| 1. | Stanford |
| 1. | Wharton |
| 3. | Kellogg |
| 3. | Booth |
| 5. | MIT Sloan |
| 6. | Harvard |
| 7. | NYU Stern |
| 7. | Berkeley Haas |
| 7. | Yale |
| 10. | Tuck |
| 10. | Darden |
| 12. | Columbia |
| 12. | Fuqua |
| 12. | Ross |
| 15. | Cornell |
| 16. | Tepper |
| 16. | McCombs |
| 18. | Goizueta |
| 18. | Marshall |
| 20. | Kelley |
| 20. | UCLA Anderson |
| 20. | UNC Kenan-Flagler |
| 20. | Vanderbilt Owen |
| 24. | McDonough |
| 25. | Scheller |
After deciding if an MBA degree is a worthwhile choice for your career, choosing the right MBA program is probably the most important decision in your professional career. Before you start using rankings to make this decision, shouldn’t you learn a little bit about how they work?
Rankings are ultimately designed by publications to create controversy and therefore increase readership. If they admitted that the quality of schools doesn’t often change radically from year to year, no one would need to read the article.
These are key points to consider when consulting the 2024-2025 edition of the Best Business Schools ranking by U.S. News. This ranking is often seen as the most accurate and prestigious, and yet it fails, like other MBA rankings, to grade business schools fairly and to keep them in their proper context.
(If you want a stable list of the leaders in MBA education that is not designed to artificially change the rankings each year to draw readers, see our directory of top MBA programs, which doesn’t focus on a ranking formula, but on the curriculum, class profile, employment report, and culture of each MBA program.)
For the U.S. News ranking, business schools were evaluated using several different metrics, divided into three categories:
Although many of the factors being assessed in this year’s U.S. News MBA Ranking remain the same as in previous years, the publication has made some superficial changes to the categories of ranking indicators. Last year, these categories were listed as follows:
It may come as something of a surprise that the weighted value of these categories has not changed in this year’s rankings. In 2024-2025, the Peer assessment, Recruiter assessment, and School data are all given the same weight as last year—with some very minor tweaks in what was previously called the School Data category.
In 2023-2024, School Data was further divided into the following sections:
All of these ranking indicators continue to be evaluated in 2024-2025, but the factors are spread across the new categories of “Placement Success” and “Student Selectivity”. Further, some minor adjustments were made to the weight attributed to some ranking indicators. We will break down these categories below.
Placement success measures four rankings indicators, namely:
The “Salary by profession” measure aims to evaluate where the mean starting salary of a school’s graduating class sits within a given employment bucket (Consulting, Finance/accounting, General management, Human resources, etc.) in relation to the other schools in the ranking.
In order to account for the 10% weight of the “Salary by profession” measure, the weight of employment rates at graduation and employment rates three months after graduation were reduced from 10% to 7% and 20% to 13% respectively.
The Quality Assessment category contains the “Peer Assessment” and “Recruiter Assessment” scores, which account for the only qualitative measures in the U.S. News MBA ranking.
Student Selectivity accounts for 25% of a school’s overall ranking and ranks schools based on their acceptance rate (2%), median GMAT and GRE scores (13%), and median undergraduate GPA (10%).
In 2023-2024, U.S. News adopted the measurement of median GMAT and GRE scores as opposed to the traditional mean score. In 2024-2025, this change has spread further, and the median undergraduate GPA was taken into account in this year’s ranking. We cover why this is important in relation to the GMAT and GRE below.
| Categories | 2022-2023 Rankings Methodology | 2023-2024 Rankings Methodology | 2024-2025 Rankings Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|
| Peer Assessment | 25% | 12.5% | 12.5% |
| Recruiter Assessment | 25% | 12.5% | 12.5% |
| School Data (Total) | 50% | 75% | 75% |
| Employment Rate | 7%—at graduation 14%—3 months after graduation 21%—total | 10%—at graduation 20%—3 months after graduation 30%—total | 7%—at graduation 13%—3 months after graduation 20%—total |
| Median GMAT and GRE Scores | 16.25% | 13% | 13% |
| Mean Starting Salary and Bonus | 14% | 20% | 20% |
| Salary By Profession | N/A | N/A | 10% |
| Undergraduate GPA | 7.5% (mean) | 10% (mean) | 10% (median) |
| Acceptance Rate | 1.25% | 2% | 2% |
| 1. | Stanford |
| 1. | Wharton |
| 3. | Kellogg |
| 3. | Booth |
| 5. | MIT Sloan |
| 6. | Harvard |
| 7. | Stern |
| 7. | Haas |
| 7. | Yale |
| 10. | Tuck |
| 10. | Darden |
| 12. | Columbia |
| 12. | Fuqua |
| 12. | Ross |
| 15. | Cornell |
| 16. | Tepper |
| 16. | McCombs |
| 18. | Goizueta |
| 18. | Marshall |
| 20. | Kelley |
| 20. | UCLA Anderson |
| 20. | UNC Kenan-Flagler |
| 20. | Vanderbilt Owen |
| 24. | McDonough |
| 25. | Scheller |
In the 2023-2024 ranking, median GMAT/GRE scores replaced mean GMAT/GRE for the first time. U.S. News wrote that this change was intended to “limit the rankings impact of outlier scores, including low scores from otherwise promising applicants.”
