The Best Business Schools for Career and Personal Growth

University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler School of Business

University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler School of Business

American Schools Dominate the Bottom 25…and the Biggest Gainers

The United States earned the dubious distinction of landing 17 schools in the bottom 25 for Career Progress. Surprisingly, the University of Wisconsin held the #100 spot for the second consecutive year, despite ranking #26 in Aims Achieved and returning a 104% increase in salary within three years of graduation. Other schools that fared poorly here include the University of California-Irvine (Merage), Washington University (Olin), the University of Toronto (Rotman), and Melbourne Business School.

Other schools that ranked much lower than expected in career growth include the University of Chicago (Booth) at #46, Duke University (Fuqua) at #63, and Indiana University (Kelley) at #92.

However, American schools dominated the list when it comes to the biggest improvements in Career Progress. For example, the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School jumped 36 spots, from #88 to #52 over the past year. Similarly, Boston University, Dartmouth College (Tuck), and the University of Michigan (Ross) rose 31, 30, and 24 spots over 2013. In particular, Tuck and Booth were buoyed by high wages after three years ($150,754 for Tuck and $136,828 for Ross).

The Australian School of Management experienced the biggest slide in Career Progress, plummeting from #27 to #79 in one year. The Melbourne Business School (Australia), the Cranfield School of Management (UK), and the Mannheim Business School slipped 35, 32, and 30 spots respectively (with Cranfield sliding all the way down from #11 in career progress in 2013). Among American schools, Arizona State University (Carey) fell 25 spots, while Georgia Washington University and Georgia Tech University (Scheller) each dropped 23 spots.

IMD is ranked third among the top 50 business schools outside the U.S. by Poets&Quants.

IMD is ranked third among the top 50 business schools outside the U.S. by Poets&Quants.

Students Achieve Their Goals at IMD and Stanford

When it comes to students fulfilling their business school missions, Switzerland’s IMD tops the list, replacing the London School of Business, which tumbled to #3 in 2014. In fact, IMD is among the few schools with high marks across the board, ranking #7 in career progress, #3 in value, and #16 among alumni (and that doesn’t factor in its lofty $142,446 average paycheck for alumni after three years). Like IMD, Stanford scores high in every category, including the #2 spot in aims achieved (up from #5 last year).  Spain’s IESE Business School and the Yale School of Management round out the top five.

Two Chinese schools – the Shanghai Jiao Tong University (Antai) and the Fudan University School of Management sunk to the bottom of Aims Achieved in The Financial Times’ ranking. Among American schools, Penn State University (Smeal) scored the lowest at #96.

The biggest gains over the previous year in Aims Achieved? The honor belongs to the University of Michigan (Ross), which soared from #63 in 2013 to #15 this year. Other big gains were posted by the University of Oxford (Saïd) (+35), Georgetown University (McDonough) (+30), Melbourne Business School (+30), and Emory University (Goizueta) (+27).