From your experience, please give us more information about the level of the course work.  Is SMC just a place to buy a DBA or do they provide a real learning environment.  I look at their required course work.  It seems a little bit weak in terms of rigors and content. 

Steve mentioned accreditation, what is really the difference between institution and what SMC is accreditated for (re AACSB)

 

Thanks

 

 

I should add that Universidad Mayor is a candidate for accreditation with Middle States Commission on Higher Education (one of the six regional accreditors in the U.S.)  A while ago I called MSCHE and asked whether this program would be considered institutionally accredited should Universidad Mayor's bid for MSCHE accreditation succeed.  They said yes, it would.  So that's encouraging, although it's important to note that they don't have that accreditation yet, so someone entering the program now is inherently taking a risk.

SMC, meanwhile, does not have institutional accreditation at all, either through an American agency or through membership in the association of Swiss universities that is considered the equivalent.  For this reason its degrees are not recognized by major Swiss universities, and that means that someone trying to get a DBA from SMC evaluated as the equivalent of an accredited American degree might have a problem, even though its business programs are programatically accredited by ACBSP.

Note that SMC is not accredited by AACSB, which is a different business program accreditor from ACBSP.

And yes, this is all confusing!

-=Steve=-
 

Gentlmen: The Swiss Education System does not recognize it but yet the Bologan Treaty does. I am a Canadian in the province of Alberta that does not recognize SMC but yet the ACBSP recognized it in the states but the 6 regional accreditation boards do not. I have an undergrad in Business and Masters of Leadership in Technology. I am fully committed to SMC for the DBA program because of its accreditation with ACBSP.  I am not sure the DET accreditation pulls as much weight. By the way, there are no online AACSB schools offering Doctorates. My prediction, and I am marketing major, they will be there too.

Zaboss:

Gentlmen: The Swiss Education System does not recognize it but yet the Bologan Treaty does. I am a Canadian in the province of Alberta that does not recognize SMC but yet the ACBSP recognized it in the states but the 6 regional accreditation boards do not. I have an undergrad in Business and Masters of Leadership in Technology. I am fully committed to SMC for the DBA program because of its accreditation with ACBSP.  I am not sure the DET accreditation pulls as much weight.

It's not that the U.S. regional accreditors don't recognize SMC, it's that SMC hasn't applied for accreditation with any of them -- not that it necessarily should as a foreign school.

The more important recognition here would be from foreign transcript evaluators like AACRAO and members of NACES, which will all want to know whether SMC's credentially are recognized by other Swiss universities.  Since the answer is no, that's a problem for anyone who want to use SMC credentials in the U.S.

Zaboss:

By the way, there are no online AACSB schools offering Doctorates. My prediction, and I am marketing major, they will be there too.

I believe that one can do a distance doctorate in business through the University of Manchester and Aston University in the UK, the University of Grenoble in France, and as of this year the University of Florida.  All are accredited by AACSB.

-=Steve=- 

From my experience (started Dual DBA of SMC and Universidad Mayor since 5 months), i must admit the work load is high. The supervisors are very committed.. I really was pleased (and surprised) as I sent back the first assignment to the supervisor that i got one day after a thorough Feedback with helpful remarks and recommendations. The supervisor will define a delivery plan, once you begin working on a certain module...and believe me...they contact you and remind you to stick to your delivery plans....

It is a mixture of theoretical, research and practical work with a high portion of intensive case studies on several themes...

I had a MBA from a world class business school (Top ten ranking worldwide, with all possible accreditations)...and I must admit, the assistance I am getting now from SMC is considerably better than i had in that school...

it now depends on how risk-averse one wishes / is ready to be. I am living in Germany, and I am pretty sure, that in the near future SMC will be recognized in Switzerland.... 

My personal motivation, was not only to get a title or degree (although the degree also matters for me!), it is more to get specialized in one subject area (in my case corporate finance)... The MBA gave me a general and borad understanding of several subjects and now I am investing my time and effort to specialize...

 

I hope this would help!

 

Samuel 

   

I should add that it may seem like I'm being really hard on SMC, but I do believe it's a perfectly legitimate school.  My only concern is that some students may have trouble with international recognition of its credentials, especially when it comes to American foreign transcript evaluators.  I hope that can be resolved, because they do seem to offer a good program at a reasonable tuition rate.

-=Steve=- 

ACBSP accredited but not regionally or equivalent accredited.  Now I've seen it all.

Cajun:

ACBSP accredited but not regionally or equivalent accredited.  Now I've seen it all.

Makes it tough either to recommend them or to reject them out of hand, doesn't it?

-=Steve=-