Gordon Ford College of Business News

The Gordon Ford College of Business Professional MBA (PMBA) program has been ranked in the top 5 percent among MBA programs for a second time in three years.

Graduating students from MBA programs across the United States take the MBA Major Field Test, a nationally standardized exam, each year to see how their programs rank on learning.  In 2011 PMBA students at WKU also scored in the top 5 percent on the assessment.

WKU’s PMBA program is an executive MBA which meets on alternate Saturdays and is geared toward mid to upper level managers, professionals and entrepreneurs with at least five years experience.  The scores on the MBA Major Field Test in 2012 were also high, ranking WKU’s PMBA in the top 25 percent.  This test is written by the same organization that also administers the SAT, GRE, TOEFL and PRAXIS exams.

“These high scores mean that our PMBA program has repeatedly demonstrated that it is now one of the nation’s elite program in terms of what graduates get from the program,” said Bob Hatfield, GFCB Associate Dean of Graduate Programs and Research.

“Our PMBA program offers very high quality in a convenient format at multiple locations with small class sizes and affordable tuition.”

The PMBA program meets in Bowling Green and Owensboro, and is currently forming a cohort in Elizabethtown.

“As an applied college of business, the faculty of the Gordon Ford College of Business are dedicated to providing excellent training for the business leaders of today and tomorrow,” Dean Jeff Katz said. “We are very proud of the high level of student learning in our Professional MBA program that was recently reported by the MBA Major Field Test and the strong engagement with our business community partners.”

WKU also offers a full-time daytime MBA program from which students graduate in just one year.  For the first time these full-time students also ranked in the top 20 percent in the nation.

“We are very proud that we have seen such improvement in the scores of our full-time MBA students over the past few years,” said April Schleig, MBA Advisor and Admissions Director.  “Our full-time program now joins our professional program as one of the top programs for learning in the U.S.  We have an excellent faculty and talented students working together to learn an applied curriculum.”

WKU has a third MBA option, the Online MBA.  Graduates from the Online MBA have also scored very well in the past but do not take the exam until December.