U.S. News & World Report has named Bellarmine University’s part-time Master of Business Administration (MBA) program as one of the best in the nation in its 2021 Best Graduate Schools Rankings.
Bellarmine’s part-time MBA program was one of 272 programs included on the list. U.S. News numerically ranked the top three-quarters of the list. For schools in the bottom quarter of the rankings, U.S. News made an editorial decision to display only the ranking range. Bellarmine’s program fell into this 207-272 category, which was listed alphabetically.
Part-time business programs play a vital role for working people who can’t attend school full time for family, job-related or financial reasons. Bellarmine’s flexible part-time MBA program, taught by faculty with a combination of professional and academic experience, allows students to earn their MBA on one-weeknight, two-weeknight or weekend schedules. The program offers MBA concentrations in business analytics or emphases in finance, marketing, management or innovation.
The U.S. News part-time MBA rankings were based on five factors:
- Average peer assessment score from fall 2019 surveys (50%)
- Average GMAT score and average GRE quantitative, verbal and analytical writing scores of part-time MBA students entering in fall 2019 (15%)
- Average undergraduate GPA of part-time MBA students entering in fall 2019 (12.5%)
- Number of years of work experience of part-time MBA students entering in fall 2019, with more years of work experience scoring higher in the rankings (10%)
- Percentage of the business school's fall 2019 total full-time and part-time MBA enrollment that is in the part-time MBA program, with a higher percentage of MBA students being part-time scoring higher in the rankings (12.5%)
The statistical data was collected in fall 2019 and early 2020.
To be eligible for the current part-time ranking, a program had to be accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) International in summer 2019 and have reported fall 2019 part-time MBA program enrollment of 20 or more students, based on the statistical data the MBA program reported to U.S. News in fall 2019 and early 2020. In addition, a school must have had a part-time MBA program enrollment of 20 or more students in fall 2018.
Bellarmine’s Rubel School is the first and only private university in Kentucky to achieve AACSB International accreditation, a distinction held by fewer than 5 percent of business schools worldwide.
Data was standardized so that each school's value was compared with the mean and standard deviations of all other schools, and standardized scores were weighted, totaled and rescaled so that the top-scoring school received 100; scores for the others were calculated as a percentage of the top score. Part-time MBA programs were then numerically ranked in descending order, based on their scores.
Every year, U.S. News ranks professional school programs in business, education, engineering, law, medicine and nursing, including specialties in each area, based on two types of data: expert opinions about program excellence and statistical indicators that measure the quality of a school's faculty, research and students. The data for the rankings in all six disciplines comes from statistical surveys of more than 2,081 programs and from reputation surveys sent to more than 24,603 academics and professionals, conducted in fall 2019 and early 2020.
Information on U.S. News’ website can help prospective students compare factors such as schools’ student-faculty ratio and job-placement success.