The part-time MBA program at the Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business has been ranked the No. 7 online MBA program nationwide by Fortune’s first-ever ranking of this category, announced April 26.

“We’re thrilled to not only be part of the newest Fortune Online MBA rankings, but also to be ranked in the top 10,” said Arjang A. Assad, Henry E. Haller Jr. Dean of the Katz Graduate School. “I’m continually proud of the adaptability of our programs and how our school continues to excel.” 

The ranking takes into account four components: program score, Fortune 1000 score, brand score and prestige score. 

Accounting for the majority of their ranking methodology, the program score outlines incoming student GPA and GMAT numbers, program retention and graduation rates, and program size. The second component, Fortune 1000 score, focuses on the number of MBA alumni who are C-suite level executives at Fortune 1000 companies. Brand score considers surveys of business professionals conducted by Fortune, partnered with Ipsos Global Market Research, while prestige scores focuses on an aggregate of other rankings results, including the Princeton Review, Poets & Quants and U.S. News & World Report. 

“At Katz, we recognize that our students juggle a variety of priorities, and the ability to take classes from anywhere allows them to better balance pursuing their MBA with their personal and professional lives,” said Laura Oknefski, director of graduate programs. “The part-time program also gave us an edge when the pandemic forced all classes online, as many of our faculty already had experience teaching virtually, and we had a robust library of online content that we could quickly adapt and deploy across all of our programs. In creating flexibility for our students, we developed our own adaptability to be able to best serve them, even amidst unprecedented circumstances.”