vs. full-time programs? Join a BW.com live chat with several experts on Tuesday, Feb. 6, at noon EST. For full details, go to http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/content/jan2007/bs20070129_019867.htm