Harvard Named World’s Best Business School in QS Rankings

The 2024 QS World University Rankings for Business and Management studies named Harvard University as the premiere institution for studying business. INSEAD (France) and the London Business School followed Harvard, while Stanford University and MIT ranked fourth and fifth, respectively. The top five ranked universities did not change from 2023. 

QS bases its business school rankings on an aggregate of four indicators: academic reputation, employer reputation, research citations per paper, and H-indices (a measure of the productivity and impact of a university department’s research). Harvard’s top ranking stemmed from a perfect score (100) on the employer reputation indicator, and a near-perfect score (98.4) on academic reputation. INSEAD received a perfect score for academic reputation while London Business School fell just short of perfect with an academic reputation score of 99.1. 

The University of Pennsylvania was the final U.S. school to rank in the top ten, taking the seventh spot. In total, ten of the top 25 programs were U.S.-based programs. Below, we’ve listed the top ten, and the U.S.-based schools ranked in the top 50. Check out the full ranking here.

Top Ten:

1. Harvard University

2. INSEAD, France

3. London Business School, United Kingdom

4. Stanford University

5. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

6. University of Oxford, United Kingdom

7. University of Pennsylvania

8. University of Cambridge, United Kingdom

9. Bocconi University, Italy

10. National University of Singapore (NUS), Singapore

U.S.-based Schools Ranked in the Top 50:

13. University of California, Berkeley 

15. New York University (NYU)

16. University of Chicago

17. Northwestern University

20. Columbia University

25. Yale University

33. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

37. University of California, Los Angeles

38. Cornell University

Washington Foster Releases MBA Rankings Calculator 2.0

If you’re currently evaluating MBA programs, we recommend you head over to the recently re-released Washington Foster MBA Rankings Calculator to inform your process. The calculator creates a personalized MBA program ranking for each user, by allowing them to prioritize the metrics that matter most. The data underlying the calculator comes from business school rankings by Poets & Quants, Businessweek, Financial Times, Forbes, and the U.S. Department of Education.

Andrea Bowers, Director of Marketing Analytics at Foster, and a driving force behind the creation of the calculator, explained to Poets & Quants that most prospective students use the calculator three times. They are able to hone in on the factors that are most important to them as they create their own school list reflective of their priorities and goals. And they can create a ranking of all the schools by selecting the max prioritization for all of the metrics. 

Harvard is Back on Top in The Economist’s 2022 Full-Time MBA Rankings

US-based programs dominated The Economist’s recently released 2022 full-time MBA program rankings. Harvard, UPenn Wharton, Northwestern Kellogg, Columbia, and MIT Sloan made the top five and just two of the top 15 ranked programs are located outside of the U.S. (HEC Paris and SDA Bocconi). 

With many programs opting not to participate last year due to the covid-19 pandemic, this year’s rankings showed significant movement. 

• HEC Paris moved down five spots to the seventh rank

• Michigan Ross dropped seven spots to the 10th rank

• SDA Bocconi School of Management dropped seven spots to the 13th rank

• NYU Stern dropped 11 spots to the 15th rank

2022 The Economist Full-Time MBA Rankings

1 Harvard

2 University of Pennsylvania (Wharton)

3 Northwestern University (Kellogg)

4 Columbia

5 MIT (Sloan)

6 Duke (Fuqua)

7 HEC Paris

8 Stanford

9 University of Chicago (Booth)

10 University of Michigan (Ross) 

11 Dartmouth College (Tuck)

12 University of California at Berkeley (Haas)

13 SDA Bocconi - School of Management

14 University of Virginia (Darden)

15 New York University (Stern)

In addition to the overall ranking of MBA programs, The Economist also provides visibility into their sub-rankings. Review them to hone in on the metrics that matter most to you: diversity, recruiting and career search support, overall employment, salary, educational experience, alumni experience, and others.

University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton Named Top MBA by the Financial Times

The Financial Times just released its 2022 MBA rankings and University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton school is at the top. This marks the school’s eleventh return to the first rank, after last receiving the honor in 2011. Columbia placed second, which is its highest-ever showing in the Financial Times ranking. U.S.-based MBA programs had a strong showing overall, taking ten out of the top fifteen spots.

Tech Companies Seek MBA Hires Who Excel in Entrepreneurial Culture

Technology companies have taken a large hold on MBA recruiting, with a particular interest in those students who can thrive in ambiguity and have a proven track record of creative problem solving. In turn, students are attracted to these companies for their generous compensation packages, the opportunity to take ownership over popular products, and the culture of innovation.

