Too Old for Business School?

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She recalled a student who could no longer practice surgery but got the tools he needed from business school to become the CEO of a medical device company. "He really leveraged the experience that he had," Brick says. "I wouldn't call it a career change, but more of a career extension."

Sheryle Dirks, associate dean for career management at Duke's Fuqua School of Business, said that over-40 MBAs should be prepared to expand their job hunt outside the confines of the standard business school recruiting process.

"If a 40-year-old student is interested in the positions being filled through the on-campus venue, some employers may wonder how an older student will fit with a younger group of associates or what they can expect in terms of initial assignments and career progression," Dirks says. "An older candidate who can successfully address those questions will stand far better chances of receiving an offer than one who does not."

Still, several 40-plus students who recently attended full-time MBA programs said the experience was well worth it.

For Jeff Recker, 41, attending Vanderbilt's Owen School of Business was a "tremendous experience." After working with several startups that failed during the dot-com bust, he found himself at an uninspiring medical sales job. He was there for about two years before deciding to make a move.

"If you have an itch, scratch it because the longer you wait, the arthritis might set in," Recker, who graduated in May, says of his long-time musings to attend business school. "If you believe in yourself, you'll find that others might too. No one can take education away from you once you get it."

Recker recently learned that he has been awarded distributorship for Solar Big Belly, a solar trash compactor company he learned about during a case study at Vanderbilt. "It's obviously had a direct payback because what I learned in a case study is now part of my business," says Recker.

Jonah Zimiles, 51, decided to go for an MBA at Columbia Business School after spending six years as a stay-at-home dad with his autistic son. "It gave me a multitude of skills that brought me the confidence to know that I can meet virtually any type of challenge that the economy would throw me or any kind of business challenge that's out there," says Zimiles, who had previously practiced law for nearly 15 years.

Zimiles, who graduated in May, is using his skills to start a community project of his own. He and his wife noticed the neighborhood bookstore was closing and bought it on a whim with plans to expand it, learn the ropes of retail, and eventually employ autistic adults to give them training and experience.

Zimiles said he did not go to business school with the intention of making new friends, or "playmates," as he puts it. However, he celebrated his 50th birthday last year in Las Vegas with a group of his 25- to 30-year-old peers and also competed in a "briefcase throw" at the Duke MBA Games.

He did cite one drawback to business school, though: "My wife says I am spending too much time on Facebook."

Teichman is a reporting intern at BusinessWeek.