EMBAC Membership

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  • 1.  International Students in US EMBA Programs

    Posted 10/13/25 12:03 PM

    Greetings from the College of Charleston. I enjoyed seeing everyone at the conference, and should have probably asked this question to my US colleagues in person.

    How do your EMBA programs handle the enrollment of international students, particularly in relation to maintaining compliance with immigration regulations, given that the programs are often modular or term-based? Specifically, how do you navigate the challenge of issuing immigration documents (such as I-20s or DS-2019s) for each term or residency without triggering visa complications?

    Thanks in advance for any insight you can provide.

    Ron



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    Ronald Magnuson
    College of Charleston
    Charleston SC United States
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  • 2.  RE: International Students in US EMBA Programs

    Posted 10/14/25 01:36 PM

    Ronald,

    We are not able to provide student visas for our EMBA program. I know that some have found a way to do so. Our EMBA program meets every other weekend on campus, and our OISS office classifies it as a part-time program; as such, visas are not permitted. 

    I look forward to hearing how others have found a way to make this work.

    George Andrews

    Associate Dean

    Rice Univeristy



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    George Andrews
    Associate Dean
    Rice University
    Houston TX United States
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  • 3.  RE: International Students in US EMBA Programs

    Posted 10/14/25 09:31 PM

    In Canada, we face much the same issue as George mentioned at Rice. As a result, we do not promote the program internationally. Having said that, I did have two students from India graduate last year who were successful in obtaining student visas. Technically, our EMBA program is registered as full-time (workload and course hours), but given the extremely low success rate for visas (triggered by the fact that we only meet every other weekend, we do not promote our EMBA program internationally.



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    Phil Davidson
    Director, Executive MBA Program
    University of Calgary
    Cochrane Canada
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