MBA@UNC Takes Top Spot in Princeton Review's Rankings

Posted on May 13, 2015

The Princeton Review ranks Kenan-Flagler Business School’s MBA@UNC program No. 1 in its first ranking of online MBA programs.

Kenan-Flagler launched MBA@UNC on July 4, 2011.  More than 630 students are now enrolled, representing 43 states and 40 countries, including Australia, Azerbaijan, Columbia, India, Italy, Mexico, Nigeria, Poland, Russia, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom and across the U.S.

MBA@UNC is designed to blend the flexibility of an online program with intensively interactive experiences and the rigor and quality of an on-campus program, said Susan Cates ’98 (MBA), MBA@UNC executive director. “Our students are high-potential working professionals who make deep connections while they learn together, advance their careers and join a global community of Carolina alumni.”

The Princeton Review chose the top 25 schools for its ranking based on surveys conducted in the 2014 academic year of students and administrators at MBA programs offering at least 75 percent of their programs of study online.

The school survey covers admissions selectivity, graduation and retention rates, faculty training and credentials, technological infrastructure, student indebtedness and career outcomes among other items. The student survey covers faculty, classmates, career preparation, academics, the technology platform and overall satisfaction.

MBA@UNC students praised the high caliber of the faculty, classmates, curriculum and career support. Student survey comments included:

• “The professors are excellent and engaging and are consistently accessible.”

• About the face-to-face Global Immersions courses: “I have traveled the world through this program – Singapore, Istanbul, South Africa, New York City – all while building personal connections with people I interact with on a daily basis online.”

• “I was surprised by the breadth and depth of the connections I was able to establish with my peers.”

• Classmates are “some the most intelligent and successful individuals I have ever met — hands down” while another counts among his peers “an F18 pilot who’s participating in group study from an aircraft carrier, a scientist working some genetic engineering (PhD), a doctor and emergency medicine chairman, a Lockheed Martin’s aeronautical engineer taking a class from Afghanistan.”

To deliver MBA@UNC, Kenan-Flagler collaborates with 2U Inc., which provides an online learning platform of cloud-based software-as-a-service technology and technology-enabled services to support faculty and students.

In January, U.S. News & World Report ranked MBA@UNC No. 1 in a tie with Indiana University and Temple University. It ranked programs on five categories: Student engagement, admissions selectivity, peer reputation, faculty credentials and training how to teach distance learners, and student services and technology.

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