All participating business schools must meet the FT’s strict entry criteria. The school must be accredited by AACSB or EQUIS and programmes must have run for four consecutive years. At least 70 per cent of the content must be delivered online. Course participants must pass a selection process before enrolling and an examination process before graduating. Data were collected through two online surveys — the first was completed by participating schools and the second by their alumni who finished their online MBA in 2016. The ranking uses 18 indicators:  

Salary today US$ (20%) - Average alumnus salary three years after graduation, $ PPP equivalent.

Salary increase (10%) - Percentage increase in alumnus salary in current job versus three years ago on graduation.

Value for money (3%) - Calculated according to alumnus salary, tuition, fees and other costs.

Career progress (4%) - Progression in alumni’s level of seniority and the size of company they now work for, versus three years ago on graduation.

Aims achieved (4%) - Extent to which alumni fulfilled their goals for taking an online MBA.

Careers service (4%) - Effectiveness of school careers service in terms of career counselling, personal development, networking events and recruitment, as rated by alumni.

Programme delivery (5%) - How alumni rate the online delivery of live teaching sessions, other teaching materials and online exams.

Online interaction (10%) - How alumni rate the interaction between students, teamwork and the availability of faculty.

Female faculty (3%) - Percentage of female members of faculty.

Female students (3%) - Percentage of female students on MBA programme.

Women on board (1%) - Percentage of female members of school advisory board.

International faculty (4%) - Percentage of faculty whose citizenship differs from their country of employment.

International students (4%) - Percentage of current students whose citizenship differs from the country the school is located in.

International board (2%) - Percentage of board whose citizenship differs from the country in which the business school is situated.

International mobility (5%) - Based on alumni citizenship and the countries where they worked before their MBA, on graduation and three years after.

Faculty with doctorates (5%) - Percentage of full-time faculty with a doctoral degree.

Corporate social responsibility rank (3%) - Proportion of credits from core courses dedicated to CSR, ethics, social and environmental issues.

FT research rank (10%) - Calculated according to the number of articles published by a school’s current full-time faculty members in 50 academic and practitioner journals between January 2017 and December 2019. The rank combines the absolute number of publications with the number weighted relative to the faculty’s size.

For the three gender-related criteria, schools with a 50:50 (male/female) composition receive the highest score.