Marylhurst University Comments

I enrolled in the Sustainable Business MBA program in January  2010 with a  scheduled graduation in the spring of 2011.  I have over 20 years of business experience, over half of which has been at the VP level and up, for companies such as Gillette, Shell Oil & Levi Strauss.  All this to say, I have a fairly good grip on what companies are looking for from Sustainability as a Business strategy and...Marylhurst University has done an excellent job transferring real world knowledge and skills.  I work with leaders in the academic, environmental, packaging, retail, and consumer products fields each month.  Marylhurst's curriculum is solid and what it lacks, the students fill in with their real world experiences.  Focus on the principles, concepts and learning...the grades follow!  Good luck and all the best.

Just as an FYI to those looking for information: 
The Sustainable MBA is a BRAND NEW PROGRAM for Fall 2010. There won't be much to find in terms of reviews, as the first semester hasn't even finished yet. And there won't be anything in terms of how it helps in the real world because, from my research, they may be the only institution offering anything like this. And the first people in the program have not finished it yet. So if you're wary, wait a few semesters until people can start telling you what it's like.

I am considering applying for the General Administrative MBA. I live in California.  I wonder how this degree would deliver itself in the work force in the California job-market. Any feedback on this from someone who has completed the program??!

I am just starting the application process for the Online MBA at Marylhurst and appreciate all the comments. To ee,I appreciate your comments regarding rigor especially since you have degrees from top notch programs such as Berkeley and NYU. I have researched MBA programs for several months now and Marylhurst seems to be the best value in terms of education and cost. Most programs cost over $40,000 per year and cut out core requirements. As far as accreditation, as a person who is a hiring manager for a large global company, I do not look at the level or type of accreditation. As long as the program is accredited, most employers consider reputation of the school, GPA and content of degree program.

I also am looking at taking the Sustainable MBA. My biggest concern is that they do not seem willing to show what the classes are like, let me talk to any of the professors, or in any way shape or form communicate with those directly involved in the program. This worries me a bit...

Hi Everyone, I am looking at doing my MBA in Sustainable Business at Marylhurst. Anyone doing this program if they can share their experience? Thank you!

Hi All.
I have a BA from Berkeley, and an MFA from NYU and I am starting classes 11 & 12 of my MBA @ MU. I did the 18 month accelerated program. I give the program an extremely high review. The program fit within my work schedule. The professors, work load, and experience were great. Certainly, there were a few glitches, but nothing major. I highly recommend this approach. As I already have a great deal of professional experience, I was not concerned with the accrediting status. Anyway, the program delivered. Now the question is... how do I find an online DBA as good MU? FYI University of Liverpool just started one? Hmmm...

I am looking at marylhurst as well, but for their music program, music therapy. Anybody hear anything about it?

I am currently enrolled in the B.S in  Business Management and I have four classes remaining. I highly recommend this school to any one. The accelerated online program is perfect for working adults. The staff is very flexible and friendly.

I've taken some online undergrad courses. They're OK, but not above good. 

The curriculum is too narrowly focused, and the teachers don't appreciate information that they don't provide by their texts or with the supplement library. I used the Harvard Business Review, the Wall Street Journal and other high quality publications for citations. The faculty doesn't appreciate them.

If you plan to attend this institution, expect that "outside the box thinking" will be frowned upon.

Maybe if you look at the degrees they offer and the blurbs that describe some of the courses, you will see what I mean. Some of the blurbs read more like rants.

If you are a veteran of active duty STAY WAY! If you use TA as I tried the school wants you to pay out of pocket what the TA doesn't cover then tells you that you'll be reimbursed once the VA gets around to sending money which can take up to 60 days. So their semesters are 10 weeks for two classes so you will be paying $1300 out of pocket every two or three months because "you will be reimbursed." There financial aid department is full of immature females who WILL NOT ACCOMIDATE YOU! The admissions and finance never disclose this upon applying and being accepted. You will recieve a bill saying your late on payments. Again, they expect you to pay a lot of money out of pocket even though they will get it from the VA. This apparently isn't required for those using federal financial aid. Oh and even though you tell them your using VA benefits they will constantly send you forms for federal aid. 

As a graduate of the MBA of the Marylhurst online Sustainable Business program, I can attest to positive and negative experiences with the school.

The first four classes -- Principles, Leadership, Natural Resource Economics and Marketing -- were generally well done.

