A Lesson Before Buying

Not all professors think a merger week can be shortened, though. Of Kellogg's program, Raviv says, "I'd never cut it to three days; I'd rather cancel."

Indeed, opting out entirely seems a sensible choice at many schools. New York University's Stern School of Business, with a broad catalog of open-enrollment finance classes, has no M&A course — but devotes plenty of faculty firepower to mergers in degree-granting programs. Noncredit executive programs like "Derivatives Survival Training" and "Valuation of Intangibles" are more targeted.

There's "such a proliferation of M&A programs, we're not sure what we'd add if we did our own two-day seminar," notes Stern Executive Programs academic director Kenneth Froewiss. "Where's our competitive advantage?"

Roy Harris is a senior editor at CFO.

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