Foster School of Business

-The best part of the program for me, other than the education, was the access to a vibrant and local Alumni network. My friend or colleagues looking to make a change in career like I did and not looking to move to a different city would benefit greatly from the program. Several events were organized to get students plugged into the investment and business communities present in the area.

-It's a longer program than the alternatives in the area (3 yrs), but it's by far the best. The quality of students and faculty is high. The number of electives offered are high as opposed to some other schools that don't offer electives at all.

-University of Washington's Foster School of Business helped me to dramatically change my life, both in terms of my career and my approach to problem solving in both my personal and professional lives. I don't think the same way anymore; my approach to complex situations and challenges is more focused, less scattered, more systematic, and more reasoned. It was the program that helped me to learn this new way of thinking, so I owe a great deal to Foster and its people. I'd absolutely urge my friends and colleagues to have the same chance to make such a positive change in their lives via the Foster experience.

-More flexibility in first 2 years of program - core class requirements in first 2 years are strict. More opportunities and incentives for part time students to participate in case competitions, while still working full tome and earning course credits.

-There is a lot of emphasis on keeping the Evening program on par with the full time program. This means that class workload was essentially the same for full and part time students. However part time students tended to have full time employment and family obligations. This made the workload relatively more burdensome for part time students than for full time students. The program should explore ways to make the quality of education similar between the two programs without relying on making the workload the same. A different model might be more appropriate for part time students than for full timers.

-The UW Evening MBA is extremely rigorous and rewarding. The caliber of the students in the classroom is extremely high. The team-based environment was really effective.

-I am confident that all MBA programs care more about their ranking and image than their students. While one would think that if they took care of their students, the rankings would be higher. However, the reality is that the office focuses on marketing the program instead of the students that are in the program. Sure they give you some free cake and talk about how great the year will be, but there really isn't a feeling of investment and interest in the students. And after you spent your 2 to 3 years invested in the program, they rely on your desire to make your hard earned degree as appealing as possible to give positive reviews. They don't say anything directly to the students about giving positive reviews, but they are definitely interested in us taking the survey and other students justify gaming the scores to prevent hurting ourselves.

-The quality of the faculty and fellow students at the UW Evening MBA program were very good. The students come from diverse backgrounds and a lot of successful companies like Boeing, Microsoft, Amazon, Starbucks, T-Mobile etc are represented which makes for good depth of discussion in class and exposure to various management styles, industry landscapes, etc.

-Foster's part time MBA program was exceptional, with the only significant drawback being my own limited ability to participate in extracurricular activities due to work commitments. The consideration is then whether a part-time program can provide the same level of immersion as a full time program, and this isn't specific to Foster.

-I would highly recommend the part-time MBA program at the Foster School of Business to any of my friends/colleagues without any hesitation. The quality of education, the quality of students (peers), the flexibility, the excellent facilities, the personalized career services and access to an amazing network of students and alums makes the Foster MBA program one of the top programs.

-Simply said, it combines smart people from diverse backgrounds, with great faculty, a research oriented university and a great student life. Having a diversified (i.e. work experience) student body in Seattle is impressive where there is a lot of tech workers. It enabled me to step out my technology bubble. Several of my friends have gone through Foster and all of them have good tales of their experience.

-The program should get rid of "the forced curve" in grading. I know that certain professors assigned extra work solely for the purpose of helping to distribute the students' grades along the forced curve. That doesn't make any sense to me. If everyone in the class gets 100% on an exam, there shouldn't be any problem with giving everyone in the class an A.

-Professors are good and the course work is interesting. The students are of very high quality and they do challenge you. There are so many ways you can get experience working in the field. Even as a student with a full-time job I was able to participate in field study, case competitions, business plan competition, non-profit leadership work and so on. The staff is very helpful and go out of their way to help you succeed in your career.

-The program should step up the standard in some courses. Finance, Accounting and Marketing are good. But these can be made better. I would have liked to do more cases than just some little assignments. Cases are where we apply the learning, the rest is just formulas.

-My Foster MBA experience was valuable. I enjoyed the learning experience, expanded my knowledge and grasp of business models, and have advanced in my career. The Foster program is well designed, the core classes build on one another, and the subsequent elective requirements are robust. Again, it was an excellent and rewarding experience. I would recommend it to anyone looking to differentiate themselves and move forward in their firm (or advance with a new firm). Indeed, I already have recommended the Foster program to a couple of my peers.