EXECUTIVE MBA Profiles Publish Date 11/05/09

Southern Methodist University

Cox School of Business

Getting In

Cox School of Business

P.O. Box 750333
Dallas , Texas 75275 United States

Status:

Private Institution

Length of program (months):

Classes meet:

Days

Alternate weekends

Tuition and fees for entire EMBA program:

Resident: $ 94,625
Non Resident: $ 94,625

Graduate business school is accredited by:

AACSB International

SCHOOL BASICS

Graduate business school enrollment:

Total: 961
Full-Time MBA: 231
Part-time MBA: 425
Executive MBA: 181
PhD Program: 0

Graduate degree programs:

Master of Accounting

Other graduate degree programs:

Master of Science in Management; Master of Science in Entrepreneurship

ADMISSIONS

Rolling admissions?

Yes

GMAT Required?

If applicants are not required to take the GMAT, how are EMBA applicants' quantitative abilities checked before enrollment?

Transcripts are reviewed for quantitative sujbect matter and grades. Candidates are also directed to online or community college courses.

Middle 80% range of GMAT scores:

N/A

Is the TOEFL required for non-English speakers?

Application fee:

$ 100

Number of applications to the newest class:

240

Applicants accepted:

55 %

Admitted applicants enrolled:

85 %

Reapplicants from prior years:

11 %

Applicants wait-listed during the last admissions cycle:

Applicant interviews are:

Required

Applicants (admitted and denied) who were interviewed:

100 %

Admitted applicants who were interviewed:

100 %

CLASS PROFILE

EMBA students in newest entering class who are:

Female: 19 %
International: 8 %

Entering students are from the following regions:

Africa : 0 %
Asia: 5 %
Eastern Europe and Central Asia: 1 %
Latin America and the Caribbean: 1 %
Middle East: 0 %
North America: 92 %
Oceania : 0 %
Western Europe: 1 %
Dual citizenship: 3 %

Entering North American citizens are from the following regions:

Southwest: 99 %
South: 1 %

U.S. students in newest entering class who are:

African American: 5 %
Asian American: 15 %
Hispanic or Latino American: 9 %
White (Non-Hispanic): 71 %

Average months of work experience:

180

Middle 80% range work experience, months:

From: 96
To: 264

Average age:

Middle 80% age range:

From: 29
To: 46

Work background:

Have advanced degrees: 22 %
Work in the nonprofit sector: 0 %
Have title of president, CEO, or chairman: 5 %

EMBA students living within 45 miles of campus:

91 %

Average base salary for new EMBA entrant:

$ 128,000

Middle 80% base salary range:

Low: $ 70,800
High: $ 200,000

Students work in these functional categories:

Consulting: 3 %
Finance/Accounting: 6 %
General Management : 25 %
Human Resources: 1 %
Marketing/Sales: 27 %
Management Information Systems : 9 %
Operations/Logistics: 20 %
Other: 9 %

Students work in these industries:

Consulting: 8 %
Consumer Products: 20 %
Financial Services: 11 %
Government: 5 %
Manufacturing: 9 %
Media/Entertainment: 0 %
Non-Profit: 0 %
Petroleum/Energy: 2 %
Pharmaceutical/Biotechnology/Health Care: 15 %
Real Estate: 5 %
Technology: 16 %
Other: 9 %

Top organizations sending students:

TI
Raytheon
FedEx
Baylor
JCPenney

FINANCIAL AID

EMBAs receiving financial aid through school:

47 %

Does the school offer a guaranteed loan to EMBAs, regardless of nationality?

Academics & Lifestyle

FACULTY

Faculty employed by the B-school:

127

Full-time faculty:

Tenured: 40
Non-Tenured: 40

Adjunct/Visiting Faculty:

Tenured: 0
Non-Tenured: 3

Women on Faculty:

Tenured: 6
Non-Tenured: 16

Minority Faculty:

Tenured: 11
Non-Tenured: 14

International Faculty:

Tenured: 5
Non-Tenured: 14

Faculty with PhDs:

Tenured: 39
Non-Tenured: 36

Faculty who are also members of company boards of directors or advisors:

19 %

Faculty who have owned their own business:

24 %

STUDENT LIFE

Does the program include a mandatory international trip or project?

Yes

Description:

Companies are selected from students in the program to be part of the consulting project. Students research and determine the company’s viability of doing business in other countries. An executive summary of results is presented to the company.

Does the school offer pre-program orientation for all EMBA participants?

Yes

Does the school offer temporary housing/accommodations for EMBA participants?

Do EMBAs have access to a health club or gym?

Yes

Special student/home/work/life initiatives:

The Cox EMBA program added a “Managing Conflict” session to orientation. This session pairs up new students with continuing students so that new students can benchmark and learn from the continuing students’ experiences.

How far away from a major airport are most EMBA classes held? (miles)

TEACHING/ACADEMICS

Teaching methods:

Case Study: 30 %
Experiential Learning: 10 %
Lectures: 25 %
Simulations: 10 %
Team Projects: 25 %

Faculty also teaching in full-time program:

82 %

Tenured/tenure-track EMBA faculty:

70 %

Faculty with at least five years of full-time corporate experience:

44 %

Average class size, core EMBA class:

Average class size, EMBA electives:

Elective courses:

Estimated hours per week in class and outside classwork:

Hours per week in class: 8
Hours per week outside of class spent on classwork: 20

Last revision of core EMBA curriculum:

2006

Distance-learning EMBA via the Internet, videoconferencing, or some other medium?

