When searching for the perfect MBA program, rankings can offer valuable insights. However, with many different rankings available, it’s crucial to understand the nuances of each to make an informed decision. Let’s dive into MBA and EMBA rankings and their relevance to your search for the dream MBA program.
MBA rankings can be a useful resource if you’re searching for the right MBA or EMBA program.
Compiled annually by various prestigious publications, these rankings evaluate and compare the academic quality, career outcomes, and student satisfaction of MBA programs worldwide. They serve as a benchmark for quality and can significantly influence a program’s reputation and appeal.
MBA rankings provide valuable insights into the strengths and weaknesses of business schools. Prospective students use them as a comparative lens to assess their options. Employers use the rankings to classify the expected quality of MBA recruits.
The MBA ranking landscape has experienced significant shifts in recent years, influenced by the pandemic and growing criticism of ranking systems. Historically, the top five MBA rankings came from the Financial Times, U.S. News, Bloomberg Businessweek, The Economist, and Forbes. However, since 2022 The Economist and Forbes have ceased releasing their MBA rankings. Fortune magazine stepped in to fill the gap, launching its own MBA ranking in 2021.
This article covers the methodology, publication dates, and unique focus of each MBA ranking. These criteria will inform the value you should place on a ranking. Remember, rankings are valuable for narrowing down your options, but personal preferences and career aspirations should always take precedence. The rankings are divided into Global, US-only, or composite to help you navigate them.
This section will explore various global MBA Rankings conducted by the Financial Times, Bloomberg Businessweek, Corporate Knights, and Quacquarelli Symonds (QS). These rankings highlight the best MBA programs worldwide, with some focusing on certain regions such as Europe, Asia, North America, and Africa.
The Financial Times (FT) is an international newspaper that provides news, analysis, and opinion on various business topics. The FT offers a suite of seven rankings covering business schools and their programs.
The FT MBA rankings are largely survey-based, with a survey being sent to both the business school and alumni. The FT limits its ranking to the 100 best programs for each category.
Release Date: Early February
Top School: Wharton School of Business
This flagship ranking looks at full-time MBA programs and has served as a critical resource since its inception in 1999. In 2023, FT overhauled the methodology for the Global MBA ranking.
The new methodology emphasizes diversity and social impact. A new element in the methodology is also the calculation of the carbon footprint of schools. Schools are judged on how close they are to achieving net zero carbon.
Another change in the methodology is the alumni network rank. This is based on alumni ratings of the quality of the school’s alumni network. They rate this based on career opportunities, quality of events, and other factors.
Finally, a new sector diversity rank has been included. This is ranked based on how many differing industries a student has worked in before their MBA.
Release Date: Early March
Top School: IE Business School
This ranking’s methodology is fairly similar to that of the Global MBA, but it looks specifically at online MBA program rankings.
In the 2024 ranking, the top three online MBAs are offered by business schools in Europe.
Release Date: Mid-October
Top School: Kellogg School of Management/ HKUST
This ranking’s methodology is fairly similar to that of the Global MBA, but it looks specifically at EMBA programs.
In the latest edition, the Kellogg Business School-HKUST EMBA takes the number one spot for the twelfth time.
Release Date: Late May
Top School: HEC Paris (Open) / Insead (Custom)
This ranking employs a distinct methodology to specifically assess the executive education offerings of business schools. There are separate lists for open enrollment focus and custom course offerings focus. In 2023, 11 out of the top 12 positions were held by European institutions.
Release Date: Early December
Top School: Insead
This comprehensive ranking combines data from the FT MBA, EMBA, MiM, and Executive Education rankings. It excludes data from the Online MBA and Masters in Finance rankings.
Release Date: Mid-September
Top School: Stanford Graduate School of Business
Bloomberg Businessweek’s Best B-Schools is an annual ranking of the best business schools in the United States, Canada, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific. The assessment evaluates full-time graduate MBA programs worldwide based on data provided by participating schools and responses to survey questions by students, alumni, and employers. Read our roundup of the Bloomberg rankings from 2023-2024.
The ranking employs a methodology that assesses schools across four or five key dimensions: compensation, learning, networking, entrepreneurship, and, for US institutions only, diversity.
