Business school has been called a two-year job interview, and with good reason: For more than $100,000 and two years of study, MBAs hope to gain access to vast alumni networks, top-tier internships, and the very best jobs. Our annual ranking of full-time MBA programs now focuses on what most people hope to get after business school: a satisfying, well-paying job.
More graduate degrees in business are awarded each year than in any other field in the U.S., and new business schools are accredited by the dozen every year. To identify the best ones, we compiled data from more than 13,150 current students, 18,540 alumni, and 1,460 recruiters across 177 distinct B-school programs. The result is our deepest and broadest set of data ever.
This year, we’ve revised the way we rank schools. For the first time, we surveyed MBAs after graduation for more insight into what graduates can expect in their future careers. We detailed some of the standout findings about MBA alumni in a separate report—including a broad pay difference between male and female MBAs that starts small, but gets bigger as they continue their careers.
Older elements of our ranking, including a tally of faculty research, have been scrapped because they don’t get at our fundamental question: How well does this business school channel its graduates into good jobs?
You can dig into an exhaustive explanation of our ranking methodology below, which also details how it differs from previous years. Briefly, the Full-Time MBA Rankings are based on five parts: (continue reading)