The world’s best full-time MBAs are based in the US

Of the top 100 MBA providers in the QS World University Rankings: Global Full-Time MBA 2020, close to half are based in the US.

A total of seven US institutions dominated the top ten.

The Stanford Graduate School of Business and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania shared the top spot, “with near-perfect reputation scores from employers”, according to a statement from QS.

The former was first last year and this year “out-scores Wharton for return on investment, and entrepreneurship and alumni outcomes while Wharton performs better for diversity, employability and thought leadership”.

The other US business schools rounding up the top 10 are MIT Sloan School of Management, Harvard Business School, University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, Haas School of Business of the University of California Berkeley and Kellogg School of Management of Northwestern University‎.

This year’s methodology is based on five indicators: Employability (40 percent), Entrepreneurship & Alumni Outcomes (15 percent), Return on Investment (20 percent), Thought Leadership (15 percent) and Class & Faculty Diversity (10 percent).

Wharton outperforms Stanford in diversity, employability and thought leadership. Source: Shutterstock

Three surveys with data collected in early 2019 were used: the QS Global Employer Survey, the QS Global Academic Survey and a survey completed by the business schools themselves. More than 200 programmes were ranked this year. Schools provided information such as salary of graduates, class profile and more.

Alex Chisholm, Head of Analytics at QS, said: “In addition to analysing program related inputs, QS also considered the reputation of specific business schools from the perspective of nearly 32,000 global employers and more than 36,000 global academics. Finally, we mapped the education paths of 30,000 successful alumni back to specific institutions.”

The best business schools in the UK and Europe

Only ten UK-based business schools made the Top 100 this year. London Business School was the soul top 10 representative, with the University of Cambridge’s Judge Business School and the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School and Imperial College Business School at 15th, 16th and joint 19th respectively.

France had six business schools in the top 100, with two among the top 10 – INSEAD and HEC Paris. INSEAD is Europe’s highest-ranked business school for MBAs, overtaking London Business School.

INSEAD offers the top-ranked MBA programme in Asia. Source: Shutterstock

In Asia, INSEAD, which has a campus in Singapore, is the continent’s best, followed by China’s Europe International Business School (25th) and the National University of Singapore (32nd).

QS also released rankings for Master’s in Management, Master’s in Finance, Master’s in Business Analytics and Master’s in Marketing, or as it described, “the postgraduate programmes most in-demand amongst employers around the world”.

For these programmes, the world leaders are as follows, according to the QS World University Rankings 2020:

• Master’s in Business Analytics: MIT Sloan School of Management
• Master’s in Finance: University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School
• Master’s in Management: HEC Paris
• Master’s in Marketing: HEC Paris

Click here to view the full rankings.

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