UC Davis Online MBA Ranked Among Top 25 by Poets&Quants

The UC Davis Online MBA program, the first and only online MBA in the University of California system, has been ranked among the top 25 in Poets&Quants' “The Best Online MBA Programs in the U.S. for 2025."

Poets&Quants, a leading online platform for business education news, released its eighth annual list of top online MBAs on December 16, 2024. This was the third time UC Davis submitted information to Poets&Quants for ranking purposes.

The UC Davis Online MBA ranked No. 22 overall, down from No. 19 last year.

Among online MBA programs at public universities, the UC Davis ranked No. 12 nationwide. 

UC Davis Stands Out in Survey of Online MBA Graduates

Two out of three categories in Poets&Quants annual ranking of online MBA programs relies on responses to surveys sent to more than 7,800 recent alumni at 57 ranked schools (see full methodology). The survey asked more than a dozen questions about their academic experience. Responses from UC Davis Online MBA grads ranked high in many of the factors, including:

No. 16 for alumni gaining a promotion as a result of the program.

No. 20 for recent graduates' earning a salary increase as a result of the program.

In addition, among the online MBA programs at business schools on the West Coast ranked by Poets&Quants, the UC Davis Online MBA rated among the top 5 in several categories, including:

No. 4 for:

• satisfaction with opportunity to create good connections with faculty.

• satisfaction with the in-person sessions and/or class trips.

• satisfaction participating in a consulting project.

• satisfaction with the program's flexibility.

No. 5 for:

• accessibility and responsiveness of professors.
• satisfaction with your ability to immediately apply what you learned in the program to your job.
• those who would recommend the program to a colleague, friend or family member.
• satisfaction with the asynchronous content. 
• ability to participate in and learn from doing presentations.
• satisfaction with opportunities to create good connections with fellow students.

Launched in fall of 2019, the UC Davis Online MBA program has more than 300 current students from 16 states and over 400 alumni. It is one of four MBA formats offered at UC Davis, which include nationally ranked Full-Time MBA in Davis and Part-Time MBA programs in Sacramento, Calif. and the San Francisco Bay Area in San Ramon. 

This Poets&Quants survey follows another influential online MBA ranking released this spring. In April, QS ranked the UC Davis Online MBA program No. 7 in North America and No. 13 globally.

Poets&Quants Methodology and Core Results

Overall, the UC Davis Online MBA scored 79.61 of 100 possible points.

 Poets&Quants based its eighth annual online MBA ranking on three core dimensions:

• Admissions Standards
  • UC Davis Online MBA ranked No. 30 with 70.71 points
• Academic Experience
  • UC Davis Online MBA ranked No. 29 with 84.33 points
• Career Impact/Outcomes
  • UC Davis Online MBA ranked No. 21 with 74.92 points

Admissions standards come from a school survey, while academic experience and career support come from an alumni survey of the class of 2024. Poets&Quants sent the survey to 7,823 eligible alumni at 57 ranked programs with 1,293 returned surveys. That’s a 17% response rate.

Poets&Quants made several changes to its methodology this year, most significantly in the Admissions Standards area by further reducing the GMAT average metric to 10% of the Admission Standard score while also including GRE scores into their calculations. Read the full methodology.

"There’s no ranking on the market that can 100% measure an online program’s student experience, the rigor of the coursework, or the career outcomes for any particular graduate," Poets&Quants editors noted. "But we at Poets&Quants have built—and continue to update—a ranking that we hope informs prospective students on a program’s quality and promise as accurately as we can."

Learn more about the Poets&Quants 2025 Online MBA rankings.

About Poets&Quants

Poets&Quants is the leading resource for complete coverage of graduate business education. It feature multiple tools and authoritative content, including consolidated B-school rankings, news and in-depth features, videos, podcasts, two searchable directories, and events, empowering its community with information needed to make decisions along their journey from pre- to post-MBA.