US News 2021 Online MBA Rankings
See which online MBA programs rank the highest in 2021.
Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business edges Indiana’s Kelley School of Business to take the top spot on the U.S. News & World Report‘s 2021 “Best Online MBA Programs” list of online MBA rankings.
This year, Carnegie Mellon ties with the University of North Carolina’s Keenan-Flagler for the best online MBA program. While Kelley School of Business came in third in the ranking, it remains the top program for veterans.
The top five universities have not changed in two years, but they have shifted positions. Since USC Marshall School of Business moved up one place, it bumped the University of Florida’s Hough Graduate School of Business to fifth. ASU Carey, one of five schools that tied for 10th last year, moved into sixth. Because of this, Penn State’s Smeal College of Business and the University of Texas at Dallas’ Naveen Jindal School of Management were pushed to seventh.
None of the schools that have appeared in the top 10 ranking for the last two years have dropped off, but new schools are making a showing. Since there are more schools on the list this year, there was room for new arrivals.
Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University leaped from 123rd place to ninth this year. Lehigh University ranked 10th along with six other schools, moving up from 18th place last year.
The University of Mississippi dropped to 10th from sixth place last year. The University of Arizona’s Eller College of Management and University of Maryland College Park’s Smith School remained in the same relative positions. University of Washington’s Foster School and University of Wisconsin’s MBA Consortium also stayed in similar spots.
Top 10 Online MBA Programs
The school with the top 10 online MBA programs as ranked by the US News & World Report are as follows:
1. (Tied) Carnegie Mellon University
1. (Tied) University of North Carolina — Chapel Hill
3. Indiana University — Bloomington
4. University of Southern California (USC)
5. University of Florida
6. Arizona State University
7. (Tied) Pennsylvania State University — World Campus
7. (Tied) University of Dallas — Texas
9. Rice University
10. (Tied) Lehigh University
10. (Tied) University of Arizona
10. (Tied) University of Maryland — College Park
10. (Tied) University of Mississippi
10. (Tied) University of Washington
10. (Tied) University of Washington MBA Consortium
US News ranks online MBA programs by weighing five metrics. These metrics include engagement (30%), expert opinions (25%), faculty credentials and training (15%), student excellence (15%), and student services and technologies (15%). US News rankings combine statistical data and peer assessment surveys.
Transitioning to Online Courses
Even though there were slight changes to qualifications for US News rankings, this did not significantly affect the number of eligible schools.
This year, US News updated the definition of an online program because of changes that came with the COVID-19 pandemic. The new definition states, “the vast majority of required coursework for program completion is able to be completed by via distance education courses.” It uses the term “majority” instead of all.
Only programs founded before the 2019-2020 academic year were considered. This is because US News wanted assess recent graduates for the ranking.
According to data from the College Crisis Initiative at Davidson College, more than 60 percent of 1,442 US institutions held classes remotely instead of in-person because of COVID-19. All of the programs evaluated are designed to be taken online; so programs that are temporarily virtual or hybrid due to the pandemic are not considered in these rankings.
School vs. School: Pittsburgh Katz vs. Penn State Smeal
When it comes to business education, the Keystone State is no doubt best known for the perennially top-ranked Wharton School. But the creme de la creme comes with a hefty price tag. So, what about those who desire a great business school education without breaking the bank?
Continue reading…BREAKING: Temple Fox Awards Settlement After Rankings Fallout
According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, Pennsylvania state Attorney General Josh Shapiro officially announced a settlement with the Temple University Fox School of Business in Philadelphia regarding its previously reported false reporting with U.S. News & World Report. The new Temple lawsuit settlement awards Fox students at least $250,000 in new scholarships.
Continue reading…Why U.S. News & World Report Changed Its Rankings Methodology
For prospective MBAs, the most difficult step towards a business school degree is knowing where to start. And for many, the most obvious is researching the near-endless amount of college ranking sites. After years of scandals and much-publicized doubts, however, the authority of these rankings may be in question.
In a recent Philadelphia Magazine op-ed, writer Sandy Hingston asks, simply, “Can We All Agree Now That College Rankings Are Bunk?”
