Elon MBA program earns #12 national ranking in BusinessWeek magazine

The rankings were released late Thursday afternoon in a live online chat hosted by BusinessWeek staff. Two dozen faculty and administrators from the Martha and Spencer Love School of Business at Elon erupted into cheers when Elon was ranked #2 overall in the South region of the country behind only Emory University in Georgia.

The rankings placed Elon’s MBA program ahead of Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C., the only other school from North Carolina to make the regional Top Five list. Georgia State University and Rollins College in Winter Park, Fla. rounded out the list of top programs in the South.

“This attests to the efforts that our faculty have put in over the past few years in creating a solid, high-quality program that promises a full-time experience in a part-time format,” said Mary Gowan, dean of the Martha and Spencer Love School of Business. “It’s going to give us the recognition we deserve for the program our faculty created.”

The rankings were based on several factors, but what counted most was student feedback, which was collected in a survey sent out to a sample of students at each university. Elon ranked #7 overall in the nation in terms of student satisfaction, #8 in the nation in academic quality, and with an average class size of 18 students, Elon was tied at second-place on the list of smallest average class size in the top schools.

“It’s an endorsement of the quality of our students,” Bill Burpitt, an associate professor of business and director of the MBA program, said when the rankings were released. “And it’s a ringing endorsement of the quality of our faculty and the excellence of our curriculum.”

Information on Elon compiled by BusinessWeek includes: