Another First: Kellogg Climbs Into 3-Way Tie Atop U.S. News’ 2025 Part-Time MBA Ranking

For the last three years, UC Berkeley Haas School of Business and Chicago Booth School of Business have traded places atop the U.S. News & World Report ranking of part-time MBA programs in the United States.

This year, they share the glory — and welcome a third No. 1 to the party.

A perennial No. 3 in the part-time list, Northwestern Kellogg School of Management vaulted into a three-way tie for first in the 2026 ranking released today (April 8), sharing top honors alongside Berkeley Haas and Chicago Booth. NYU Stern School of Business and UCLA Anderson School of Management once again rounded out the top five; both have been firmly set in their spots, Stern at No. 4 and Anderson at No. 5, for the better part of a decade.

U.S. NEWS’ TOP PART-TIME MBA PROGRAMS: THROUGH THE YEARS

School	U.S. News Rank In 2025	U.S. News Rank In 2024	U.S. News Rank In 2023	U.S. News Rank In 2022	U.S. News Rank In 2021	U.S. News Rank In 2020	U.S. News Rank In 2019	U.S. News Rank In 2018
University of Chicago (Booth)	1	1	2	1	1	1	1	2
University of California-Berkeley (Haas)	1	2	1	2	2	2	2	1
Northwestern University (Kellogg)	1	3	3	3	3	3	3	3
New York University (Stern)	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4
University of California-Los Angeles (Anderson)	5	5	5	5	5	5	5	5
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor (Ross)	7	6	7	7	6	6	6	6
University of Texas-Austin (McCombs)	6	7	6	8	7	7	8	7
University of Southern California (Marshall)	9	8	8	9	9	NA	14	11
Georgetown (McDonough	10	9	9	17	NA	NA	NA	NA
Ohio State University (Fisher)	8	10	15	11	10	NA	14	9
University of Washington (Foster)	17	10	11	10	14	NA	NA	NA
Maryland (Smith)	19	10	21	25	NA	NA	NA	NA
Georgia Tech (Scheller)	10	17	11	16	NA	NA	NA	NA
Texas-Dallas (Jindal)	14	13	11	19	NA	NA	NA	NA
University of Minnesota – Twin Cities (Carlson)	10	15	14	11	10	NA	7	9
Indiana University (Kelley)	16	13	15	11	10	9	9	13
Rice (Jones)	13	15	15	11	NA	NA	NA	NA

RANKING IS SMALLER BY 28 SCHOOLS THIS YEAR

U.S. News’ new part-time MBA ranking had 28 fewer schools this year, with a total of 241 qualifying. In two years the ranking has shrunk by 58 schools. Why the decline? The magazine explained its 30-school decline last year by noting that it “took steps through its data collection to only include in-person and hybrid learning programs whose data is more comparable with one another. Also contributing to the decline in ranked schools was a small decrease in the number of part-time MBA programs submitting surveys.” U.S. News provided no explanation for the additional 28-school drop this year.

To qualify for the ranking, B-schools must be accredited by AACSB International and have reported at least 10 part-time MBA students enrolled for fall 2024. Schools also must have admitted at least one entering class between fall 2022 and fall 2023.

The 2025 part-time ranking evaluated in-person, hybrid, and flexible learning programs. Degrees that are mostly online, the magazine writes, were assessed separately in the U.S. News Best Online MBA Programs rankings, released in January. Indiana Kelley School of Business topped that ranking for the 10th time in 13 years; its part-time program ranked 16th this year, down from 13th in 2024.

METHODOLOGY: PEER ASSESSMENT ACCOUNTS FOR 50% OF SCORE

The ranking system comprises six weighted factors; the weights of the ranking indicators used in the part-time MBA methodology were unchanged from last year’s ranking. The most significant factor is the peer assessment score, accounting for 50% of a school’s overall ranking. This qualitative measure is derived from surveys of deans and MBA directors who rate other part-time MBA programs on a scale from 1 to 5. U.S. News uses a trimmed mean approach to calculate the final peer score, ensuring outlier opinions are removed.

Other criteria focus on part-time student enrollment and experience. The percentage of part-time students (12.5%) and total number of part-time students (12.5%) both serve as indicators of a program’s commitment to serving working professionals. Academic strength is also a consideration, with standardized test scores and undergraduate GPAs each contributing 10% to a school’s ranking. Schools reporting scores from fewer than 25% of entrants were penalized to ensure fair comparison. This year for the first time, U.S. News used Graduate Management Admission Test scores from both the old version of the test and the new GMAT Focus.

Finally, work experience — a key metric for part-time programs — makes up the remaining 5% of the ranking. Schools report the average number of months of full-time work experience for their entering class, a measure that underscores the value of professional background in shaping classroom discussion and peer learning.

MANY TIES IN THIS YEAR’S TOP 100

Among the biggest winners in this year’s part-time MBA ranking is Marquette University, whose program jumped 24 spots to land at 49th. Other big jumpers include Arizona Eller College of Management, which rose 20 points to 40th, and South Florida Muma College of Business, which jumped 15 points to 38th. Closer to the top of the ranking, Georgia Tech Scheller College of Business moved up 7 spots to land in 10th from 17th.

While some go up, others go down: Saint Louis Chaifetz School of Business in St. Louis suffered the biggest decline, dropped 57 spots to 117th. Fordham Gabelli School of Business also dropped precipitously, by 46 spots to 88th. And then there were the schools that disappeared from the ranking entirely: Purdue Daniels (35th last year), Virginia Darden (53rd), Tennessee Haslam (66th), and Kentucky Gatton (84th) all dropped off ranking.

For those that remained, it was a ranking with a lot of ties: 25 altogether in the top 100, including the top three schools as well as six schools at 42nd, six at 58th, nine at 68th, eight at 80th, and six at 93rd.

Among the seven schools that provided GMAT averages out of more than 100, Michigan Ross School of Business reported the highest, 702. The highest enrollment is at NYU Stern School of Business, at 1,524; Stern is one of just three schools with enrollments over 1,000, the others being Iowa Tippie College of Business (1,164) and Berkeley Haas (1,092). The lowest enrollment is at Miami Farmer School of Business, with 10 students. Twelve schools reported enrollments lower than 100.

KELLOGG’S ‘DISTINCTIVE APPROACH’ WINS THE DAY

The Drucker School of Management at Claremont University in California reported the highest average work experience for its part-time students, at an incredible 155 months, which is nearly 13 years. More than a dozen schools in the top 100 reported averages of greater than 100 months. On the flip side, the Anderson Graduate School of Management at UC Riverside reported an average of just 25 months.

Chicago Booth was the most expensive school per credit: $8,420. The least expensive per credit was a tie between the Fogelman College of Business and Economics at the University of Memphis and the University of New Hampshire’s Paul College of Business and Economics, both at an economical $880 for out-of-state students.

The highest of all schools’ peer assessment scores was Chicago Booth’s 4.6; Kellogg and Haas were the only other schools to achieve a 4.5.

After many years being ranked No. 3, Kellogg was feeling good about finally breaking through to No. 1. “We are thrilled to see the top ranking of our part-time program,” Kellogg Dean Francesca Cornelli tells Poets&Quants, “which we have carefully designed to provide a premier academic experience along with flexibility and customization that allow our students to balance their education with their personal and professional commitments. Our distinctive approach to leadership development, global opportunities, and our supportive community ensure a transformative experience that distinguishes Kellogg.”

See the next pages for the top 100 schools in the 2025 U.S. News Part-Time MBA Ranking.