Grand Canyon University Reviews of Master's in MBA

Great program at a great price. The student services and support were lacking, but if you’re getting an MBA you are probably the type of person who doesn’t need a lot of guidance on classes and scheduling. If you are not a good academic writer and researcher, struggle with grammar, and generally struggle to put solid ideas into writing, you will struggle. As a working professional managing a nursing home during a pandemic, it took a lot of work to finish but finishing was definitely possible. The... Read More flexibility for working professionals is great. The Colangelo School of Business, in my opinion, will rise in prestige and reputation. It gave me a lot of the tools to take my career to the next level. The biggest takeaways for me were the financial projections, budgeting, and accounting practices. It was also heavy on leadership theory and provided a lot of good content. I was accepted to ASU and U of A as well, and I do not regret for a moment going with GCU. I’d choose it all over again.

I attended GCU from 2016 to 2018 for my first Masters and will graduate with my 2nd master in 2019 with a MSL. I found the coursework challenging and educational. I have found that like most things in life, you get what you put into it. The support from instructors is minimal, so I spent hours in 3rd party tutoring to keep on pace. For myself , the MBA required 10 to 30 hours of work per week on top of working and family life. I feel that I received a quality education and use most of the knowledge... Read More earned in class in my professional career. My ssa and counselor were outstanding. I attended totally online. It is up to the student to get the most out of your classes. If your motivated to earn a grad degree, GCU is great. If your expecting to get assistance from instructors or rely on the organization, this is not for you.

After starting my education with GCU I found out after the fact that this college hires mostly adjunct professors to teach their online classes. These are people who have no experience teaching. Some times you will get a great teacher but the majority of the time it will be other full-time working professionals who are part-time adjunct professors teaching to make extra money. They are not full time faculty nor are they set up for tenure. I wish I had know what this meant prior to enrolling online... Read More for my master's degree. If you are lucky enough to get a full time faculty professor they are GREAT and worth every penny! As for the adjunct professors they are not worth half of what I am paying to get my master's degree.

Grand Canyon University is a great option for those seeing a lot of flexibility with pursuing an MBA. The online program, while structured, makes it possible to manage a busy work and learning schedule. For graduate students, please expect to do your learning all on your own. There are no instructor led lectures, though professors do include lecture notes for some courses. A significant amount of reading and research is required for success. Each course is compartmentalized into one week study and... Read More assignment periods. This makes it possible for one to learn at their own pace and complete assignments anytime during that scheduled week. Since GCU does not require GMAT for admission, some student's learning levels don't quite meet graduate level standards. One can see that in their short posts or class contributions. Normally this is not a challenge until you are assigned to work as groups to complete projects. Some of the less adept students necessitate greater work from the more advanced students in order to make the project a success. In the end I found that most of my group projects earned lower grades than my own work due to this limitation. I also found it difficult to coordinate schedules with my group members, especially when we are spread out across several time zones. Proficiency in MS Word, Excel and PowerPoint are important, if not essential for some classes. Expect to spend a lot of time reading the textbooks. Students with strong financial, statistical, and accounting backgrounds will likely have the most success. Finally, I have found that, for the most part, the professors are quick to respond to your questions, willing to take phone calls, and provide good quality feedback on your work. There are some exceptions, but the most critical courses typically have the most advanced instructors willing to help succeed. I am a seasoned financial executive and found that the program pushed me to learn and succeed.

I just graduated in December with an MBA. A lot of students struggled primarily because the business school does NOT require the GMAT therefore many student do not have the requisite math or English skills to succeed nor did thy have any real world work experience. I had several classmates that had no business being enrolled in a graduate level business program (no pun intended lol). The most successful students have either financial (accounting, finance, etc), engineering, or healthcare background... Read More (RN, PT, etc). In addition, all the successful students that I worked with were either employed and needed the degree for promotion or had a specific plan after graduation. Here are some of the big points about GCU's MBA program 1. Relatively inexpensive 2. Can complete entirely online without residency requirements 3. GCU will allow you to accelerate your studies if you're paying cash (I finished the 22 month program in 16 months) 4. It is a self directed educational experience The faculty are NOT there to teach you. They are there to simply grade your work. This is graduate school so there is NO hand holding (unlike a bachelor's program). You must learn the material on your own and find the answers to questions yourself 5. You need to be proficient in Excel, Word and PowerPoint. You should be comfortable with freshman college level math and writing 6. GCU uses a flawed anti-plagirism software package - all assignments must be run through this ridiculous program. I was falsely accused of academic dishonesty. The instructor never had any real proof and when I requested a formal hearing they denied me and just sent me a silly non-disciplinary warning letter. My recommendation for potential MBA students is if you're good at self learning, comfortable with MS Office software, can write a good academic paper, have sufficient basic college level math, have a background in accounting, finance, engineering, medicine, nursing, etc and have sufficient real world work experience then GCU will be a breeze for you. If you are lacking any of the aforementioned then you will struggle dearly and I wouldn't bother enrolling

So far this program has been great for me. The pace of the online MBA program is manageable and the course content appropriate. Group projects are a little challenging for the online classes, but can still be successful. My professors have been very responsive and take the time to provide specific feedback regarding my assignments and posts. In cannot speak for the students having trouble with financial aid and loans as I am not using those services. However, my student services councilor has been... Read More responsive to me when I have questions or need help.

