MBA Stack glossary
MBA defined
The language of business school can bury a good decision. Here is a go-to resource for the terms that actually load-bear — formats, admissions, accreditation, rankings, financing, and recruiting.
101 terms 9 clusters Updated 2026
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A
- AACSB It is the name applicants see most often on US program pages. Forbes Advisor and school marketing copy treat…
- ACBSP Employer tuition policies that say "AACSB required" will not treat ACBSP as a synonym. Read the policy.
- Accelerated MBA An accelerated MBA is an MBA that reaches the same degree name on a shorter calendar than the school's…
- Action learning Schools borrow the label from management-development practice. In an MBA it usually looks like a credited…
- Admissions committee The admissions committee is the group inside a business school that decides MBA admits, waitlists, and…
- Alumni network An alumni network is the set of living graduates a business school can mobilize — and the habits that make…
- AMBA AMBA sells itself as a filter on the MBA as a post-experience, generalist degree. The public line is that it…
- Application fee An application fee is the amount a school charges to accept an MBA file. Yale SOM's bulletin has published a…
- Application round An application round is a fixed deadline on a full-time MBA calendar. The school batches every complete file…
B
- Base salary It is the cleanest pay line in the report. It is also incomplete.
- Bloomberg MBA ranking The Bloomberg MBA ranking is Bloomberg Businessweek's list of MBA programs, built largely from surveys of…
- Business school A business school is the faculty, college, or stand-alone institution that delivers management degrees,…
- Business simulation A business simulation is a software model of a firm or market that MBA teams run for several rounds. Each…
C
- Campus trek A campus trek is a student-organized visit to a city or a set of employers. A club flies twenty classmates to…
- Capstone A capstone is the integrative project that closes an MBA. A team takes a live or simulated problem, applies…
- Career services The Financial Times even scores "career services" as an alumni-survey criterion. That score is not a promise…
- Career switcher A career switcher is an MBA student whose post-degree job is in a different function, industry, or both from…
- Case competition A case competition is a timed team event. Students get a packet, build a recommendation, and present to…
- Case method The case method is a classroom form that teaches from a written business situation instead of a chapter of…
- Class profile A class profile is the school's published snapshot of who enrolled in a given MBA class. Typical lines: class…
- Coffee chat A coffee chat is a short, informal conversation with a recruiter, alum, or team member during MBA recruiting.…
- Cohort A cohort is the group of MBA students who enter a program together and share a required path for some stretch…
- Cold call A cold call is an instructor naming a student who did not volunteer and asking that student to open or…
- Company-sponsored They are a real share of some classes. Stanford's 2024 report put them at 12%.
- Concentration A concentration is a labeled bundle of electives inside a general MBA. Four to six courses in finance,…
- Consortium It is a recruiting and funding channel, not an accreditor.
- Core curriculum The core curriculum is the required set of courses every MBA student in a program must take before the degree…
- Core waiver A core waiver is permission to skip a required MBA course because you already know it. The school replaces…
- Cost of attendance It is not sticker tuition. It is also not opportunity cost. Those are separate columns.
- Credit hour A credit hour is the US unit for MBA course load. One semester credit hour is supposed to represent a set…
D
- Deferral A deferral is permission for an already admitted MBA student to start one cycle later than the class they…
- Deferred MBA A deferred MBA is an admission to a future full-time MBA class offered while the applicant is still an…
- Dual-degree MBA A dual-degree MBA is a structured pair of credentials in which one is the MBA and the other is a separate…
E
- Economist MBA ranking The Economist MBA ranking was The Economist magazine's global full-time MBA list. Applicants still find old…
- Electives They are still MBA courses. They are not a second degree. The registrar counts them toward the same credit…
- Employer sponsorship The gift has a contract attached. Read the contract.
- Employment report An employment report is the school's public accounting of what a graduating MBA class did for work. Serious…
- English proficiency test An English proficiency test is a TOEFL, IELTS, Duolingo English Test, or similar exam some MBA programs…
- EQUIS EFMD reports a few hundred accredited schools, with a large share outside Europe. The inspiration is…
- Exchange program An exchange program sends an MBA student to a partner school for a term while the home school still grants…
- Executive MBA An executive MBA is an MBA built for people already in management who will not leave their jobs. Most schools…
- Experiential learning Schools use the phrase as a bucket. Inside it sit field projects, capstones, action learning labs, global…
F
- Fellowship An MBA fellowship is a named award that bundles money with a label — and sometimes with extra programming, a…
- Financial Times MBA ranking The Financial Times MBA ranking is an annual global list of full-time MBA programs published by the Financial…
- First destination The useful question is "what do people do next?" not "what will they be at 50?"
