The Methodology Behind P&Q’s Top MBA Programs For Entrepreneurship In 2024

RANKING: The World’s Best MBA Programs For Entrepreneurship In 2024

Olin Business School topped the 2024 ranking of the World’s Best MBA Programs for Entrepreneurship.

There’s simply no perfect way to measure all how one MBA entrepreneurship program stacks against another. There’s a myriad of data points, and no two programs have the same strengths, available resources, or philosophy.

After first developing our entrepreneurship ranking in 2020, we spent several years soliciting and using feedback from business schools to develop the methodology we use today. While we consider ours one of the best entrepreneurship-focused rankings on the market, we’ll continue to update it as needed.

Other publications with entrepreneurship rankings focusing on business schools include U.S. News & World Report, The Princeton Review, and The Financial Times. All have their flaws.

For five years now, we’ve been ranking full-time MBA programs for entrepreneurship. (You can see this year’s ranking here.) After implementing our biggest methodological changes since the start of the ranking two years ago, we’ve used the same calculations since.

There was one significant change this year, however. In years past, we ranked about 10 schools that did not submit data directly to Poets&Quants. We collected what we could from public websites and other reporting, but these schools were given no points where no reliable data could be found. That led to rankings where entrepreneurship powerhouses like Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business ranked in the teens and Harvard Business School struggled to crack the top 10.

This year, we did not rank these schools. Generally, these are large, prestige programs in the M7 who have lots of entrepreneurship resources and a lot of students. Schools that were ranked last year but not this year include: Stanford Graduate School of Business, Harvard Business School, Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management, MIT Sloan School of Management, University of Chicago Booth School of Business, China Europe International Business School, University of California-Berkeley Haas School of Business, INSEAD, Columbia Business School, and University of Pennsylvania The Wharton School. Each was invited, but declined to fill our data survey.

As a result, this year’s ranking has 28 schools compared to last year’s 38. And, some schools that ranked at the lower half of last year’s ranking report rather large jumps in this year’s.

ENTREPRENEURSHIP MEASURED IN 16 DATA POINTS

Our methodology uses 16 data points collected via our school survey. Weights range from 15% to 2.5%.

We believe these data points create a well-rounded methodology and ranking that measures many parts of the entrepreneurial experience. Like previous years, the two heaviest-weighted categories are the average percentage of MBAs launching businesses during B-school or immediately after, and the percentage of MBA elective courses that are 100% focused on entrepreneurship and/or innovation.

Some of the other higher-weighted categories include data looking at the number of members of the school’s main entrepreneurship club; incubator or accelerator space available to MBAs; entrepreneurs in residence available to MBAs; and startup award money available to MBAs.

Two years ago, we added such data points into the methodology as the percentage of MBAs joining early-stage startups in their first jobs after B-school, the percentage of MBA faculty actively involved in a startup outside of the school, and the number of mentors available to MBAs.

We use ratios and percentages for all metrics used in the methodology. We do this to get a sense of what resources are like for individual students.

2024’s METHODOLOGY

This year, 28 schools submitted data via our school survey during the summer. Here is how we evaluated them. (Unless otherwise specified, the academic year evaluated is 2022-2023.)

15 PERCENT WEIGHT

Average percentage of MBA students launching businesses during their program or within three months of graduation between 2018 and 2022
Percentage of MBA elective courses with 100% of the curriculum focused on entrepreneurship or innovation in academic year 2022-2023

10 PERCENT WEIGHT

Percentage of MBA students active in the B-school’s main student-run entrepreneurship club in the academic year
Ratio of square feet of incubator or accelerator space available to MBA students in the academic year
Ratio of entrepreneurs-in-residence to MBA students
Ratio of startup award money available to MBA students

5 PERCENT WEIGHT

Average percentage of MBA students accepting a position in venture capital or private equity within three months of graduation between 2018 and 2022
Percentage of full-time MBA faculty teaching an entrepreneurship or innovation course during the academic year

2.5 PERCENT WEIGHT

Average percentage of students accepting a job at a startup within three months of graduating between 2018 and 2022
Percentage of MBAs taking an elective in entrepreneurship and/or innovation
Percentage of core MBA courses with at least 50% of the curriculum focused on entrepreneurship or innovation
Percentage of MBA students involved in a startup or startup project in some capacity during the academic year
Ratio of entrepreneurship-focused mentor hours to MBA students
Ratio of entrepreneurship-focused mentors available to MBA students during the academic year
Percentage of MBA faculty involved with a startup or a startup project in the academic year
Ratio of startup and/or entrepreneurship funding available to MBA students in the academic year

We are looking to grow our ranking of MBA entrepreneurship programs. We’ll continue to reach out to schools who have so far not participated, as well as new schools who want to highlight their entrepreneurial chops.

If your school would like an invitation to next year’s ranking, please email kristy@poetsandquants.com.