Hingston’s critique, which highlights in relative inexactness of the college ranking sites, is not the first of its kind. In 2011, popular New Yorker writer Malcolm Gladwell wrote wrote about his issue with college rankings. In “The Order of Things,” Gladwell notes that the outcomes of students sometimes do not match college reputations.
Principally, Gladwell, the author of the massively popular 2008 book Outliers: The Story of Success, found fault in how publications like U.S. News & World Report conducts rankings. He writes, “the magazine sends a survey to the country’s university and college presidents, provosts, and admissions deans (along with a sampling of high-school guidance counselors) asking them to grade all the schools in their category on a scale of one to five.”
In regards to the scoring system, Gladwell cites numerous incidents that say reputation weighs too heavily. This is important considering that personnel often do not know what other schools are actually like. To illustrate, he brings up a different ranking from the time, with much different results:
“In an article published recently in the Annals of Internal Medicine, Ashwini Sehgal analyzed U.S. News’s ‘Best Hospitals’ rankings, which also rely heavily on reputation ratings generated by professional peers. Sehgal put together a list of objective criteria of performance—such as a hospital’s mortality rates for various surgical procedures, patient-safety rates, nursing-staffing levels, and key technologies. Then he checked to see how well those measures of performance matched each hospital’s reputation rating. The answer, he discovered, was that they didn’t. Having good outcomes doesn’t translate into being admired by other doctors. Why, after all, should a gastroenterologist at the Ochsner Medical Center, in New Orleans, have any specific insight into the performance of the gastroenterology department at Mass General, in Boston, or even, for that matter, have anything more than an anecdotal impression of the gastroenterology department down the road at some hospital in Baton Rouge?”
He goes on to say, “reputational ratings are simply inferences from broad, readily observable features of an institution’s identity, such as its history, its prominence in the media, or the elegance of its architecture. They are prejudices.”
In addition, Gladwell notes important economic distinctions that many college ranking sites ignore. For the sake of simplified ranking, small private schools are compared to massive public institutions and scored equally. But doing so overlooks the economic makeup of enrolled students, funding, and much more.
A Modern Change for U.S. News
Seven years later after Gladwell’s critique, U.S. News & World Report continues to refine its rankings method. The publication’s new changes aim to emphasize economic mobility. This comes just one year after Politico revealed that the upper-echelon schools continually reward students that are already wealthy. That discovery may not be “groundbreaking,” but the data is still jarring. Many of the country’s most well-known institutions enroll more students that come from the top 1 percent of income-earning families than the bottom 60 percent of earners.
Why is this important and why did U.S. News & World Report need to change? Like Gladwell said seven years prior, prejudices feed the rankings and the economics factors are biased. And the amount of inequality it expanded may have been profound.
The Politico study outlined these key factors in the previous U.S. News ranking formula:
- Student Performance
- Lower Acceptance Rates
- Higher Performance on Surveys
- Alumni Donations
These factors weigh heavily for students from more affluent backgrounds. U.S. News, like many of its popular ranking competitors—such as the Financial Times and Bloomberg—rely on similar scoring systems, which often left the economically disadvantaged out of the equation.
The aforementioned 2017 Politico report points to the lengths some schools and state governments went to meet the U.S. News standards:
“Colleges go to great lengths to rise in the rankings. The president of one school ranked in the top 20 said the college caps classes at 19 students, simply because the rankings reward schools for keeping classes under 20 students. In some states, the rankings are built into accountability systems for university presidents. Arizona State trustees put a bonus pegged to the rankings in the president’s contract. In Florida, Gov. Rick Scott set a goal to ‘achieve the first top-10 research public university and a second-ranked public university in the top 25.'”
Robert Morse, U.S. News Chief Data Strategist, says of the changes; “There is an active and ongoing debate about how to best measure quality in education, and we pay close attention to that debate. Over time, our ranking model has put more emphasis on outcomes measures … As part of this evolving process, we’ve wanted to measure whether schools were successful at serving all of their students, regardless of economic status.”