Accounting lacked any focus on sustainability or the Triple Bottom Line. This was the key course where one would expect to learn the fundamental concept of business sustainability.

Finance did have a focus on sustainability but was essentially a financial accounting class.

The concentration courses were generally poorly done. Watch out for the attorneys who are overall the hardest graders in the program.

Statistics was very poorly done, and taught by an instructor who did not understand the math behind the principles. She was very nice and tried to be helpful, but her Master’s degree was in psychology. The answers to several of the quizzes were programmed incorrectly in the learning platform, so even though the answers were correct, they were marked wrong. Statistics had little to none exposure to sustainability.

Modeling and Decision-Making was a joke and in no way matched the course description. There was absolutely no modeling or decision-making through out the entire five weeks of the class. The course turned out to be all about feelings, with New Age concepts that seemed to be very inappropriate for a MBA program.

The capstone course followed the course description, except there were no "panel of experts" reviewing the project. One instructor kept threatening students with “fatal flaws” and stated to several students that they would not pass the course. Yes, this was done publically for all students to read. Ironically, she was the same “love and light” teacher from Modeling and Decision-Making.

The program is set up so that instructors are essentially graders. These graders rarely offered any personal experience related to the course that would have helped with the learning process. This is because very few had any practical experience.

It seemed most instructors were recipients of nepotism and close relationships with Marylhurst management.  For instance, one attorney who taught a class didn’t have the required work experience set by Marylhurst hiring policies. He was hired anyway because he was the brother-in-law of the program director.  His friend in the same office where he worked was also hired.

The student will be punished either by humiliation visible to the entire class or having grades lowered if one disagrees with an instructor viewpoint or if the grader just does not like the student. You have been warned. There is no academic freedom at Marylhurst.

I do not recommend Marylhurst to anyone who is a critical thinking person, who values hearing and learning all sides of an issue, wants a rigorous and challenging curriculum and an overall quality education. My best advice is to STAY FAR AWAY!!

I read your comments after I made mine. We agree, especially on your statement:

"The student will be punished either by humiliation visible to the entire class or having grades lowered if one disagrees with an instructor viewpoint or if the grader just does not like the student. You have been warned. There is no academic freedom at Marylhurst."

Agreed! 

"I do not recommend Marylhurst to anyone who is a critical thinking person, who values hearing and learning all sides of an issue, wants a rigorous and challenging curriculum and an overall quality education."

Also agreed! 

I previously published a positive review of MU on here, but have since graduated with a B.S. in business management. I am a conservative and my views were not tolerated well, especially with one teacher. And you are dead on about the "New Age concepts." MU is basically a liberal indoctrination center. But guess what -- lots of universities are nowadays. 

Brian...I am just looking at Washington State University online MBA and it costs $30,000. Or do you mean a different university / program? It doesn't have a green focus either. 

I am contemplating doing the MBA...but of course still hesitating (accreditation, costs). 

Dale...I was allowed very very few times during my academic career (2 bachelor's degrees) to use non-academic references. Especially in a master's program you should not assume that articles from newspapers are allowed as references.

I am considering an MBA as well although in the green development focus. I too am worried about the IACBE as compared to the AACSB. My question is whether the courses are that good that the learning potential outweighs the perceived lower accreditation?  Thanks

To FL above.  The reason that most of the students are Part Time is that Marylhurst University has designed much of its curriculum for adult learners who work full time.  The concept of Marylhurst is to provide educational opportunities to these adult learners at a pace that is reasonable while they are employed full time. 

I have completed my bachelor's degree at Marylhurst and am currently enrolled in their MBA program.  The courses both undergraduate and graduate are challenging and thought provoking.  In regards to the statements made by Dale, the expectations for academic sources are clearly spelled out in the available course descriptions.  Additionally the online library which I have used for several years now is excellent and easy to use with substantial academic sources available.

Good feedback regarding Marylhusrt.  I'm looking into this school and some others and wonder about accreditation?  Marylhust is accredited by IACBE while the gold standard of B-school accreditation is AACSB.  Washington State Univeristy is has AACSB is approx $14,000 and requires the GMAT.  Marylhurst is approx $23-$25k and does not.  Does those differences matter to a hiring manager?

Marylhurst University may be a brick and mortar institution, but US News & World reported that 3/4 of the roughly 1,000 undergraduate students are PART time...

