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Interview: Cynthia Wharton of South Carolina Moore

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Cynthia Wharton

Cynthia Wharton

For prospective students in their thirties and forties, an MBA can be a great way to remarket yourself, says Cynthia Wharton, director of Employer Recruitment and Outreach at the Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina.

Do you get a lot of older students in your MBA programs?

Traditionally, we have several programs that attract older students. Part-time MBA students have the opportunity to work; classes are in the evenings and on weekends. Students may want to gain additional knowledge through an MBA program, but not let go of a job if they have one. In other instances, students may want to be in job-search mode during the day and continue with their schooling at night.

In our traditional MBA program, we do see some older students come through. The mean age is around 27-28 at Moore. Some years it can be a bit higher or lower. We aim to find students with at least two to four years of work experience.
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Interview: Zelon Crawford of Temple-Fox

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Zelon Crawford

Going back to school can be a jolt if you’ve been out for a decade or more. We got some tips from Zelon Crawford, director of Graduate Career Management and Corporate Relations at Temple University’s Fox School of Business and Management.

Would you recommend part-time MBAs over a full-time program for prospective students in their thirties or forties?

Full-time students tend to be younger. Some of the older students do get frustrated in this environment. I would recommend a part-time program to older students. Because of the varied age range of students, older students acclimate to the part-time or EMBA programs. I would encourage that.

Part-time students also do not want to leave their companies and want to navigate the corporate structure internally. Sometimes they want to do something more entrepreneurial, change industries or use the MBA as another credential. For the full-time program, there is a required internship in the summer. For older students who are currently working, they generally are not interested in participating in the internship component.

What should older students look for in an MBA program?

Although there is nothing definitely specific to age, older students may want to investigate informal tutoring services. Sometimes students find it difficult to adjust to statistics, economics, etc. Other courses are more straightforward, but for some courses older students may need extra help. However, this advice is relevant for other students of any age.
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Book Review: An Outsider at Harvard

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Philip Delves Broughton
Ahead of the Curve: Two Years at Harvard Business School
Penguin, 2008

Ahead of the Curve is a first-hand account of how a relative outsider – a British journalist named Philip Delves Broughton – got into and graduated from Harvard Business School. It is a quick and amusing read that will be of interest to people considering business school, particularly those without the “conventional” MBA resumé.

At HBS, Delves Broughton’s resumé probably qualifies as unconventional. In 2004, he quit his job as Paris bureau chief of the Daily Telegraph. His experience at the paper – including leading the coverage of the September 11 attacks in New York – combined with good GMAT scores helped get him into HBS, probably the most famous business school in the world.

For much of the first half of the book, Delves Broughton plays catch up to the jargon and spreadsheet wizardry of his business-seasoned classmates. Eventually he does catch up, showing that with some hard work, there is hope – even someone who spent their university years reading Greek classics rather than macroeconomics.

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