The publication will begin accounting more for social mobility and rewarding of Pell Grants. As well, Morse says, schools that enroll a higher percentage of lower-income students will get more credit for graduation rates. In total, “13 percent of a school’s rank is now dependent on the economic diversity of its campus.”
Will Other College Ranking Sites Follow?
The changes for U.S. News‘s rankings may cause a slow sea change for its competitors. For its undergraduate ranking, SAT/ACT scores now factor less in the overall score. This, like many of the highlights indicated above, is because standardized tests are highly correlative with income. The acceptance rate boost is being completely removed as well.
The dismissive stances from the likes of Hingston and Gladwell likely will not be re-mediated immediately. After all, college ranking sites will likely remain among most popular resource for school research. However, a more modern evaluation can pay dividends in the long-term. And for U.S. News‘ prime competitors, following suit may be an unavoidable remedy.
The next annual U.S. News ranking of the country’s best business schools will arrive early next year. Whether the new changes will weigh heavily in the rankings remains to be seen.
Breaking Down the 2018 Financial Times Top Finance MBAs List
Big technology companies might be attracting top MBA talent, but they’re not the only ones in the running. Though the finance sector hasn’t seemed as popular in recent years, MBA employment is still holding its own in the industry. The difference is the types of jobs that the finance and banking sector are offering.
The finance industry offers a range of options when it comes to jobs. MBA students have the opportunity to work as part of in-house teams developing new digital strategies, working for fintech companies, and more. Finance and banking are still critical employers of MBA graduates. On average, 30 percent of graduates from top business schools around the world went into a career in finance. Continue reading…
Zicklin MBA Ranking Jumps in US News, and More – New York City News
Let’s explore some of the most interesting stories that have emerged from New York City business schools this week.
U.S. News & World Report Names Baruch College Among Nation’s 2019 Best Graduate Schools – Zicklin News
The Baruch College Zicklin School of Business knocked it out of the park in the recently revealed U.S. News & World Report “2019 Best Graduate Schools” list. The full-time MBA ranked 55th nationwide (moving up two spots from the previous year), 29th nationwide among public institutions, first among public institutions in both NYC and New York state, 3rd in NYC overall, and 5th in New York State overall.
The business school’s part-time MBA also ranked 56th nationwide (a 22-spot jump from last year’s list), 34th nationwide among public institutions, first among public institutions in both NYC and New York state, 3rd in NYC overall, and 3rd in New York state overall. Willem Kooyker, Dean of the Zicklin School of Business Dr. H. Fenwick Huss, Ph.D., said in a release:
“Graduates of the Zicklin School of Business lead major businesses around the globe. Our student success is based on an ever-evolving curriculum that today includes data science and analytics, machine learning and cybersecurity along with experiential learning opportunities for real-world problem solving and strategic planning.”
Read more about Zicklin’s showing in the US News & World Report rankings here.
Living Abroad Leads to a Clearer Sense of Self – Columbia Business School Blog
Social scientists from Columbia Business School, Rice, and UNC universities have recently published new research in the journal Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes that finds how “living abroad increases “self-concept clarity.”
The findings came after the group surveyed roughly 2,000 “participants from online panels and United States and international MBA programs” that had, at one point, studied abroad.
Entitled “The Shortest Path to Oneself Leads Around the World: Living Abroad Increases Self-Concept Clarity,” the study reveals that “living abroad triggers self-discerning reflections in which people grapple with the different cultural values and norms of their home and host cultures. These reflections are helpful in discovering which values and norms define who people are and which simply reflect their cultural upbringing.”
You can check out the rest of the study here.
Goldman Sachs Executive Recounts Journey to Success in Finance – Gabelli Connect
Goldman Sachs President and Co-Chief Operating Officer Harvey M. Schwartz used his recent Fordham Wall Street Council talk as an opportunity to discuss his unlikely journey from a post-high school gym employee to Wall Street innovator as he stands on the precipice of retirement.
“Innovation is present in financial services. I think that if you have an interest in solving complex problems for clients or specific areas of markets, there is a unique way to participate. The takeaway should be that if you work hard, people will invest in you.”
Glean more wisdom from Schwartz’s talk here.
