The Best Business Schools of 2013: Part-Time and Executive MBA

As Navdeep Martin was weighing which MBA programs to apply to, her most important consideration was time. An IT professional with 15 years’ experience, Martin wanted to take her career in a new direction, and she thought an MBA would help her get there.

Leaving behind a steady paycheck to get a degree was out of the question. So Martin zeroed in on part-time and executive MBA programs near her home in Washington and eventually narrowed her choices to Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business and the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business. She liked that Georgetown’s evening program was highly regarded and five miles from her home. But part-time MBA programs usually require students to be on campus a few evenings each week. Martin knew she’d spend two hours in rush-hour traffic just to get there. “It would have been a huge waste of time,” she says.