Earning an MBA is one of the fastest ways for up-and-coming business leaders to get a jump start on their professional career. And in metros like San Francisco, one of the country’s biggest hubs for startups and entrepreneurship, moving fast enough to get in on the ground level may open the door to life-changing opportunities.
The numbers don’t lie: Top MBA programs in San Francisco like Babson College of San Francisco’s Olin Graduate School of Business boast job placement rates of 82 percent within three months after graduation. The faster you can get that MBA degree in your hand, the faster you can get to that job offer.
Thankfully, many business schools in San Francisco offer accelerated or one-year MBA programs that allow dedicated students to move even faster toward that all-important degree. We’ve rounded up the fastest MBA degrees in San Francisco below.
F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business- Babson College San Francisco
Babson’s F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business offers a one-year MBA program, which covers the same courses and resources as the full-time program but can be completed in just 12 months. Students in the program will take core courses as a cohort, which the program hopes will encourage strong professional connections throughout the year the students are together. Electives, however, can be taken alongside students in the two-year MBA and evening MBA programs, further expanding their professional network.
Students in the one-year MBA will also take part in Babson’s Signature Learning Experiences, experiential courses that offer hands-on experience through simulations, self-reflection, and action-learning projects.
Lucas Graduate School of Business- San Jose State University
The accelerated early-career MBA at San Jose State’s Lucas Graduate School of Business can be completed in as little as 12 months. An added bonus of the program? Not only can the accelerated MBA be completed in half the time of the school’s two-year MBA program, but it also costs significantly less. The program is slightly more intense than the full-time MBA, however, with two to three courses per session, as opposed to just one or two.
The early-career MBA at at Lucas is designed for students in the first five years of their professional career. Students can choose to pursue the degree full time, part time, or on the accelerated track, each of which allows students to pursue an internship. The program is great for students looking to change their career path- no professional experience is required to apply, and although a four-year bachelors degree is necessary for acceptance, students do not need to have majored in business to be considered.
San Francisco State University College of Business
The San Francisco State University College of Business offers a number of potential ways to earn an MBA, including flexible, fast-track and bridge options. Each of these three programs can be completed in as little as 12 months.
The flexible MBA is geared toward individuals who work full time but also plan to pursue their degree on a full-time basis. The flex program allows students with a four-year bachelor’s degree to design their own schedule, with classes typically taking place in the afternoon and evening. Depending on the schedule each student creates, the program can be completed in anywhere between 12 and 36 months. For students in the fast-track program, the whole process of earning an MBA is simply made faster. Just 10 courses are required to graduate, typically taking around one year to complete. Finally, international students looking for an accelerated program in the States will find SFSU’s bridge MBA to be a perfect fit. The bridge MBA is tailored to those with a three-year bachelor’s degree from a non-U.S. university and gives students the opportunity to complete six courses at SFSU over the course of the year before transferring the courses to the university’s MBA program.
Executive MBA Programs
For those with several years of work experience looking to quickly complete a degree, the best path may be an executive MBA program. Built around the lives of busy, working professionals, and designed to be flexible and fast, most executive MBA programs can be completed in well under the typical two-year length of most full-time MBAs. At top San Francisco universities like the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, an executive MBA can be completed in as little as 19 months while learning from the same world-renowned Berkeley faculty as students in the full-time program.