Though it is too soon to tell how MBA programs will react to this change, the use of median test scores may impact admissions decisions in subtle ways. Namely, extremely high scores may become less valuable, and extremely low scores may present less of a handicap. David White, Founding Partner of Menlo Coaching, explained the logic in a recent note.
Imagine two artificially simplified classes an MBA program could recruit:
Group A: 650, 700, 730, 730, 740
Group B: 650, 700, 730, 750, 780
The median for both groups is 730, but the means would be 710 and 722 respectively. Under the old ranking system, Group B’s higher scores would be more likely to sway the admissions committee, as the 750 and 780 would bring up the school’s rating in the test score section. But under the new system, there is no inherent reason to choose Group B over Group A.
Of course, there are other reasons that AdComs might still prefer high GMAT scores:
This same logic is true for Undergraduate GPAs in 2024-2025—and while an extremely high or low GPA might not count for as much as it used to, your undergraduate GPA will still be a contributing factor in the strength of your profile.
In the past, we’ve been vocal in our criticism of the weight U.S. News places on the less objective metrics in their ranking methodology—namely the “peer assessment” and “recruiter assessment” portions of their ranking methodology.
It might seem like a fair approach: allow all 131 schools under consideration to grade each other, giving every program equal input for the ranking.
For example, do you really think that Clemson University, ranked 98th by U.S. News, has any knowledge, let alone interest, in #1 Booth’s activity? The same is true in reverse: Booth has no real insight into Clemson. The fact is, the two schools have a completely different target group of applicants, and asking the two schools to grade one another just makes no sense.
And take it a step further: think about the schools that are competing, especially for the top positions. Schools like Stanford and Wharton have a vested interest in downgrading Harvard: they won’t give Harvard a terrible score, but they will go as low as they think they can get away with. And why wouldn’t they? These schools are ranked against each other, so to climb in the ranking, you have to push someone else down.
However, in the 2023-2024 rankings, U.S. News halved the influence of peer assessment over a school’s final ranking (25%-12.5%). This is a welcome change in this year’s ranking methodology, as reducing the weight of the peer assessment allows schools to be evaluated based on less subjective criteria which can’t be manipulated as easily.
While these changes are encouraging, U.S. News has compensated for their changes without examining the logical flaws in the school data incorporated in their MBA program evaluation metrics.
As always, we advise that MBA applicants consider the broader context surrounding MBA rankings and take a balanced approach to the emphasis they place on them. Selecting the right MBA program is a very personal decision, and working with an MBA admissions counselor can help you make an informed, strategic decision.
The recruiter assessment has also been, historically, problematic, especially as some recruiters will know a lot about a school they’ve drawn from in the past, but not about schools they’ve never worked with. Indeed, no one could possibly know enough about every school to give each a proper, informed ranking.
It is also worth pointing out that because the names of the recruiters surveyed by U.S. News were supplied by the schools, the objectivity of the review is compromised. An MBA program could supply the name of an employer where they have placed a smaller number of people very successfully and leave out a company where they have placed many people with mixed results. This way the schools can skew the results in their favor.
Questions of objectivity or manipulation aside, we also must consider that, for some schools, a very high, meaningful reputation with regional recruiters might be overshadowed by a weaker national reputation. This is especially apparent in the case of University of Washington-Michael G. Foster School of Business.
Foster’s recruiter assessment score is considerably lower than the traditionally high-ranking schools on the list, such as Harvard and Stanford. However, with employment rates of 91.2% and 99% at graduation and three months after graduation, Foster ranks 20th overall. Foster even beats out the #1 school, Booth, on employment-at-three-months (95.6%), as well as UCLA Anderson (91.9%) and Stanford (83.8%).
