Stanford & Wharton Tie For First In U.S. News 2024 MBA Ranking

University of Pittsburgh Katz School of Business climbed the most this year: 39 places to rank 47th

THE UPS & DOWNS IN THIS YEAR’S U.S. NEWS MBA RANKING

This year’s ranking will put more smiles on the faces of business school deans than most. Why? Because the schools that climbed in double-digits from last year’s ranks far outnumber those that did a nosedive. Only ten schools experienced a decline of more than 10 places (see below).

On the other hand, 23 business schools experienced a double-digit gain over last year's U.S. News ranking. Ten of those full-time MBA programs climbed by 20 or more places, with the University of Pittsburgh making the biggest leap, 39 spots up, to the University of California at Riverside, up 20 places to rank 90th (see table below).

STANFORD RANKS FIRST ON U.S. NEWS' NEW RANKING METRIC

The added metric assessing MBA pay by profession is given a 10% weight in the 2024 ranking. U.S. News decreased its emphasis on placement to find those points, reducing by seven percentage points to 13% the weight it places on jobs three months after commencement and reducing by three points to 7% the weight it puts on jobs at graduation. The upshot: The new ranking places more emphasis on salaries relative to employment in its formula for measuring outcomes.

U.S. News says the new ranking factor assessed how a school's average graduate salary compared with the average of all ranked schools. "For example, if a school's mean consulting starting salary was $150,000 and the weighted average among all schools that reported this data was $130,000, its score for consulting would be 150,000/130,000, or about 1.15," according to U.S. News.

Stanford performed best on the new metric, ranking first, followed by Wharton, No. 3 Harvard and MIT, No. 5 Chicago Booth and Berkeley Haas. Surprisingly, Yale School of Management, which has held fast to its mission to creating leaders for both the public and private sectors, ranked 16th on the new measurement, even though the average salary and bonus for last year's grads was a healthy $192,356.

The release of U.S. News' ranking, of course, slices and dices schools by a number of different specialties. Indiana University's full-time MBA program based on the main campus in Bloomington moved back into the Top 20 after being ranked 22nd last year. But it also placed in five MBA U.S. News specialties – led by a No. 7 ranking for its entrepreneurship program – also were in the Top 20. Kelley also was ranked 10th in accounting, 17th in marketing, 18th in production-operations, and 19th in management.