NYU Jumps Into Online MiM Space, Looking To Dominate

P&Q: What can you tell us about how long this has been in the making?

Kim Corfman: A couple of years from concept to where we are now, I’d say. We wanted to make sure we were very clear on how we wanted to position it, who we wanted to target, where there were gaps in the market. So it took us that long to decide really who we wanted to target. And we’ve obviously been working on creating the online program itself, which is a very different endeavor. We have five online certificate programs which have been very successful. Just in the last two years, we’ve had something like 1,500 students go through them from more than 100 countries from all over the world. And besides that, we have the online course development part down quite well.

Who’s the ideal applicant and/or student for this program?

The people we think will benefit most from this are pre-experienced people who do not have business degrees. So, liberal arts, science, what have you who know they want to work in business, and maybe probably are — because many do — and who realize they want to get the business basics, but perhaps they aren’t ready for an MBA, or maybe they want to go to an MBA program that requires experience. So this is a great way for them to get the basics — and then they also have the option of applying the credits toward a part-time MBA at Stern if they decide later that’s what they want to do.

What can you tell us about the application process? Are you going to require a GMAT or GRE?

It’s going to look very much like our MBA application. It requires a GMAT or a GRE, essay, recommendation — our admission standards are very similar. The only real difference is, these students will not have had, in most cases we expect, significant work experience. Although we’re open to people who didn’t get business degrees when they were junior in their careers and have decided they want to do that now.

The other part of this that is important to emphasize is, in almost no functional area in business can you get away with not being able to use and understand data. So we’ve put a greater emphasis in this program on analytics. These aren’t going to be programmers, they’re not engineers, but these are intelligent consumers and — somewhat — producers of analytics. So that’s another reason why it might appeal to people who have a bit more experience.

The Master of Management doesn’t have a big foothold in the U.S. yet. Was that something that played into the calculations in launching this? 

Well, it hasn’t caught on in the U.S. as well as in, basically, the rest of the world. It’s very common, as you know, in Europe and Asia. There really are no top programs, top business schools, that offer a Master of Management online. So in a couple of ways, it’s unique. We like the idea of appealing to a much broader audience geographically. We do that with our face-to-face programs when they’re full-time, obviously, but this is a part-time program and we expect to be able to draw from all over the world.

What are your expectations, what are your hopes, for the students who complete this degree?

I’m hoping that they continue in either the careers they’ve started out in, or move to business, and do exceptionally well because they had this great foundation. And they can convince their employers and market themselves to companies that already understand that being numerate and having more quantitative skills in all areas is valuable. And I hope some of them decide to join us for an MBA, if not right after the program, then someday.

Are you expecting a lot of students to do that?

That’s a little hard to predict because they’d have to be willing to move to the area, or already live here. So, it will depend on how global our student body is. Given our experience with the certificates, we expect it to be pretty global, especially since it’s all online, with the exception of two residential immersions, which we strongly encourage, but they are optional. If someone cannot come, we will find an alternative. So it really is possible to do it from anywhere.

What can you tell me about the immersions? Are they spaced out, or what point during the 20 months will each of those be?

There are two of them. One is almost at the very beginning, very close to the beginning. They are long weekends, Friday through Sunday. The first one has a large orientation component, and it also has a face-to-face component. One of the courses that really does benefit from more interaction, the first one will be Communication, so they’ll have experience presenting face-to-face. The second immersion is exactly a year later, and in that one they will be doing sections of two other courses that are very interactive. One of them is Negotiations, and the other one is Professional Responsibility. It will also give them the chance to network with their classmates and with the students who have joined the program the year after them.

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