March 9. NC State’s Jenkins Professional Online MBA program in the North Carolina State University Poole College of Management is No. 18 among the Top 20 programs worldwide, according to the Financial Times’ 2017 ranking of global online MBA programs. NC State placed 11th among U.S.-based institutions and was the only North Carolina-based MBA program listed in the ranking. This is the first year NC State’s program was eligible for the ranking.

Among top global business schools – including IE Business School, The Indiana University Kelley School of Business and Arizona State University’s W.P. Carey School of Business – NC State was among the Top 10 in the following categories:

• No. 8 Career Service rank, defined as effectiveness of the school’s career service in terms of career counseling, personal development, networking events, and recruitment, as rated by their alumni;
•  No. 9 Career Progress rank, defined as progression in the alumni’s level of seniority and the size of company they now work for, versus three years ago on graduation;
•  No. 10 Online Interaction rank, defined as the extent to which alumni rate the interaction between students, teamwork and the availability of faculty.

In addition, NC State was ranked the 12th best Value for Money, based on students’ ability to complete the degree for less than $50,000 and an average salary increase of 21 percent three years following graduation. The rankings are at:

http://rankings.ft.com/businessschoolrankings/online-mba-ranking-2017

“This recognition of our Jenkins MBA program as one of the top online MBA programs worldwide reflects the NC State Poole College of Management’s commitment to excellence and innovative programming,” said Annette L. Ranft, dean and Stephen P. Zelnak Jr. chair of NC State’s Poole College of Management.

“Over the past two years, we have improved the program through the introduction of our Customized MBA option, which allows online students to seamlessly enroll in face-to-face courses, and we implemented a major MBA curriculum redesign, emphasizing experiential learning and leadership development for our online students. During this time, we have also seen our number of completed applications increase by 99 percent,” said Steve Allen, associate dean for graduate programs and research at the Poole College of Management.

This is the fourth year that Financial Times has ranked online MBA programs, publishing the top 20 programs worldwide. To be included, a business school must have accreditation from AACSB and/or EQUIS and have had online programs for at least four years. Although flexible/hybrid MBA programs are included in the ranking, at least 70 percent of an MBA program’s curriculum must be delivered online to be considered.

The ranking was based on data provided to Financial Times by alumni of the MBA programs being ranked and by the MBA program staff. The alumni survey accounted for 65 percent of the ranking. The most important criteria included salary today, which accounts for 20 percent of a school’s ranking; salary increase since graduation (10 percent); online interaction (10 percent); and FT research rank (10 percent), which is calculated according to the number of articles published by each school’s full-time faculty.