Residency
Also called campus residency · in-person residency · residential module
It has to be required. An optional campus weekend is a visit. AMBA contact hours are compulsory interaction between the learning group and faculty. Skip-able networking does not count. One-to-one office hours in the hotel lobby do not count.
Residency is a required in-person block inside an MBA that is otherwise remote, modular, or weekend-based. Students travel, sit together, and take class on a compressed clock. It is attendance, not a medical training term. Residencies are how many online, hybrid, and executive MBAs gather the learning group in one room. They are not a different degree.
What has to be true for it to count?
It has to be required. An optional campus weekend is a visit. AMBA contact hours are compulsory interaction between the learning group and faculty. Skip-able networking does not count. One-to-one office hours in the hotel lobby do not count.
It has to be class, or class-equivalent group work with faculty present. A welcome dinner is hospitality. A 9:00–5:00 case sequence with the same 40 people is a residency.
Wharton’s executive format is a catalog-scale version: alternate Friday/Saturday weekends in Philadelphia or San Francisco, several extended sessions, plus a one-week international trip. The program is residential by design, not an online MBA with a bolt-on visit.
Online MBAs use shorter residencies: two or three campus weeks a year, or a kickoff plus a capstone week. CSEA tells schools that if they report hybrid by modality, they should footnote the mix. Residencies are often that in-person percentage.
Example: a 24-month online MBA with four residencies, 3 days each, 6 scheduled hours a day. That is 72 hours of in-person synchronous time. If weekly live seminars add another 80 hours, total synchronous is 152, which can clear AMBA’s 120. Cancel two residencies without adding live hours and the program may fall through the floor even if the recordings stay online.
Residency versus weekend class versus study trip
| Device | Required? | Faculty + learning group? | Typical length |
|---|---|---|---|
| Residency | Yes | Yes | 2–7 days |
| Weekend class | Yes | Yes | One day, repeating |
| Optional study trip | No | Sometimes | A week |
A global immersion that is elective is not a residency. It is an elective that happens to require a passport.
Common errors
Logging travel days as contact hours. Calling every hotel stay a residency when class is only two hours a day. Letting students send a substitute from their company. Treating a residency as a mini-MBA certificate.
FAQ
Can I skip a residency if I watch the video?
Not if the school needs those hours to be compulsory and in the learning group. Makeup rules exist for illness and visa denial. “I had a deal close” is why residencies are published a year ahead.
Does a residency make an online MBA hybrid?
Often yes, in plain English. In CSEA English, only if the school defines hybrid that way and footnotes the percent. Ask for the attendance table.
Are EMBA weekends residencies?
When students stay overnight and the weekend is the course, yes. When local students commute in for Saturday and go home, it is weekend class. Same teaching. Different travel.
Do residencies cost extra?
Sometimes they are inside the program fee (meals, rooms, flights billed or not). Sometimes they are a separate line. A cheap online tuition with four self-paid international residencies is not cheap. Read the fee schedule.
Related terms
Sources
- Wharton Executive MBA catalog Residential every-other-weekend format plus extended sessions and a global week
- AMBA MBA Accreditation Criteria (2022) In-person blocks can supply synchronous contact hours; they still must be mandatory learning-group interaction
- CSEA Part-time MBA Standards Hybrid definitions should be footnoted; residencies often are the in-person share
