The Leading B-Schools With The Most Women

Northwestern Kellogg is one of the U.S. B-schools in the 40% club: 40% of women in the full-time MBA. Courtesy photo

In the Poets&Quants top 25, one school outpaced all others in the pursuit of gender equity: Dartmouth Tuck, which reported 49% women in its Class of 2022. At 7 percentage points up from last year’s mark of 42%, it was also the biggest one-year jump for any B-school. Tuck was followed by Stanford Graduate School of Business, unchanged from last year at 47%, and Duke University Fuqua School of Business, at 46%. The lowest percentages of women are found at Carnegie Mellon University Tepper School of Business (25%), Emory University Goizueta Business School (30%), Cornell University Johnson Graduate School of Management (31%) and UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School (31%).

Overall, 13 schools of 25 were at 40% or more women this fall, same as last year and 2018. In 2017, there were 12; five years ago, in the fall of 2016, there were 10. But in 2020, of the top 25 schools, 12 lost ground from the previous intake, and three were even. The biggest declines came at CMU Tepper, which dropped 8 percentage points, and the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, which fell 6 points to 41%. Last year, 11 schools had lost ground from 2018.

After Dartmouth Tuck, the biggest two-year gains were at UCLA Anderson School of Management and NYU Stern School of Business, which both gained 6 points to 40% and 43%, respectively.

The average gain among the 10 schools that grew their women’s MBA population between 2019 and 2020 was 3.5 percentage points. Last year when we wrote this story, the average gain among 12 schools was 2.6 points. The average loss this year for the 12 schools that declined was 3.3 percentage points; last year, the average loss between the two cycles at 11 schools was 3.5 points.

Over the last five years going back to fall 2016, eight U.S. schools have lost ground, one is even, and 16 have improved. The biggest five-year improvement was 11 percentage points at both Duke Fuqua and Rice University Jones Graduate School of Business, the latter of which improved to 35% women this year. Three other schools — UCLA Anderson (32% to 40%), NYU Stern (35% to 43%), and USC Marshall School of Business (32% to 40%) all improved by 8 points. The biggest decline over the last five years: the University of Washington Foster School of Business, which dropped 6 percentage points to 37%.

Outside the U.S., only one major school out of nine we’ve watched — London Business School — lost ground from 2019, and only three have lost ground over three years: LBS, IESE of Spain, and CEIBS of Shanghai, China and Zurich, Switzerland. Oxford University’s Saïd Business School and the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, Canada, are the top non-U.S. schools for women at 47% and 44%, respectively. See table above for details.

Dartmouth Tuck’s Class of 2022 is comprised of 49% women. Forté Foundation fellow Katie McMurray, pictured above, joined Tuck from Teach for America and Slack. Tuck photo

DON’T MISS RECORD ATTENDANCE FOR VIRTUAL WOMEN’S MBA LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE and POPULAR MBA INITIATIVE GETS A CORPORATE JOB