Indiana University's Kelley School of Business Kelley Direct Online MBA

Program Fast Stats

Application Deadlines: June 1 | December 31

Intake Dates: August 1, 2024 | January 1, 25

Est. Weekly Time Commitment: 10hrs

Total Enrollment: 1,153

Acceptance Rate: 28%

Average GMAT: 661

Average GPA: 3.41

Average GRE: 321

International: 15%

US Minority: 8%

Female: 37%

Male: 63%

Age Range: 21-57

Average Age: 31

About the Program

Since 1999, Kelley’s online MBA at Indiana University’s School of Business has been centered around customizability and continues to reinvent curriculum and provide a dynamic fully online student experience for working professionals.

“From its inception, Kelley Direct has been groundbreaking, quickly becoming the model for other online programs to follow,” says Dean Idalene “Idie” Kesner. “We encourage our students to give us feedback to make the program even better, and we are continuously imagining new experiences to engage students in the classroom and beyond.”

The Kelley OMBA core and elective coursework typically takes students around two years to complete but can be completed in 2 – 4 years. The degree has three terms of core courses and is fully online with the exception of two in-person sessions—Kelley On Campus, where students work in a team to develop a solution to a business challenge facing a real company and Kelley On Location, a live-case consulting opportunity at a location of the faculty’s choosing.

Kelley offers a dual degree option that enables students to earn an MBA and MS in 66 credit hours—degrees that would take 81 credit hours if earned separately. Students choose a specialization from one of the seven majors: business analytics, digital technology management, entrepreneurship and corporate innovation, finance, marketing, strategy and leadership, and supply chain and operations.

About half of Kelley’s students say they want to change jobs either during or after their MBA, and Kelley is geared towards helping them achieve those new goals. Companies like Bain, Amazon, FedEx, Toyota, and American Express are among those key companies hiring Kelley Direct MBAs, and with a network of…

Students connect with classmates and professors for live classes every week. Each course requires a live weekly session, with classes that span about 75 minutes and take place between 6 and 9 p.m. ET.

Students can choose to participate in either a domestic or global immersion course (once it is deemed safe to travel again by authorities) as part of the Global, Experiential, and Professional Course requirement.

Domestic immersion courses focus on specific career paths, such as advertising, business analytics, or consulting, and include online content and residencies in opportunistic cities like New York City for advertising, or Silicon Valley for STEM-focused entrepreneurship.

Through global immersions, students present strategic recommendations with actionable steps to improve real businesses. Past destinations were Vietnam, Greece, and South Africa.

Many Kelley Direct students are promoted while in the program or within 6 months of graduation. This past year, about 64% of the class was promoted which just goes to show, as students build new skills, doors that were once closed opened. Often, it is said that students’ career coaches help them break through as well.