UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School

13. University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill

Kenan-Flagler Business School

Campus Box 3490, McColl Building

Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3490

Admissions: 877-862-3622

Email: emba@unc.edu

Website: http://www.kenan-flagler.unc.edu/programs/emba/index.cfm

Apply Online: https://application.emba.unc.edu/

Given the quality and reputation of UNC’s business school, these EMBA programs are unqualified bargains for a top-ranked MBA. The Kenan-Flagler Business School now has three different options for executives who are trying not to interrupt their careers but still want to earn an MBA degree: there’s the 20-month-long Weekend MBA program which meets Friday and Saturday, twice a month, with two residential immersion weeks, for 20 months.

Then, there’s the OneMBA global program, a novel partnership UNC has forged with four other accredited business schools in Asia, Europe, Mexico, and Brazil. OneMBA classes are held once a month on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday for 21 months. Most classes are held at Lansdowne Conference Center near Washington D.C. and Dulles International Airport. Each OneMBA class has about 100 students from five partner universities of which about 30 are from UNC. And finally there’s a new online program starting in July of 2011 called the MBA@UNC. This later program only requires two years of work experience so it’s likely to have fewer full-fledged executives in the class. Mostly online, the coursework for MBA@UNC has to be completed over a 24-36 month period.

The mainstream weekend program, with a start date in January, brings executive students through a first-year core curriculum of the business fundamentals. Classes start at 9:30 a.m, allowing for a Friday morning commute. Students go home on Saturday after classes end at 4 p.m. In the second year, the school lets you tailor your MBA to fit your career goals. You can select at least 10 elective courses from nearly 30 offered during evenings or weekends, an unusual array of choices for an EMBA program. In fact, you can choose a concentration in marketing, finance, or strategy/leadership.

Meantime, UNC’s OneMBA Class of 2013 will begin with a residential immersion weekend held in Chapel Hill during September 2011. Your UNC OneMBA class will be made up of about 30 students from across the U.S. and Canada. You will begin coursework and get to know your UNC study team. Your partner can join you Saturday evening through Sunday for special partner activities and social events. Beginning in October, once-a-month classes will be held Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Friday classes start at 9:30, so most students fly or drive in Friday morning. Sunday classes end at 3:00, so you will travel home that evening. In addition to classes, most students spend 12-20 hours a week on individual study or team meetings.

You will join students from all the OneMBA partner schools for four weeklong global residencies held on four continents, where you will visit developed and emerging economies. You will participate in classes taught by local professors, visit regional and multinational companies, and meet local business and government leaders. The fall 2011 lineup starts in Washington, D.C. In the spring of 2012, students will go to the Netherlands and an emerging country, such as Turkey. In the fall of that year, they’ll trek to Mexico and Brazil, and finally in the spring of 2013, the class will go to Hong Kong and an emerging country, such as India. UNC’s partner schools include The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Europe’s Rotterdam’s Erasmus University, and the Monterrey Graduate School of Business in Mexico.

Latest Up-to-Date Executive MBA Rankings:

2012 Poets&Quants: 13

2011 BusinessWeek: 11

2011 U.S. News & World Report: 10

2010 The Wall Street Journal: 10

2011 Financial Times: NR

Rankings Analysis: UNC’s Kenan-Flagler School Executive MBA program slipped one place in the 2012 PoetsandQuants’ analysis to a rank of 13th from 12th a year earlier. But the slip had nothing to do with the school’s strength or the quality of its EMBA offerings. All of the three major brands that released EMBA rankings in 2011 kept the Kenan-Flagler programs exactly as they were in their previous rankings. Again, The Financial Times didn’t rank the program at all among its top 100.