OMBA Ranking 2026: Undergrad GPA, Work Experience & Women At Top Online MBA Programs

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University of Washington’s Foster School of Business Hybrid MBA students gather  for one of its in-person immersions.

AVERAGE AGE AND YEARS OF WORK EXPERIENCE

Experience in the workforce is an advantage in any MBA classroom where discussions and class projects invite students to learn from each other alongside the teacher and the course curriculum. The OMBA classroom is no different.

In our ranking, average years of work experience accounts for 25% of the Academic Standards category.

One school reported an average work experience of 15 years for 2026, the highest in the ranking: Jack Welch Management Institute, ranked No. 9 overall. It is the same average it reported in last year’s ranking, when it also topped the metric.

Jack Welch was followed by Case Western Reserve University (Weatherhead) – a ranking newcomer finishing at No. 11 overall – which reported 12.6 years of work experience.

Seven other programs reported an average of 10 years or more. For all schools, the average work experience was 8.1 years.

While average age of an OMBA cohort does not factor into our methodology, it does tell prospective students something about the class they hope to join. So, we collect it from participating schools, and we present the data below.

Work Experience & Age At P&Q Ranked OMBAS
Rank
School
Average Work Experience
Average Age
1 Indiana University (Kelley) 8.0 31
2 University of Texas at Dallas (Jindal) 8.0 28
3 University of Michigan (Ross) 7.7 31
4 University of Washington (Foster) 9.6 33
5 Hofstra University (Zarb) 7.5 34
6 Carnegie Mellon University (Tepper) 6.5 31
7 Auburn University (Harbert) 7.6 32
8 University of Southern California, Marshall School of Business 7.8 31
9 Jack Welch Management Institute 15.0 40
10 University of Florida (Warrington) 7.0 31
11 Case Western Reserve University (Weatherhead) 12.6 39
12 University of North Carolina (Kenan-Flagler) 9.5 34
13 University of Utah (Eccles) 8.0 32
14 Wake Forest University 7.8 33
15 Villanova University 9.4 32
16 Lehigh University 7.2 30
17 Fairfield University (Dolan) 12.0 33
18 University of Wisconsin MBA Consortium 9.0 34
19 Bryant University 12.5 34
20 Rice University (Jones) 7.7 35
21 University of Massachusetts at Amherst (Isenberg) 12.2 38
22 North Carolina State University (Poole) 7.7 33
23 Bowling Green State University (Schmidthorst) 8.0 33
24 Santa Clara University (Leavey) 8.6 32
25 University of Connecticut 7.6 31
26 University of Iowa (Tippie) 8.5 33
27 University of South Florida (Muma) 5.1 31
28 Clemson University 11.6 31
29 University of Denver (Daniels) 8.0 33
30 Texas Tech University (Rawls) 4.0 28
31 University of Cincinnati (Lindner) 7.0 31
32 University of Delaware (Lerner) 7.3 32
33 University of Nebraska-Lincoln 7.8 34
34 Baylor University (Hankamer) 8.9 32
35 Pepperdine University (Graziadio) 9.0 32
36 University of Maryland (Smith) 6.6 33
37 Syracuse University (Whitman) 9.0 33
38 William & Mary (Mason) 8.0 33
39 University of Michigan-Dearborn 7.0 32
40 San Jose State University (Lucas) 3.7 26
41 American University (Kogod) 5.9 31
42 Longwood University 11.0 33
43 Ohio University 8.0 34
44 Rogers State University 8.0 31
45 Southern Methodist University (Cox) 5.6 28
46 University of Massachusetts Lowell (Manning) 10.1 34
47 University of California-Davis 8.0 35
48 Mississippi State University NA 27
49 Louisiana State University (Ourso) 8.0 33
50 Creighton University (Heider) 6.3 31
51 Florida International University 6.2 30
52 Temple University (Fox) 8.2 32
53 SUNY Oswego 9.0 32
54 Drexel University (LeBow) 6.7 30
55 University of Missouri (Trulaske) 3.6 28
56 George Mason University (Costello) 8.0 33
57 Seattle University (Albers) 7.5 32
58 University of Houston (Bauer) 10.0 36
59 University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (Rollins) 7.5 31
60 Kennesaw State University (Coles) 9.8 33
61 University of North Texas (Ryan) 3.0 30

Next page: Percent of women in P&Q ranked programs