The 2023 U.S. News Best Graduate Programs Rankings rolled out today and we’re taking a closer look at the full-time MBA program list. Chicago Booth and The Wharton School share the top spot, surpassing last year’s #1, Stanford GSB, which now ranks third along with Northwestern Kellogg.
On Wharton and Booth landing in the top slot, Clear Admit Co-founder Graham Richmond notes, “This is likely due to these programs’ impressive statistics on both sides of the equation: incoming stats (GPA, GMAT, acceptance rate) and outgoing stats (percentage of the class employed, salaries, etc.).”
Harvard Business School and MIT Sloan held steady compared to last year, maintaining their fifth positions. Richmond continues, “Yale impressively lands at #7, leapfrogging both Berkeley Haas and Columbia. Yale SOM just continues to cement their presence in the top-10 and now seem to be pushing past some programs they have historically trailed. Michigan Ross jumps three slots to grab a top-10 position, which is great news for a program that prides itself on experiential learning and has terrific placements across the whole of the United States.”
The top 25 schools in this year’s edition (with last year’s rankings included for reference) are as follows:
| School | 2023 Rank | 2022 Rank |
|---|---|---|
| University of Chicago (Booth) | 1 (tie) | 3 |
| University of Pennsylvania (Wharton) | 1 (tie) | 2 |
| Stanford University | 3 (tie) | 1 |
| Northwestern University (Kellogg) | 3 (tie) | 4 |
| Harvard University | 5 (tie) | 5 (tie) |
| Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Sloan) | 5 (tie) | 5 (tie) |
| Yale University | 7 | 9 |
| Columbia University | 8 (tie) | 7 (tie) |
| University of California–Berkeley (Haas) | 8 (tie) | 7 (tie) |
| University of Michigan–Ann Arbor (Ross) | 10 | 13 (tie) |
| Dartmouth College (Tuck) | 11 | 10 (tie) |
| New York University (Stern) | 12 (tie) | 10 (tie) |
| Duke University (Fuqua) | 12 (tie) | 12 |
| University of Virginia (Darden) | 14 | 13 (tie) |
| Cornell University (Johnson) | 15 | 15 |
| Carnegie Mellon University (Tepper) | 16 | 16 (tie) |
| University of California–Los Angeles (Anderson) | 17 | 18 (tie) |
| University of Texas–Austin (McCombs) | 18 | 18 (tie) |
| University of North Carolina (Kenan-Flagler) | 19 (tie) | 20 |
| University of Southern California (Marshall) | 19 (tie) | 16 (tie) |
| Emory University (Goizueta) | 21 | 26 (tie) |
| Georgetown University (McDonough) | 22 (tie) | 21 |
| University of Washington (Foster) | 22 (tie) | 22 |
| Indiana University (Kelley) | 22 (tie) | 23 (tie) |
| Vanderbilt University (Owen) | 25 (tie) | 23 (tie) |
| University of Notre Dame (Mendoza) | 25 (tie) | 36 (tie) |
Looking past the top 10, USC Marshall fell three slots from 16 to 19, reversing a trend where the program had been creeping up and battling UCLA Anderson for Los Angeles’s presence in the top 16. Richmond adds, “Emory Goizueta jumps up 5 slots to #21, which is likely a reflection on the plethora of employment opportunities in the Atlanta metro and U.S. Southeast, and the school’s continued push towards the top 20. Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business made the biggest gains among top-25 programs, catapulting 11 slots up into the #25 position from last year’s #36.”
In conclusion, Richmond says, “It is worth noting that Stanford GSB’s numbers stayed very similar to last year – and were, in fact, even improved in some areas! This makes the overall results a bit of a head scratcher. In the end, it seems that both Stanford and HBS are paying the price for having slightly lower employment numbers, which is mostly tied to their success at encouraging entrepreneurial ventures among students.”
Methodology
To determine their annual rankings, U.S. News uses a combination of expert opinions about program excellence and statistical indicators that measure the quality of faculty, research, and students. Forty percent of the evaluation is based on a quality assessment score, comprised of a peer assessment where deans and program directors rank their peers and a recruiter assessment score. Thirty-five percent is based on placement success demonstrated by employment rates at graduation and within three months of graduation, and mean starting salary and bonuses. Twenty-five percent is based on student selectivity, as seen in GMAT and GRE scores, mean undergraduate GPA, and acceptance rate.