I got an email from the "enrollment advisor". He's located in an office suite outside of Orlando, FL. They call me once a week about enrolling and you don't have to take the GMAT to enroll...

If you are considering Marylhurst for your MBA, I suggest you ignore the comments from Dale above.  After completing 10 graduate classes with all "A" grades, I can tell you that the Marylhurst program is rigorous but doable.  You will learn about business from teachers that know what they are talking about.  My sense is that this program is comparable to any MBA program in the US.  The only difference is that you get tremendous support as you progress through the program and it is much more convenient compared to other colleges.

IN REFERENCE TO DALE ABOVE: 
It is not true that Marylhurst University does not have a comprehensive library of academic journals accessible online. They certainly do. They have all the same resources to access them online as does the University of South Florida, a respectable public research university. The difference is that MU's online library is much easier to find and use! 

Second, doesn't it go without saying that academic work--especially at the graduate level--requires *academic references*?! What would make a *graduate* student think three pop-mag and newspaper references were enough for a *graduate* level paper?! That shouldn't be acceptable for an undergraduate student either and it isn't at MU. 

MU IS A REAL, BRICK-AND-MORTAR SCHOOL: 
I attended USF before I had to move and started at MU to finish my undergraduate degree. So far, MU is noticeably more rigorous, requiring many more academic papers to write. USF depended more heavily on multiple choice tests. MU depends much more on assessing one's academic work through one's research, writing, and thinking skills. This is "doable" because MU class sizes are small, not 100 students per class as at USF. And our classes are taught by professors with master's and (more often) doctorate degrees from real brick-and-mortar universities, not TAs who only just graduated themselves as at USF. 

It may be that Dale's previous academic experience was not as rigorous as he thought it was and MU was a rude awakening to higher standards.

A vile, vicious, and costly experience at MarylWorst:

In 2009 I completed an M.A. in Mass Communication at NYIT with a perfect 4.0 average.  So (a) I'm not entirely stupid, and (b) I know the difference between first-rate and third-rate academic work.

I enrolled at MarylWorst immediately after finishing my NYIT degree and enthusiastically began my first MBA course.

The instructor in this course graded like a traffic cop -- apparently looking for excuses to "ding" you for points.  OK, I've had instructors like that before.  We all have.  But this was The Traffic Cop Professor from Hell.

Example:  The assignment was to write a paper on an assigned topic, citing at least three business articles as refernces.  Using the online MarlyWorst library, all I could find on this topic were article from Business Week, WSJ, etc.  No academic journal articles.  (And Traffic Cop didn't specify academic sources.)  Guess what?  Points taken off and a reprimand because I didn't mind-read her requirement that the sources MUST be academic journals.

Example:  I have a B.A. in English and an M.A. in Mass Comm. I don't need any "help" with basic grammaar.  Yet this instructor (psychology degree)presumed to "correct" my grammar -- AND GET IT WRONG!  (Yes really.)

At the end of the course, I complained about the relentless, oppressive grading any my "C" grade.  Bear in mind, I had just eachieved 12 consecutive A's at NYIT.

The program director's first reaction was to defend the professor without addressing the substance of my comlaint.  So I went to the president and provost.  They replied with a couple of perfunctory emails and then essentially ignored me.

Finally, the program director and her dean turned vicious and adversarial to the point that I transferred out of the program.

I now attend Ottawa University's online program, where my "A" work is recognized as "A" work and where I am not treated as a low-grade moron.

If you go to MarylWorst and have a problem:  DO NOT COMPLAIN!  Or else!

I only have one comment, All graduate work mus be from Scholarly academic journals or writing. The rest is perfect for undergraduate work but not for graduate work, They did not teach you that at your attended college?  Maybe you should of avoided colloquial writing! my two cents.

I am finishing my MBA program online at Marylhurst University and I have to say that it has been a wonderful program thus far. I would recommend this school to anyone for their MBA.

Great business program that has helped me vastly. Very organized and structured online experience. Highly recommended.

I'm currently enrolled at Marylhurst University and I'll graduate with my Bachelors this coming December. My experience with Marylhurst has been great and I would recommend this school to anyone who is looking for a reputable school. It is a non-profit school and isn't in business to make money, like so many other schools such as, University of Phoenix.

I'm very interested in this school and I would love to read more reviews!

The Marylhurst online MBA is a top-notch program with the reputation of a highly respected brick-and-mortar institution to back its status of being ranked highly by U.S. News and World Report