All Of The Data Behind P&Q’s 2024 Top MBA Programs For Entrepreneurship

At Poets&Quants, we are journalists first. Our entrepreneurship ranking for MBA programs is essentially a reporting exercise: We gather data from as many schools as possible and try to present it in an easy-to-digest way for our readers. Part of that process includes sharing the data used to calculate actual rankings and the weights we use for each dataset.

While no ranking is perfect, we believe transparency gives credibility while providing valuable information to schools and school seekers alike.

This year’s Best MBA Programs for Entrepreneurship includes 16 data points. In the pages to follow, you’ll see all the data we used to calculate the rankings, the weights assigned to each dataset, and a brief explanation of why the data point was included. We truly view rankings as a jumping-off point into a research deep dive. So dive into the data as you examine and consider the different business schools and MBA programs.

You can also see how schools fared by category in last year’s entrepreneurship ranking here.

ADD YOUR ENTREPRENEURSHIP PROGRAM TO OUR RANKING

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.

DON’T MISS THE OTHER STORIES IN OUR ENTREPRENEURSHIP RANKING

• Our full MBA Entrepreneurship Ranking for 2024
• The full ranking methodology for 2024

 

STARTUPS LAUNCHED (15%)

Weighted at 15%, this is the average percentage of full-time MBAs to report launching a business within three months of graduation over the last five years: The Classes of 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022.

During that span, ranking newcomer Clemson University’s Wilbur O. and Ann Powers College of Business reported an average of 31.2%. Clemson is followed by University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business at 22% and Washington University in St. Louis’s Olin Business School at 20.6%.

This is obviously one of the most crucial data points to consider in an entrepreneurship-related ranking as it’s the most pertinent data point to launching a business while earning an MBA.

Average Percentage of MBA Startups Launched (2018-2022)
	School	Startup Average
1	Clemson University (Powers)	31.20%
2	University of Michigan (Ross)	22.00%
3	Washington University in St. Louis (Olin)	20.60%
4	Babson College	13.64%
5	IE Business School	11.54%
6	Esade Business School	8.01%
7	Brigham Young University	7.48%
8	City University of London (Bayes)	6.40%
9	London Business School	6.40%
10	Rice University (Jones)	5.60%
11	ESMT Berlin	5.40%
12	Carnegie Mellon University (Tepper)	4.40%
13	University of California-Los Angeles (Anderson)	4.32%
14	University of California-San Diego (Rady)	4.16%
15	Yale University School of Management	3.96%
16	Texas Christian University (Neeley)	3.92%
17	Arizona State University (W. P. Carey)	3.86%
18	Boston University (Questrom)	3.67%
19	University of Minnesota (Carlson)	3.60%
20	University of Texas at Austin (McCombs)	3.31%
21	Georgetown University (McDonough)	2.71%
22	University of Arizona (Eller)	2.22%
23	University of Virginia Darden School of Business	2%
24	Southern Methodist University (Cox)	1.40%
25	Duke University (Fuqua)	0.88%
26	Rutgers Business School	0.80%
27	New York University (Stern)	0.62%
28	Depaul University	0.56%

 

ELECTIVE COURSES (15%)

Also weighted at 15% is the percentage of elective courses focused solely on entrepreneurship or innovation offered to MBAs during the 2022-2023 academic year.

Ranking newcomer ESMT Berlin led this category with 50% of its elective MBA courses being 100% focused on entrepreneurship or innovation.

Offering plenty of entrepreneurship-focused courses for MBAs is one of the most basic ways to foster an entrepreneurial environment, which is why this also gets the highest weight given to a data point.

Percentage of Entrepreneurship Elective Courses (2022-2023)
	School	Elective Courses
1	ESMT Berlin	50.00%
2	City University of London (Bayes)	42.70%
3	Babson College	39.00%
4	University of California-Los Angeles (Anderson)	38.20%
5	Carnegie Mellon University (Tepper)	35.00%
6	IE Business School	34.00%
7	University of Virginia Darden School of Business	32.60%
8	Duke University (Fuqua)	32.20%
9	Esade Business School	32.00%
10	Yale University School of Management	31.00%
11	London Business School	29.50%
12	Rice University (Jones)	29.00%
13	Clemson University (Powers)	28.00%
14	Brigham Young University	27.20%
15	University of Michigan (Ross)	25.00%
16	Arizona State University (W. P. Carey)	25.00%
17	Boston University (Questrom)	22.29%
18	University of California-San Diego (Rady)	22.00%
19	Washington University in St. Louis (Olin)	21.00%
20	University of Texas at Austin (McCombs)	20.00%
21	Georgetown University (McDonough)	16.00%
22	New York University (Stern)	11.00%
23	University of Arizona (Eller)	11%
24	Depaul University	9.00%
25	Texas Christian University (Neeley)	8.40%
26	University of Minnesota (Carlson)	8.00%
27	Rutgers Business School	4.76%
28	Southern Methodist University (Cox)	4.00%