BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — The Kelley Direct Online MBA program at the Indiana University Kelley School of Business is No. 1 in rankings from Poets & Quants, a leading news site about business education.
Poets & Quants’ rankings have become increasingly competitive as the number of business schools offering an online MBA grows, and Kelley Direct is the only business school program to land in the top five in every year since the ranking launched six years ago. That consistent record of quality was also highlighted in Poets & Quants’ decision to name Kelley Direct the MBA Program of the Year in 2021.
Ash Soni, interim dean of the Kelley School and the SungKyunKwan Professor, said Kelley Direct’s continued placement among the best online MBA programs is a testament to the quality of its student experience.
“Kelley Direct is setting a strong example for its students: continue to innovate, and work to set a high standard for others to follow,” Soni said. “We encourage our students to give us feedback to advance the program, and we are continually reinvesting in our students. Being named No. 1 by Poets & Quants is recognition of what our students already know from their experience: They are in a program that operates at the leading edge.”
Fifty schools worldwide participated in the rankings, which are based on three equally weighted factors: the quality of incoming students, an assessment of the MBA experience by graduates and career outcomes of alumni.
For this year’s rankings, the class of 2022 put Kelley Direct first in the admissions category and fifth in academic experience.
Created in 1999, Kelley Direct is the original online MBA program from a top-tier business school. The program is innovative in design and how it serves the needs of students. Kelley Direct has also been ranked No.1 by U.S. News & World Report and the Princeton Review.
“The beauty of the Kelley Direct program is that students get an amazing, personalized experience while meeting hundreds of talented colleagues from around the world,” said Will Geoghegan, Kelley Direct Programs chair and clinical associate professor of management and entrepreneurship. “These connections have the potential to change the course of their careers — and they often do.”
In fact, the program employs a staff member dedicated solely to facilitating student and alumni connections, to help them advance in their careers through one-to-one mentoring and networking programs.
Students can also personalize their MBA degree, with 50 percent of their courses being electives, including global and domestic hands-on immersion courses. Its curriculum structure and teaching methods let students apply new knowledge and business capabilities right away in their organizations.
Kelley Direct Online MBA students regularly interact with faculty, both in and out of the classroom. The program recently hosted Kelley on Location in Chicago, where about 200 students analyzed challenges through a variety of lenses, and gained a greater understanding of the interaction between business and the arts. Students from around the globe networked with industry professionals from top companies such as Proctor and Gamble as well as those at successful start-ups.
Poets & Quants, one of five education websites operated by C-Change Media, was founded and is led by John A. Byrne, former executive editor of Businessweek and former editor-in-chief of Fast Company. He created the first regularly published rankings of business schools.