This review is regarding the Colangelo College of Business MBA program as of 2017. I attended both the ASU and UA MBA programs, but had to transfer for different reasons. After taking a break, I decided to attend the GCU MBA program and it was the cheapest. The fact is that no MBA program in Arizona is competitive, especially the ones claiming to be (I'm talking to you ASU). The W.P. Carey MBA from ASU is currently the most expensive and the most over-rated; many of the other students in my cohort... Read More there had GPAs between 2.2 - 2.9 undergraduate GPAs, and were arts majors. The Eller MBA is not much better only by default because it's cheaper. The GCU MBA is the cheapest, with the lowest student to professor ratio. If you're dead-set on getting your MBA in Arizona, then the best return for your money and time is going to be GCU. The single greatest factor holding back GCU is that it's the lowest paying university in Arizona; meaning that the professors are probably in retirement or get something else from working there. I can't speak for the other colleges at GCU, but the Collangelo College of Business is a solid business school and frankly a much better name-sake than the others in Arizona (Collangelo spent many years in Phoenix managing the Phoenix Suns and the Diamondbacks). W.P. Carey was a real-estate tycoon from New York who never did anything in Arizona and Eller was a convenience store tycoon who many give credit for bankrupting the entire Circle K franchise single-handedly. The Collangelo MBA program provided me with a well-informed MBA education because unlike the other business schools in Arizona, the classes at Collangelo were small and engaging. A business school that claims to be something it is not, is not a business school; it's a scam. Therefore, a great MBA program gives you a high return on your investment, doesn't defraud you with inflated numbers and empty promises, and for Arizona, that's the Collangelo MBA. If you're still on the fence, look up the price and rank for an MBA from Washington State University. Shocker.

The MBA program is excellent. After being accepted to the MBA programs at ASU, UA, and GCU I chose to go to GCU because it was cheapest and probably the best quality of the three. ASUs' W.P. Carey MBA is way overpriced (55k) for its low ranking (57th according to US News and 47th to Forbes, 2016) and UAs' Eller MBA is 52k and is ranked in the mid-sixties by several major business journals. GCUs' Collangelo MBA is accredited, costs 30k, and offers emphasis. I've seen all three programs and unless... Read More you're desperate to visit another country during your program (Which ASU and UA will charge plenty extra for) they all offer the same quality for a typical MBA program. Both UA and ASU MBA programs use the same group exercises for example (the Climbing Mount Everest game), and GCUs' MBA program uses the same textbooks as ASUs'. If you're determined to get your MBA in Arizona, be smart and choose the MBA program that will be the most cost effective to save your money. After all, that's what you're paying for an MBA program to teach you.

The overall experience with GCU was a positive one. I'd say 9 out of 10 of my teachers were all great, you get a "meh" one here or there. Only had one that I couldn't stand and was super rude. My original counselor was AWESOME but he went to work somewhere else so I spent the last 6 months of my program dealing with a new counselor who I had no relationship with at all..... it was a bummer. The courses were challenging but manageable. The final two courses of the program were super time consuming!... Read More I did not like that we graduated (i.e. walked) in March but weren't done with classes until June!! So the last few months dragged pretty bad. I definitely am glad I went to GCU to get my Masters, no regrets and I'd do it again.

This school while great on the outside is far behind on quality education. Everyone is getting a cookie-cutter curriculum written program that doesn't allow for professors of knowledge to use there real-world experience. I gained hardly anything that I hadn't already learnt in my undergraduate program. Grad school (atleast at GCU) was a complete let down, I thought I was going to get real-world experience, but more times that not I was being taught by people my own age who had barely graduated from... Read More the program themselves. I believe it would be accurate to say I only had one professor that was an actual tenured PhD. GCU refuses to take action instead they put bandages on all their problems and it made for a horrific learning curve. I feel as if my cohort was the guinea pig for testing new ways of running the program and half the time there wasn't even an existing rule for a question that would come up. I voiced my concerns, but it fell on deaf ears, I was even told that's what you get with a non-research school. I wish them the best and hope for success, because otherwise they are growing way too fast and doesn't look like they know how to handle it. My degree is a $30,000 sheet of paper and now I am stuck with a loan that I will probably never be able to finish paying. This might seem like a poor review and while it is, it isn't a bitter, angry one. I really do hope they get better.