Description:

N/A

Graduation Requirements:

Students must have attended a minimum number of classes

Students must have earned a pre-determined GPA/letter grade average

Class participation accounts for some percentage of students' grades

Write a complete business plan

Domestic partnerships or in-house EMBA programs:

N/A

In-house EMBA programs provided for companies:

TECHNOLOGY

Technology improvements in the last three academic years:

The wireless network, and overall network infrastructure, has been completely updated to include improved information security and intrusion prevention. We have updated our teaching technology in all areas from virtual whiteboards to television studios. Our general technology focus continues to be the augmentation and enhancement of our academic programs – with an extremely strong focus on customer service.

Alumni Affairs & Careers

B-SCHOOL ALUMNI

Living MBA alumni:

11,249

Active MBA alumni clubs:

Countries in which MBA clubs exist:

Living MBA alumni who gave in past year:

11 %

Mean gift from MBA alumni:

$ 3,352

Median gift from MBA alumni:

$ 100

Did school receive an individual gift in excess of $10 million in the past academic year?

Business school endowment

$ 146,091,834

Does the main university offer career placement services for alumni?

Yes

Does the main university have an alumni networking Web site?

Yes

University alumni networking site:

http://www.smucoxalumni.com

Does the B-School have an alumni networking Web site?

Yes

Do current MBA students have access to an alumni database?

Yes

CAREER SERVICES

Does the school offer EMBA students access to the career services office?

Yes

Does the school allow its EMBA students to interview on campus with corporate recruiters targeting executives for full-time jobs?

SCHOOL COMMENTS

Additional school comments:

N/A

Graduate Comments

The professors were the most experienced in their fields and were by far the best teachers I have ever known. The Cox School's reputation and professional network are second to none.

The EMBA instructors were passionate about teaching and research, and most important, they appeared to enjoy sharing their knowledge in a classroom setting. They were always prepared with materials that were updated for current events and encompassed the latest research in their respective fields. Additionally, the professors always made themselves available after hours as needed. They knew what the others professors were teaching (or had taught) and would tie their lectures with these other principles in order to add to the overall process. In evaluating the professors as a whole, I find no weaknesses and leave the program with a true respect for their dedication to the EMBA program.

SMU has a highly regarded program and a robust alumni network. There isn't another program in the area that comes close.

The technology present in the classrooms is second to none. The facilities are new and fantastic. The research and materials used were current. Interaction with fellow classmates was widely used, and the professors encouraged interaction.

The organization of the program was fantastic. Breakfast and lunch, snacks and drinks were provided daily during classes so you did not have to go off-campus in search of food. Books were put into a mailbox for each semester, guest speakers were invited to come and share real-life experiences, and all handouts were available to be printed and mailed to your house through an online program.

I thought the program was great and will help my career in the future. I cannot stress enough the importance of quality faculty and fellow students. We had some of the leading professors in each field, who had academic credibility and real-world experience, along with senior business leaders in the program. This was by far the most impressive part of the SMU program.

I would select instructors who are great teachers and focus less on their academic credentials. The opposite only happened in a couple of courses so I don't see it as a major issue, but addressing this would be a positive thing for the program.

Strengths: Instructors' mix of academic and professional experience, the ways they related material to the real world, and their ability to teach at the appropriate level. Weaknesses: While the finance and accounting professors did a good job of providing a consolidated, organized curriculum between them, the overall faculty did not appear to have put a cohesive and complimentary two-year teaching plan together.

I wanted a rigorous program, and that is exactly what I got. While going through it, I sometimes wished the curriculum was less analytical and moved at a slower pace, but now that I'm on the other side I'm grateful for the experience. Unlike some other programs, SMU told me up front they expected more out of us as EMBAS than from the part-time MBAs or even resident MBA students. The pressure of potentially not making the cut (not everyone did) wasn't fun, but having completed the program successfully I feel more confident in what I learned and where I stack up against the competition as a result.

Overall the program was excellent. One area that was not addressed is e-Commerce, and if it could be incorporated into the curriculum, the breadth of coverage would be phenomenal.

The international experience and exposure was incredible, life-changing, and eye-opening. Truly an incredible program and I miss it. I intend to stay connected and involved with the school.

A possible improvement would be making it simpler to get to online materials and access to classroom videos for review if necessary.

An overall increase in some disciplines of the curriculum is needed, such as operations and decision modeling. The leadership classes and the organizational behavior were unnecessary and overly theoretical and could have been supplanted with more academic topics. Also, the international business component was a little lacking for the money that was required to travel.

In this day of corporate evil and scandal, a program cannot overemphasize corporate ethics, yet there was no ethics course in this EMBA. Incomprehensible. Strangely, I was pleased with this program, and as it was my third masters I know that they did a good job, but B-schools must set a new standard of morality and ethics for the corporate world as the status quo simply will not do.

The only thing I would have liked would be to have our own recruitment office since the current recruitment is very focused on full-time MBAs.