The University of Delaware’s Online MBA program continues to move rapidly up in rankings in its third year of ranking eligibility.

U.S. News and World Report’s 2017 rankings rated UD’s Online MBA 65th in the nation, a jump of almost 40 points from its 2015 ranking of 101.

Jack Baroudi, associate dean of MBA and graduate programs at UD’s Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics, said that this continued increase in rankings demonstrates the strength and potential of this relatively new program.

“The ranking is important to demonstrate the effort and the time and value that we place in our online program and in our online students,” Baroudi said. “We’re expecting to see this continue to get better and better.”

Baroudi also discussed the fact that the UD Online MBA program’s scores in many ranking categories were as strong as that of many top programs, especially those scores that relate to faculty.

“That’s something I’m very proud of,” Baroudi said. “Because it reflects that we put our best faculty efforts forward for our online MBA students.”

One such UD Online MBA student, Lamar Waples, said that the program has helped him to advance in his career and increased the number of opportunities available to him.

In fact, Waples said that being a UD MBA student was a major factor in his attaining a managerial position with one of the world’s largest companies in his industry.

UD “has a good brand,” he explained. “And so when I applied for the job, people knew about the school and its reputable name, which helped me secure the position.”

The UD Online courses allow Waples, who resides in New Jersey, to earn a UD MBA without disrupting his life as a working professional.

“It’s a really flexible program,” he said. “The flexibility makes things a lot easier.”

And Waples’ favorite thing about the UD Online MBA program: “It’s real-life, applicable knowledge that you can use for what you do in your day-to-day duties.”

“For example, my last semester we had a corporate strategy class,” he said. “That class enabled me to learn on a functional level how to make decisions in the marketplace.”