The Methodology Behind Poets&Quants’ 2026 Online MBA Ranking

How we calculated our 2026 ranking of the best online MBA programs in the U.S.

There is no ranking on the market that can 100% measure an online program’s student experience, the rigor of the coursework, or the career outcomes for any particular graduate. But we at Poets&Quants have built – and continue to update – a ranking that we hope informs prospective students on a program’s quality and promise as accurately as we can.

Our annual ranking of the best online MBA programs in the U.S. is built on one basic framework: A ranking centered around three equally-weighted categories – admission standards, academic experience, and career outcomes. (See 2026’s ranking of the best online MBA programs here.)

This year, 61 schools participated in the ranking, up four from last year. This includes five schools that did not participate for 2025: Case Western Reserve University Weatherhead School of Management, Longwood University College of Business & Economics, Mississippi State University College of Business, Temple University Fox School of Business, and University of Houston C. T. Bauer College of Business.

Throughout the years, we have changed certain metrics and weights to, hopefully, continually improve our ranking and the rich data set it provides. This year is no different. In the sections below, we will discuss these changes and outline our method behind the ranking.

You can compare 2026’s methodology with last year’s here.

ADMISSION STANDARDS

Admission Standards are used to measure the quality of incoming students. In any quality MBA program, students often learn as much from their classmates as they do from their professors.

Like the other categories, Admission Standards accounts for one third of the overall ranking score. Data is reported by the schools through our institutional survey.

After making some substantial changes to this category last year, we left it alone for 2026. Before the pandemic, 50% of the Admissions Standards scores were based on a school’s average adjusted GMAT score – a calculation accounting for the school’s average score as well as the percentage of students who submitted test scores and those who had scores waived because they had 10 or more years of work experience.

But after the pandemic, more and more schools have gone test optional – that is they don’t require test scores, either from the GMAT or GRE, as a condition of admission. In fact, 37 of the 61 schools ranked for 2025 indicated that they are now test optional or did not submit any text scores. Schools may still accept scores if a student wants to submit them to boost their own applications, but lack of a test score does not count against them.

So, three years ago, we reduced the weight of the GMAT score from 50% down to 20%. We at P&Q still consider GMAT and GRE scores a robust measure of admission standards and so our methodology continues to reward schools that report test stats. But, for 2025, we further reduced the metric to 10% of the Admission Standard score while also including GRE scores into our calculations. We kept that weight for 2026.

Admission standards metrics (100 possible points):

30% – average undergraduate GPA
25% – average years of work experience
15% – acceptance rate
10% – adjusted average GMAT/GRE score
10% – 6-year graduation rate: This metric, added last year, measures the percentage of students who enrolled during the 2019-2020 academic year that have graduated from the program within six years. For programs that are not yet six years old, we used a 5-year or 4-year graduation rate.
10% – 1-year retention rate: This metric, also added last year, measures the percentage of students who enrolled in the 2023-2024 academic year who returned to the program the next year.

ACADEMIC EXPERIENCE

The Academic Experience category is used to measure the learning experience students can expect from an online MBA program. Data is collected through the alumni survey sent to the most recent graduates.

This year, we surveyed alumni from the Class of 2025, those graduating between July 1, 2024 and June 30, 2025. We require a minimum response rate of 10%, and schools that don’t meet that threshold do not get full credit for their alumni data. For example, a school that earns a 9.5% response rate gets 95% of their alumni averages counted in our methodology, schools that earn an 8.5% rate get 85% of alumni averages.

This year, two schools did not meet the 10% threshold for alumni responses: The University of North Texas G. Brint Ryan College of Business and Kennesaw State University Coles College of Business. In all, the survey was sent to 7,957 eligible alumni with 1,325 returned surveys. That’s a 16.6% response rate.

We include alumni survey data from the previous two classes instead of just one when available to help smooth out wide response swings from one class to another. The most recent data is weighted 50% of the alumni scores while data from the Classes of 2024 and 2023 are weighted 25% each. (Schools that did not participate last year and, hence, did not have alumni data, are given the same scores for all three years.)

See: How Online MBA 2025 Graduates Rated Their Program’s Learning Experience

Academic experience metrics (100 possible points):

80% – Average score of 12 one-to-10 scaled questions – These questions cover a wide range of aspects of an online MBA program. Graduates are asked how likely they would be to recommend the OMBA program, how accessible and helpful professors were, and their ability to create meaningful connections with fellow classmates and faculty. You can see how alumni rated their schools in each of these categories in this story, “How Online MBA Graduates Rate Their Programs.”
20% – Average percentage of questions on student clubs/organizations, international exposure, and completing a consulting project or other signature experience during the program.

CAREER OUTCOMES & IMPACT

Career Outcomes is used to measure how the online MBA has impacted alumni career prospects during the program or shortly after graduation. Opposed to the traditional full-time MBA where many students hope to change roles or even industries after graduation, most OMBA students continue working throughout their programs. They often hope to leverage the degree to get a promotion or pay raise within their current company or industry – often while still enrolled.

The main change we made this year was to eliminate a metric that previously measured the extent to which a graduate’s secondary career goals had been met by the degree. To make up the 10-point weight of the metric, we added 5-points each to network formed and network satisfaction.

Data is collected from responses to the alumni survey. Like in the Academic Experience category, we combine data from the most recent graduating class with the previous two classes on a weighted scale.

See: How Online MBA Graduates Rated The Degree’s Career Impact

Career impact metrics (100 possible points):

40% – Average percent of alumni reporting a salary increase or promotion during the program or after graduation
20% – Average rating of program’s career coach/mentor and the career advising office
20% – Average percent of primary career goal being met during the program or after graduation
10% – Average percent of alumni able to build a professional network during the program
10% – Average rating of satisfaction of that professional network

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