Liz Arnold, associate director for tech, entrepreneurship and venture capital in the Career Management Center at Cornell University’s Johnson School of Management, said “I encourage all students interested in tech to build their entrepreneurial skill set, to really understand how to take the initiative on their own to go from idea to launch. I think that particular skill set is valued at most tech companies, because the tech companies want students to be autonomous and take projects and run with those ideas and move them forward.”  Similarly, Sarah Eytinge, MBA University recruiter at Microsoft, describes the company as having an entrepreneurial culture, and as seeking MBA recruits who can thrive in ambiguity, learn and adjust their course, and take creative approaches to complex problems. “We have a lot of teams in an innovative culture trying new things and failing fast,” she says. “They have the benefit of working for a large company like Microsoft so we have the resources to make those investments and take those risks. For those MBAs who are interested in entrepreneurship, they are surprised by what they have access to – they thought it was just a big company.”

Recruiter Insights on Top-Tier Programs for Entrepreneurship and Creativity

The Recruiter Insights Rankings, a component of the 2018 Bloomberg Businessweek Best B-Schools ranking, include deep-dives into recruiters’ views of the best programs based on entrepreneurial reputation and training, as well as the most creative and innovative graduates. The rankings include the responses of 3,698 employers that recruited MBA graduates, and focus on specific survey questions. Bloomberg Businessweek analysts then assigned scores to the top 30 schools with a score of five being the highest and one being the lowest. Below are the top ten for the three categories relevant to entrepreneurship.  

What schools have the best reputation for entrepreneurship?

What schools provide the best training in entrepreneurship?

What schools are producing the most creative graduates?

Prospective students interested in expanding their entrepreneurial skill-sets for an interest in a technology career or who are among the 27 percent of prospective full-time two-year MBA students who listed entrepreneurship/self-employment as a primary career goal post-graduation in GMAC’s Prospective Students Survey 2018, should carefully consider the top programs listed above. Additionally, during the school selection or interviewing period, prospective students should proactively engage with administrators and professors from specific MBA programs to see how they support students in achieving these strong outcomes.

See full listings for each of the categories below:

What schools have the best reputation for entrepreneurship?

What schools provide the best training in entrepreneurship?

What schools are producing the most creative graduates?

QS Global MBA 2019 Rankings Place Four US Schools in the Top Five

The QS Global MBA 2019 Rankings were released this week and Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business ranked first. This is the second year that QS has released global rankings, which include over 250 MBA programs internationally. The ranking’s algorithm incorporates scores for Entrepreneurship & Alumni Outcomes, Return on Investment, Thought Leadership, Employability, and Diversity.

In both 2018 and 2019, 13 of the top 25 programs were based in the US. Also in 2019, four of the top five were based in the US, up from two in 2018. Schools in the US scored particularly well in the areas of Employability and Thought Leadership, while international programs fared better in Diversity and Return on Investment.

There was one new entrant to the top 25, CEIBS, which is based in Shanghai China.

Rankings Indicators

As with all rankings, a closer look at the underlying components, which make up the Overall Score, can provide beneficial information for prospective MBA students. Below are charts showing the top ten ranked schools and their scores for each indicator.

The Entrepreneurship & Alumni Outcomes indicator makes up 15 percent of the overall score. Stanford not only received a perfect score within this indicator but was also about eight percentage points higher than any other program. Harvard, Penn (Wharton), and Michigan (Ross) were also included among the top ten. This indicator should be of particular interest to those keen on pursuing entrepreneurial options post-MBA.

The Return on Investment indicator accounts for 20 percent of the overall score. Programs in the US did not fare as well in this category, though Carnegie Mellon (Tepper) and Michigan (Ross) are included within the top ten. International programs with shorter durations saw the highest scores, as shorter programs save students money, both in terms of tuition, as well as lost wages.

The Thought Leadership indicator makes up 15 percent of the overall score.  US schools scored well in this category with MIT (Sloan) receiving a perfect score, followed closely by Penn (Wharton).

The Employability indicator was given the heaviest weight, and accounts for 40 percent of the overall score. The top five programs, four of which are US schools, all received scores of 99 or higher.

The Diversity indicator, which includes Class and Faculty diversity, accounts for ten percent of the overall score. For the second year in a row, no schools from the US were in the top ten in this category. And this is not expected to change significantly in the coming years as international applications to US programs continue to decrease.

Find full results here: https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/mba-rankings/global/2019