- Forté Foundation It is a pipeline organization. It does not admit anyone.
- Full-time MBA A full-time MBA is an MBA delivered as a student's primary occupation for the length of the program. Classes…
G
- Global immersion A global immersion is a short, structured overseas module inside an MBA, usually one or two weeks, with…
- Global MBA A global MBA is an MBA whose design requires study in more than one country or on more than one campus, not…
- GMAT The GMAT is the Graduate Management Admission Test, a standardized exam GMAC sells to graduate business…
- Grad PLUS loan A Grad PLUS loan is a US federal Direct PLUS Loan for graduate students, including MBA students. It can cover…
- Grade non-disclosure Not every school has it. Not every employer honors it off campus.
- GRE The GRE is the GRE General Test, a graduate admissions exam from ETS. MBA programs accept it as an…
H
I
J
L
- Learning team A learning team is the small group a school assigns, usually in the first term, to work through the core…
- Lecture method The lecture method is a classroom form where the instructor presents a model or a body of material and then…
- Letter of recommendation A letter of recommendation is a required outside evaluation in an MBA file, usually submitted through the…
M
- M7 It is not a ranking methodology.
- Master of Business Administration A Master of Business Administration is a postgraduate general-management degree. Schools use it to train…
- MBA essay An MBA essay is the written argument in the application. Schools ask for one to three prompts. The classic…
- MBA internship An MBA internship is a full-time work stint, usually in the summer between year one and year two of a…
- MBA interview An MBA interview is a live conversation the school uses after the paper file has cleared a first screen.…
- MBA ROI There is no regulator-owned formula. The Financial Times publishes a "value for money" ranking input that…
- MBA thesis An MBA thesis is a substantial written research project some programs require instead of, or beside, a…
- Merit scholarship A merit scholarship is money the business school itself puts on an MBA admit to discount cost of attendance.…
N
O
- On-campus recruiting It is a market with opening bells. Missing the bell is not the same as "I'll network later."
- One-year MBA A one-year MBA is a full-time MBA compressed into about 12 months of calendar time. It is common in Europe…
- Online MBA An online MBA is an MBA delivered primarily over the network rather than in a weekday campus classroom. The…
- Opportunity cost Tuition is a cash cost. Opportunity cost is the silent line that makes two-year programs look more expensive…
- Optional essay An optional essay is the application box that says, in some wording, "Is there anything else we should know?"…
- Orientation It is easy to dismiss because there is no midterm. The people you meet this week sit next to you in every…
P
- Part-time MBA A part-time MBA is an MBA scheduled so the student can keep a full-time job. Courses land on weeknights,…
- Peer assessment It is prestige measured by people who run rival programs.
- Placement rate CSEA wants offices to report seekers separately from the class. U.S. News has used employment at graduation…
- Pre-term It exists because incoming classes are mixed on purpose. Some people last saw a derivative ten years ago.…
- Professional MBA A professional MBA is a branding name for an MBA aimed at people who stay in their jobs. It is the same…
Q
R
- Reapplicant A reapplicant is someone who applies to the same MBA program in a later cycle after a deny or a dead…
- Regional accreditation It does not mean the business school is AACSB-accredited.
- Resume book A resume book is the packet of MBA student résumés career services sends to employers who recruit the class.…
- Rolling admissions Full-time two-year programs usually use application rounds instead. Rolling is the default for many part-time…
S
- Seeking employment If you do not know who was seeking, you do not know the placement rate.
- Signing bonus A signing bonus is a one-time cash payment an employer adds to an MBA offer to get a yes. Employment reports…
- Specialized MBA A specialized MBA is an MBA the school brands around one function or industry — finance, health care, real…
- STEM designation A program can market itself as a "STEM MBA" only if the registrar puts a listed CIP on the I-20. The letters…
- Study group A study group is a student-formed working group inside an MBA. Unlike a learning team, nobody in the dean's…
T
- T15 There is no charter. There is no fifteenth chair.
- Test waiver A test waiver is a school policy that lets a specific MBA applicant skip the GMAT or GRE. It is permission,…
- Triple accreditation AACSB and EQUIS review the school. AMBA reviews MBA and related postgraduate programs, and it expects the…
