Smith School of Business

-The program was flexible both in the type of classes available and in accommodating to full time working students. The quality of education was great along with the quality of students.

-While I gained a lot from the program, the expenses were so high that I'm now dreading the student loans I'll be paying back for many years into the future. My goal was to learn how to start a company and even though entrepreneurship classes were available and I did well in them, they still did not leave me with the confidence that I would be able to start a company and be successful.

-The cohort that I started with was both serious about their MBA's and careers as well as friendly, easy to work with, and were close friends by the end of the program.

-Maryland's MBA program would be improved by increased attention to maintaining the quality of their educators and current staff. Furthermore, with the current state of the economy, it is even more important to select the best students from across the country, maximizing the diversity of backgrounds and skill sets.

-Although enrollment is large, the Smith School does a good job of tailoring education to individual students through a combination of flexible instructor office hours and interactive websites.

-The career services and placement was the single greatest failure of the program. A mechanism to help career changers was completely lacking at the school and the limited networking opportunities due to the lack of diversity in the student body really made a career change impossible. In all fairness though, the finance crash certainly didn't help either.

-Flexibility of multiple campuses allow for some classes to be taken after work, others on weekends, and all be convenient without compromising quality. Classmates were extremely diverse with regard to nationality, industry, experience, and interests -- made for intense but friendly in-class and project debates. Professors were above expectations, with few exceptions.

-The registration process was abysmal. There were consistent problems each year with the system that they used. The school also had issues with web properties - there were too many and they were very confusing to navigate. It would have been helpful to have a central resource for all online properties.

-The program is designed to be very applicable to real world situations. This enables you to garner skills needed to take the next step in your career.

-I would want to see more effective job placement services. Although everyone in part-time program has a job, some students wanted to do a career switch or change to a different company. The school's career services are available to part-time students. But, I want to see more personalize services in job placements area. The school has a good career advice and counseling services though.

-My MBA provided me with the academic knowledge I expected, and Part-Time classes were taught primarily by full-time highly accomplished Business School faculty. Additionally, the access to all the school's career services was very good and helped me find a position in line with my expectations.

-I wish the University was a little more selective in their enrollment. Currently it seems like they are going for volume and treating the part time program as a cash cow. If they reduce the total number of students then they could focus more on each individual student.

-The Smith MBA program is the best in the DC region. I enrolled in the accelerated version of the program, and felt that even in its current format it was too long (20 months). A 12-15 month program would be ideal given the duality of time commitments to work and the degree. If anything, that's what I would have liked to be changed.

-More school sponsored events that cater to the part time students with speakers or events that occur at times that work for the Part time students.

-Students can learn things and develop general management knowledge and skills from any MBA programs. But, Smith school's leadership and entrepreneurship development program, support structure and facilities, curriculum and culture are really strong and effective.

-There were three campuses at Smith. There could have been more finance classes offered in the Baltimore (my home) campus. Had to travel to take a few classes I really wanted.

-The caliber of teaching far exceeded my expectations with professors that had a combination of real world and academic backgrounds. They carried a passion to teach you the material while remaining flexible with your work schedule.