Release Date: Early November
Top School: Griffith Business School
The Corporate Knights Better World MBA Ranking assesses schools on their commitment to sustainability and responsible management. The ranking highlights the top institutions shaping future business leaders for a sustainable world. Through a concise set of metrics, it emphasizes the importance of integrating ethical practices into business education.
The ranking is based on a methodology (from 2021) that assesses schools on five key performance indicators (KPIs), including core course integration of sustainability, research publications per faculty member on sustainability topics in the calendar year, percent of total faculty publications on sustainability topics, number of citations per faculty for those publications, sustainability-focused research institutes and centers, faculty gender diversity and faculty racial diversity.
Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) is an international organization specializing in the analysis and ranking of higher education institutions. It is known for the QS World University Rankings, which include specific evaluations for MBA programs.
Release Date: Late October
Top School: Stanford Graduate School of Business
This ranking highlights the best full-time MBA programs worldwide. The methodology is based on data gathered from three surveys: one from employers, an academic survey, and a survey directly completed by business schools.
Release Date: March
Top School: Imperial College Business School
This ranking lists Online MBA programs worldwide. This year, for the first time, separate ranking lists were made for different regions, such as North America, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and Asia Pacific. Rankings can be viewed per region, for example, the QS Online MBA Rankings: Europe.
Release Date: June
Top School: Oxford (Said)
This ranking focuses specifically on highlighting the best Executive MBA programs globally. The methodology considers the executive profile of admitted students.
This section will discuss MBA Rankings that specifically focus on MBA programs within the United States. This section will include various national American MBA rankings from US News, Fortune Magazine, LinkedIn, and The Princeton Review.
U.S. News also creates rankings of the Best Business Schools, helping students find their ideal business school by being able to filter by location, tuition, school size, and test scores.
Their methodology focuses on ranking based on career placement and earning outcome success of graduates, student excellence, and qualitative assessments by experts on overall program quality.
Release Date: Early April
Top School: Stanford Graduate School of Business
This ranking evaluates full-time MBA programs based on career placement success (including average starting salaries), student excellence (measured by median GMAT and GRE scores, undergraduate GPA, and acceptance rate), and qualitative assessments from peers and recruiters.
Release Date: Early April
Top School: The University of Chicago (Booth)
This ranking focuses specifically on part-time MBA programs, which are handy for students looking to balance work with studies. The ranking focuses on part-time programs that offer evening or weekend classes.
The methodology considers factors such as peer assessment scores, the ratio and total number of part-time students, GMAT/GRE scores, undergraduate GPA, and work experience.
Release Date: Early February
Top School: Indiana University–Bloomington (Kelley)
This ranking focuses specifically on Online MBA programs, with a focus on highly ranked programs with strong academic foundations, student excellence, graduation rates, and instructor credentials. The ranking highlights distance learning that provides students with excellent career and financial support.
The methodology for the Online MBA programs ranking is based on five criteria: engagement, peer assessment, faculty credentials and training, student excellence, and services and technologies.
Release Date: Early February
Top School: University of Pennsylvania (Wharton)
Since 2024, the methodology for the Best Executive MBA Programs ranking is based on the same criteria for the Best Business Schools ranking (see above).
In 2021, Fortune Magazine entered the US MBA Rankings arena. Fortune’s ranking methodology for MBA programs blends school provided data with acknowledgement of previously ranked programs with a unique Fortune 1000 Score to evaluate global business schools.
It highlights graduates’ market demand through salary data and job placements, assesses schools’ brand strength based on a survey of business professionals and measures their influence by tracking MBA alumni in C-suite positions at Fortune 1000 companies.
Release Date: August
Top School: Harvard University
Fortune Education aims to help students decipher the best of what the business school landscape has to offer, with this ranking focusing on the Best MBA Programs in the US. 81 schools are included in the Best MBA ranking.
Their methodology for this ranking focuses on Outcome Score (focusing on starting salaries and job placement), Brand Score (looking at universities brand strength), and Fortune 1000 Score (looking at MBA alumni who are C-suite executives at Fortune 1000 companies).
