Is there a clear ranking of the PT programs at the NYC-area business schools? After NYU's Stern, is there a clear difference in the educational quality and job placement statistics between CUNY Baruch's Zicklin in contrast to Hofstra's Zarb? Fordham? Pace's Lubin School of Business?

Is there significant variation by program? My interest is in human resources and/or general management.
Thanks...

Business Week's ranking of part-time MBAs in the Northeast includes schools in NYC: http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/rankings/

So, according to BW, that leaves these in and around NYC:

NYU (ranked #15)
Binghamton (#37)
Fordham (ranked #52)
Rutgers - Newark/New Brunswick (#67)
Seton Hall (#88)

Unranked:
Baruch
Pace
St. John's
Iona
New York Institute of Technology

Hofstra is listed, but I couldn't find a part-time program listed on this site or their website.

I also found a few others (AACSB-accredited):
Adelphi
New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT)

Robbie,
There are definitely differences in the part-time programs. Keep in mind that the curriculum and the professors for many of these part-time programs are the same as for the full-time programs. The biggest difference often lies with access to career services and placement. Most often the full-time students receive priority to these offices. However, schools such as NYU have recently hired staff to work exclusively with their part-time students.

There are not many schools in the area that do offer Human Resource Management as a concentration, but some schools do offer customized concentrations. For example, Rutgers does not offer HR management as a concentration, but there is a Master's in HR management program at Rutgers. Students will gain permission from that program to take courses and will use those credits to 'customize' their concentration.

I would recommend first finding programs that offer your concentration and then narrowing down your options.

Stephan Kolodiy
Admissions Officer
Rutgers Business School - Newark and New Brunswick
www.business.rutgers.edu

<blockquote>I would recommend first finding programs that offer your concentration and then narrowing down your options.</blockquote>
Thanks Stephan for weighing in. It seems like people on this message board usually advise that a general MBA is better than doing one with a concentration, in that a general one will provide a more diverse skillset and be more adaptable in the long run. Can you elaborate on what the benefits of an MBA with a concentration in general?

My pleasure Ralph. I would agree that a general MBA will provide a more diverse skillset, but for students who absolutely know what they want to study and where they want their career to go, a concentration is something that can set them apart from other applicants simply because they have that extra specialization. However, if a student is unsure of what they eventually want to do with their MBA, a general MBA is certainly the better way to go. Here at Rutgers, our full-time students have to choose a concentration (part-time students do not). However, it is a 60 credit program and the concentration is only 15-18 credits out of those 60, so students are still getting a very diverse skillset even with that concentration.

Stephan Kolodiy
Admissions Officer
Rutgers Business School
www.business.rutgers.edu

Thank you all for getting back to me. I'm now looking a little broader and examining the possibility of combining the specialized classes of a masters degree in Human Resources with the broad business education of an MBA. With the programs I've looked at, it appears that there's a good deal of overlap and the combined degrees wouldn't take much longer than the regular PT MBA.