The U.S. News Short List, separate from our overall rankings, is a regular series that magnifies individual data points in hopes of providing students and parents a way to find which undergraduate or graduate programs excel or have room to grow in specific areas. Be sure to explore The Short List: College, The Short List: Grad School and The Short List: Online Programs to find data that matter to you in your college or graduate school search.
Between writing essays, getting letters of recommendation and taking admissions exams, applying to an online MBA program can be a tiring process, especially for prospective students also juggling family and work responsibilities.
[Learn tips for applying to online MBA programs.]
Fortunately for applicants, that hard work is likely to pay off. Among the 177 online MBA programs that submitted data to U.S. News in an annual survey, the average acceptance rate was 75 percent for the 2014-2015 academic year.
However, some programs are much more selective. Twenty-six online MBA programs reported accepting less than half of their applicants, including Concordia University Chicago, which had the lowest acceptance rate at 33.5 percent.
The 10 schools with the lowest acceptance rates had an average rate of 38 percent. Of those schools, Liberty University had by far the greatest number of applicants for 2014-2015 at 4,974. It accepted 2,036, or nearly 41 percent, of them.
[Discover why online MBA programs may offer an easier admissions path.]
In contrast, 15 of the programs that submitted admissions data to U.S. News — including Fitchburg State University in Massachusetts and Columbus State University in Georgia — accepted 100 percent of applicants.
Below is a list of the 10 online MBA programs with the lowest acceptance rates for the 2014-2015 academic year. Unranked schools, which did not meet certain criteria required by U.S. News to be numerically ranked, were not considered for this report.
| School (name) (state) | Acceptance rate | U.S. News rank |
|---|---|---|
| Concordia University Chicago | 33.5% | 105 (tie) |
| Cleveland State University (Ahuja) | 34.1% | 20 (tie) |
| Robert Morris University (PA) | 36.4% | 66 (tie) |
| Marist College (NY) | 36.6% | 52 (tie) |
| Lasell College (MA) | 38.5% | RNP* |
| University of North Texas | 39.4% | 15 (tie) |
| University of Tennessee–Chattanooga | 39.9% | 66 (tie) |
| University of South Florida–St. Petersburg (Tiedemann) | 40.2% | 15 (tie) |
| Liberty University (VA) | 40.9% | 110 (tie) |
| University of Mississippi | 42.2% | 22 (tie) |
* RNP denotes an institution that is ranked in the bottom one-fourth of its ranking category. U.S. News calculates a rank for the school but has decided not to publish it.
School officials can access historical data and rankings, including of peer institutions, via U.S. News Academic Insights.
U.S. News surveyed 228 public, private and for-profit schools for our 2016 Best Online MBA Programs rankings. Schools reported myriad data regarding their academic programs and the makeup of their student body, among other areas, making U.S. News’ data the most accurate and detailed collection of college facts and figures of its kind. While U.S. News uses much of these survey data to rank schools for our annual Best Online MBA Programs rankings, the data can also be useful when examined on a smaller scale. U.S. News will now produce lists of data, separate from the overall rankings, meant to provide students and parents a means to find which schools excel, or have room to grow, in specific areas that are important to them. These data are specific to schools’ online MBA program offerings and have no influence over U.S. News’ Best Business Schools rankings assessing traditional business programs. The admissions data above are correct as of March 1, 2016.
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10 Online MBA Programs With the Lowest Acceptance Rates originally appeared on usnews.com