I have some great news to share as we move into spring semester. For the second year U.S.News ranked our Online MBA program at #40 out of 326 programs in the U.S. We are #29 among public universities. Breaking into the Top 50 has been a strategic goal since 2017 when we were ranked #78. The Online MBA program has become a signature program for us and has grown significantly, tripling enrollments to 160 in the past five years. This ranking makes us the top ranked online MBA program in the state and in northern New England.
The ranking is data driven and is based on the following criteria:
- Engagement (30%) – students to student and student to faculty
- Expert Opinion (25%) – perceptions of academic deans
- Faculty credentials and training (15%)
- Student Excellence (15%) – caliber of students joining the program
- Student Services and Technologies (15%)
Our strongest area is faculty credentials and training in which we scored 94/100. We are also very pleased that our score in expert opinion has improved from 2.7 out of 5 last year to 2.9 this year. As we know, changing perceptions of quality is hard to do and takes time. So this is great progress!
We are doing a major media and social media blast on this ranking. I encourage everyone to use your social media networks to help us spread the word on this strong ranking. We are striving to continue to improve our expert opinion score and, obviously, attract more students. Here is the link to the a really nice story on UNH Today. Sharon and Micky are publishing across our social media channels. As you share these posts, please use hash tags #PaulPride, #BestOnlinePrograms, #ThisisUNH.
I am really proud of this achievement, especially because I believe that this online delivery channel is the key way for us to deliver our MBA education within New Hampshire where our population is widely dispersed. My thanks to all the faculty who have made this program a rigorous and engaging experience for our students, to Becky Barbour and the excellent team in the Graduate Program Office who have provided great support in admissions and services to our students, and to Vicky Parker, Billur Akdeniz, and Kevin McLaughlin who have provided strategic leadership as we have invested in continuous improvement in the program to keep it competitive in a market that continues to have more and more players. I am also grateful to the leadership of Sharon Keeler in managing the marketing of the program as well as the Graduate School and UNH Online who have supported our efforts in marketing, recruitment, and services.
I wish we could gather for our traditional “pop-up” celebration for this ranking and for our recent undergraduate #55 ranking in Poets & Quants. Hopefully we can do this later this spring when we can gather outside.
Congratulations to us!
Deborah
Deborah Merrill-Sands, Ph.D.
Dean
Paul College of Business and Economics
University of New Hampshire
603-862-1983
LinkedIn; Instagram
Zoom /dmerrillsands