Foster’s low recruiter assessment and peer assessment scores (3.6/5 and 3.7/5, respectively) downgrade its overall score, which might discourage applicants from applying. This reveals a very real shortcoming of the U.S. News ranking: someone interested in a tech job would miss out on an excellent program simply because the U.S. News methodology privileges high peer assessment, and more specifically, high national peer assessment. And yet, Foster places most of its graduates in the Pacific Northwest, and more specifically, the Seattle area. For this reason, business schools and recruiters that are not from the area will rate Foster poorly, while those in-the-know realize that if an applicant’s goal is to land a job at Microsoft or Amazon, an MBA from Foster would be an excellent choice.
This year, U.S. News has reduced the weight of the recruiter assessment (15%-12.5%), mitigating the sway that this flawed metric has over a school’s overall ranking. Although this change is encouraging, this minor reduction in percentage does not address the logical flaws in how U.S. News measures a school’s status among recruiters.
Gauging a school’s reputation with employers accurately would require more data, such as which companies chose to hire a given MBA program’s graduates. Programs that place into the most desirable employers — such as Google, Goldman Sachs or McKinsey — prove that they have a great reputation with employers. At Menlo Coaching, we advise our clients based on a proprietary data set showing which companies hired each MBA program’s graduates.
By feeding employment rates directly into their ranking, U.S. News fails again to consider the broader context of certain data points. In 2023-2024, U.S. News increased the value of employment rates at graduation (7%-10%) and after graduation (14-20%). It is a welcome change that the publication decided to reduce the weight of these factors in the 2024-2025 ranking to 7% and 13% respectively.
Consider the case of Harvard and Stanford. Stanford, famously one of the most prestigious universities and business schools in the world, has a particularly low employment rate at graduation (60.9%). Harvard has equally dismal employment rates, given its stature, at 70.8%.
This doesn’t make any sense: how can two of the best renowned business schools in the world have such low employment rates, both at graduation and three months after (82.8% and 84.2% respectively)?
It’s because graduates from Harvard and Stanford, unlike graduates from other schools, are unemployed because they choose to be, not because they can’t find a job. Most Harvard and Stanford alumni could get a job. Because of this, they wait for the perfect offer. Therefore, the low employment rates do not reflect weakness, but come instead from a point of strength. Harvard and Stanford students have so many opportunities, that they can afford to wait for the perfect opportunity for them.
This is not reflected in the U.S. News ranking, and it is only because these programs do so well in the other categories that they are able to maintain their high positions.
Reading through another US-focused ranking, that of Businessweek, the same question arises: how can the U.S. News and Businessweek rankings vary so widely? The full breakdown of Businessweek’s methodology can be found on the Businessweek MBA ranking page. In summary, Businessweek asked students and recruiters to grade business schools on four weighted categories, including Compensation, Networking, Learning, and Entrepreneurship.
The most noticeable differences between the two are presented in the following table:
| 2024-2025 U.S. News vs 2022-2023 Business Week Rankings | U.S. News ranking | Businessweek ranking |
|---|---|---|
| Wharton | 1st | 9th |
| Kellogg | 3rd | 5th |
| Yale | 7th | 12th |
| Tuck | 10th | 2nd |
| Fuqua | 12th | 15th |
These differences can largely be explained by looking at the sub-rankings that Businessweek creates in its approach. The Compensation ranking, for example, matches the U.S. News ranking quite well. But as the other sub-rankings begin to diverge, the overall ranking from Businessweek becomes less-and-less aligned with U.S. News.
Like it or not, the U.S. News ranking is the most prestigious and relied-upon list of “top” US business schools. This fact, combined with the flawed methodology described in great detail above, makes it a particularly troublesome list. The ranking will continue to generate new headlines every year, and many judgments about the quality of MBA programs—whether deserved or not–will be formed as a result. But at least you, the informed reader, now understand how U.S. News mischaracterizes key data points and fails to live up to standards of objectivity. So approach the list with caution, and take the U.S. News ranking with a grain of salt.
Once you determine roughly which schools you are qualified to attend—and the rankings can definitely factor into this initial list—we encourage you to leave the rankings behind and instead focus on the practical questions that will help you figure out which MBA program will provide value to your career. These are simple, practical questions:
Answering these questions will help you find an MBA program that can enhance your career. From there, we’d recommend you look into MBA admissions consulting services to maximize your chances at your target program.