Release Date: Early April
Top School: University of Chicago (Booth)
This ranking focuses specifically on the Best Part-time MBA Programs in the US. The list focuses on excellent curriculums and access to world-renowned business school professors, and successful alumni.
Their methodology for this ranking focuses on the number of alumni working at Fortune 1000 companies, average annual search volume on Google as well as general school brand and reputation, school-supplied data such as graduation rates and GPAs, and the opinions of an expert panel.
Release Date: October
Top School: Northwestern University (Kellogg)
This ranking looks specifically at Executive MBA programs, ranking 55 business schools in the US. It is a useful ranking for mid-career professionals looking to work in a C-suite role and network with highly motivated, experienced peers.
Their methodology focuses on ranking based on Program Score (average years of work experience and general management experience of students), Brand Score (looking at the brand strength of a university), and Fortune 1000 Score (looking at MBA alumni who are C-suite executives at Fortune 1000 companies).
Release Date: Early May
Top School: Indiana University–Bloomington (Kelley)
This ranking focuses specifically on highlighting the Best Online MBA Programs in the US. This ranking includes over 90 qualified business schools (who completed their questionnaire).
Their methodology focuses on the Fortune 1000 Score (the number of alumni working at a Fortune 1000 company with a C-level placement), average annual search volume via Google (public perception of a school’s brand and reputation), its previous Fortune ranking, school-provided data (such as graduation rates, GPA and students years of work experience), and the professional opinions of an expert panel.
Release Date: Mid-November
Top School: Stanford Graduate School of Business (Stanford University)
In 2023, LinkedIn News launched its inaugural LinkedIn Top MBA Programs list, which ranks 50 top business schools in the US. This ranking leverages exclusive LinkedIn data to analyze the career outcomes of MBA alumni. This approach examines key metrics such as job placement rates, progression to senior-level positions, and the strength of the alumni network.
Their methodology for this ranking focused on LinkedIn data of U.S. MBA programs based on five pillars: hiring and demand (which tracks job placement rates and labor market demand), ability to advance (tracks promotions and how quickly alumni reached leadership roles), network strength (which tracks network quality and network growth rate) leadership potential (which tracks alumni with C-suite experience) and gender diversity (which measures gender parity within recent graduate cohorts).
Release Date: January
Top School: Indiana University—Bloomington Kelley School of Business (Online MBA)
Princeton Review‘s Best Business Schools rankings focus specifically on highlighting the best business schools in the US. Prospective students can view MBA programs organized into various categories such as Best Online MBA Programs, Most Family-Friendly MBA, Best MBA for Management, and many others.
The methodology for this ranking is based on expansive surveys completed by both on-campus and online MBA students. These rankings are compiled using a mix of student feedback and institutional data. Factors such as career outcomes, admissions selectivity, and academic rigor are considered in the selection process.
A composite business school ranking assesses programs by integrating data from multiple rankings and public sources. Unlike other evaluations, these rankings do not conduct independent surveys or gather non-public information.
Release Date: Early December
Top School: Stanford Graduate School of Business
The Poets&Quants MBA Ranking combines data about US MBA programs from other rankings lists to provide a well-rounded view of MBA programs. Data is taken from the U.S. News & World Report, Financial Times, and Bloomberg rankings. In the latest ranking, the LinkedIn and the Princeton Review rankings were included for the first time.
Release Date: Late September
Top School: University of New South Wales
For the past two years, the Australian Financial Review, through its BOSS magazine, has published a ranking of the top 37 business schools in Australia. This ranking does not gather its own data.
This ranking utilizes a methodology of combining publicly available data with results from other ranking systems to evaluate Australian business schools across three key indices: Reputation, Quality, and Career Impact.
Ultimately, MBA Rankings can be a comprehensive tool for helping you better understand which MBA program is the right fit for you. Keep in mind that rankings are just one resource that can inform your MBA decision-making process.
To get a more complete picture of what each program includes, combine the insights from rankings with firsthand experiences. Visit campuses, reach out to alumni, attend student networking events, or speak with an MBA ambassador to find out more.
Learn more about various MBA program rankings by reading more of our MBA rankings articles.
