Program exclusion

File with the eligibility application or in the CIR application, and finish the argument before the visit is scheduled. AACSB’s policies handbook says staff may bounce messy exclusion requests to CIRC, and that scope must be settled no later than about a year before the peer-review visit. The burden is on the school. Typical grounds: the degree is distinctly branded, another faculty owns it, business credits are below threshold, or students and employers do not treat it as a business degree.

Marketing is evidence. If the homepage tiles the excluded MS next to the MBA under “AACSB-accredited programs,” the exclusion is already compromised. ACBSP’s standards make the same public-information point. Peer-review teams screenshot catalogs.

Example: a College of Business co-teaches a 36-credit MS in health administration with the nursing school. Business content can reach 20 of 36 credits (56 percent). Without an exclusion, it is in scope and its faculty hit Table 3-1. With an approved exclusion and a catalog line that the MS is not AACSB-accredited, the CIR team should leave it alone — unless you keep putting the seal on the MS flyer.

A program below the 25/50 tests is out by the definition of included programs. You still request exclusion when the public could reasonably think it is a business degree. A program above the tests is in unless AACSB grants an exclusion. Silence is not a strategy for the above-threshold case.

Situation	Default	What you file
Below 25/50 and not marketed as business	Out of included programs	Often still an exclusion request if the name is ambiguous
Below 25/50 but marketed as business	Confusion risk	Exclusion request plus marketing fix
At or above 25/50	In scope	Exclusion request if you want it out; expect a fight

Not if the exclusion is granted and the public communications are clean. It hurts when the program is in fact in scope and you tried to hide faculty or AoL problems by leaving it off Table 3-1. CIRC would rather you include an awkward degree than discover it on the website during the visit.

Only if AACSB accepts the distinctiveness and branding story, and only if you do not market them as the same accredited degree. Delivery mode by itself is a weak exclusion theory. Expect the committee to ask who owns curriculum, faculty, and the student record.

AACSB’s standards say a formal exclusion remains for future visits unless the program undergoes change. Curriculum overhauls, new names, and new partners are changes. Review the list every BSQ cycle. Do not recycle a 2014 exclusion letter for a 2026 degree.