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

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University of Texas at Dallas’ Naveen Jindal School of Management online MBA students.

When shopping for online MBA programs, prospective students face a mountain of factors to consider. Learning experience, cost, and the odds of getting in (and staying in) just to name a few.

This data is a distinquishing factor of Poets&Quants annual ranking of the Best Online MBA Programs in the U.S. Alongside the final list, we publish a whole collection of articles diving into the metrics most important for students considering such a hefty investment.

For the cost conscious, school seekers should check out our article, What It Costs To Get An Online MBA, and then look to see how likely a target school will help them recoup their investment through pay raises and advancement. For that, we asked program alumni to rate their degrees’ career impact.

For those focused on admissions selectivity, we break down acceptance rates, GMAT and GRE scores, as well as graduation and retention rates to provide a clearer picture of both how hard it is to get in, and how well students are supported once they do.

UNDERGRAD GPAs AT P&Q RANKED PROGRAMS

Another metric prospective students should consider is average undergraduate GPA. It not only helps applicants gauge their chances of admission to a particular program, but allows them to gauge the academic profile of the peers they’ll be learning alongside.

Our ranking methodology weights average undergraduate GPA at 30% of the Admissions Standards category, which itself accounts for one-third of the overall ranking.

Across all schools, the average undergraduate GPA for OMBA students admitted in the 2024-2025 school year is 3.31, the same as our 2025 ranking. That’s up slightly from the 3.28 average from the previous two rankings.

For 2026, incoming students from Texas Tech’s Jerry S. Rawls College of Business posted the highest average GPA of all at 3.71. That’s higher than the previous class (which averaged 3.64) which posted the second highest GPA for the 2025 ranking.

University of Cincinnati Linder College of Business OMBAs posted the second highest GPA at 3.58.

The table below shows all the average GPAs for the 61 schools P&Q ranked in 2026, along with the averages from the previous three rankings (where available).

Average Undergrad GPA 2022-2026
2026 Rank
School
2026 Ugrad GPA
2025 Ugrad GPA
2024 Ugrad GPA
2023 Ugrad GPA
2022 Ugrad GPA
1 Indiana University (Kelley) 3.41 3.41 3.44 3.40 3.40
2 University of Texas at Dallas (Jindal) 3.41 3.45 3.44 3.20 3.20
3 University of Michigan (Ross) 3.36 3.37 3.36 3.46 3.46
4 University of Washington (Foster) 3.33 3.40 3.47 3.43 3.43
5 Hofstra University (Zarb) 3.43 3.39 3.35 3.30 3.30
6 Carnegie Mellon University (Tepper) 3.39 3.37 3.43 3.43 3.43
7 Auburn University (Harbert) 3.43 3.31 3.39 3.39 3.39
8 University of Southern California, Marshall School of Business 3.20 3.20 3.17 3.27 3.27
9 Jack Welch Management Institute 3.28 3.24 3.23 3.17 3.17
10 University of Florida (Warrington) 3.35 3.35 3.36 3.21 3.21
11 Case Western Reserve University (Weatherhead) 3.30 NA NA NA NA
12 University of North Carolina (Kenan-Flagler) 3.24 3.10 3.26 3.03 3.03
13 University of Utah (Eccles) 3.36 3.32 3.28 3.38 3.38
14 Wake Forest University 3.20 3.22 NA NA NA
15 Villanova University 3.34 3.37 3.30 3.20 3.20
16 Lehigh University 3.43 3.36 3.28 3.36 3.36
17 Fairfield University (Dolan) 3.37 3.65 NA NA NA
18 University of Wisconsin MBA Consortium 3.44 3.37 3.43 3.39 3.39
19 Bryant University 3.40 3.30 3.20 3.15 3.15
20 Rice University (Jones) 3.17 3.20 3.33 3.32 3.32
21 University of Massachusetts at Amherst (Isenberg) 3.30 3.30 3.31 3.32 3.32
22 North Carolina State University (Poole) 3.23 3.22 3.32 3.23 3.23
23 Bowling Green State University (Schmidthorst) 3.50 3.40 3.40 NA NA
24 Santa Clara University (Leavey) 3.18 3.14 3.15 3.11 3.11
25 University of Connecticut 3.33 3.38 NA NA NA
26 University of Iowa (Tippie) 3.34 3.34 3.31 NA NA
27 University of South Florida (Muma) 3.30 3.40 3.32 3.60 3.60
28 Clemson University 3.29 3.20 3.14 3.20 3.20
29 University of Denver (Daniels) 3.31 3.50 3.18 3.08 3.08
30 Texas Tech University (Rawls) 3.71 3.64 NA NA NA
31 University of Cincinnati (Lindner) 3.58 3.52 3.50 3.53 3.53
32 University of Delaware (Lerner) 3.35 3.30 3.33 3.33 3.33
33 University of Nebraska-Lincoln 3.40 3.40 3.40 3.37 3.37
34 Baylor University (Hankamer) 3.31 3.19 3.21 3.13 3.13
35 Pepperdine University (Graziadio) 3.21 3.07 3.13 3.04 3.04
36 University of Maryland (Smith) 3.20 3.40 3.80 3.40 3.40
37 Syracuse University (Whitman) 3.14 3.16 3.08 3.14 3.14
38 William & Mary (Mason) 3.13 3.20 3.20 3.24 3.24
39 University of Michigan-Dearborn 3.33 3.25 3.51 3.45 3.45
40 San Jose State University (Lucas) 3.37 3.41 3.50 NA NA
41 American University (Kogod) 3.04 2.88 2.68 2.99 2.99
42 Longwood University 3.15 NA NA NA NA
43 Ohio University 3.20 3.26 3.08 3.20 3.20
44 Rogers State University 3.48 3.15 3.57 NA NA
45 Southern Methodist University (Cox) 3.21 3.17 3.05 3.10 3.10
46 University of Massachusetts Lowell (Manning) 3.41 3.41 3.41 3.41 3.41
47 University of California-Davis 3.20 3.20 3.10 3.30 3.30
48 Mississippi State University 3.28 NA NA NA NA
49 Louisiana State University (Ourso) 3.17 3.19 3.10 3.13 3.13
50 Creighton University (Heider) 3.42 3.37 3.41 3.09 3.09
51 Florida International University 3.00 3.32 3.35 3.32 3.32
52 Temple University (Fox) 3.25 NA NA NA NA
53 SUNY Oswego 3.24 3.34 3.25 3.30 3.30
54 Drexel University (LeBow) 3.21 3.20 3.18 3.20 3.20
55 University of Missouri (Trulaske) 3.46 3.32 NA NA NA
56 George Mason University (Costello) 3.30 3.30 NA NA NA
57 Seattle University (Albers) 3.40 3.24 NA NA NA
58 University of Houston (Bauer) 3.32 NA NA NA NA
59 University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (Rollins) 3.30 3.36 3.53 3.44 3.44
60 Kennesaw State University (Coles) 3.16 3.23 3.24 3.25 3.25
61 University of North Texas (Ryan) 3.38 3.40 3.55 3.40 3.40

Next page: Average age and years of work experience for P&Q ranked programs