What kind of career changes are likely/possible after completing an MBA program online?

A big factor in this is what university you attend. Please, please, please do not use University of Phoenix. They will take your money and give you a worthless piece of paper.

If you are looking for some credible distance options please look at the Univesity of Nebraska- Lincoln, Arizona State University or some other respectable brick in mortar school that happens to have an online option.

Assuming you take my advice and get a credible degree, your options are quite open. The best path is to use your degree to accelerate you in your specific field to take advantage of your current experience. There are a wide variety of jobs you will be qualified for however there is no job whose requirements are limited to just a MBA. In most fields an MBA is a great supplement but you must meet experience or industry knowledge requirements.

What kind of experience do you have so far, and what do you think you want to do once you have your MBA?

An MBA is one of those degrees where it pays to go to the best reputed program that you can get into. Reputation does matter, amongst many employers. In fact, some employers will not look at you unless you go to an AACSB accredited school, which is a certain type of professional accreditation.

Luckily, some AACSB schools do offer online options. In fact, one of the top MBA programs in the US – Duke University – offers an online option, as does Thunderbird, another fine program. So there are some options open to you.

I’m attaching a list of all the AACSB accredited programs, below. http://www.aacsb.edu/General/InstLists.asp?lid=3

I’ll also give you list of some reputable, appropriately accredited MBA programs that I know do offer their MBA online:

Duke University

Rensselaer Polytechnic

Drexel

Carnegie Mellon

Penn State

Ball State

U Nebraska – Lincoln

Thunderbird

Babson

Worcester Polytechnic Institute

UMass Amherst

U Maryland

That said, the options open to you once you graduate will be fairly strong. Some employers may be a bit loathe to hire someone who did an online program, but the nice thing about the schools, above, is that their strong offline reputation does translate to their online programs. And, importantly, their diploma doesn’t say, for example, Babson Online MBA. No. It says, Babson MBA. You don’t need to say it was online, when you put it on your resume. If you’d like, you can discuss this in the interview, or if they ask about your MBA experience. Then you can spin it into a positive – how you had to be super focused, etc.