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Top U.S. Business Schools

Stanford University
Below we list the top U.S. business schools, as ranked by Forbes magazine in its biennial survey using its own return on investment formula. Prior rank represents a school’s ranking in the Forbes 2017 survey. Salary represents the average received in 2018 by the Class of 2014. Jobs rate applies to the Class of 2018 and represents the percent of those seeking jobs who accepted employment within three months of graduation. All other data in the table below applies to the Class of 2020. Tuition represents the two-year total tuition and fees for out-of-state students; tuition for in-state residents is significantly cheaper at many of these schools. Acceptance rate represents the percent of applicants (number applied column) who were admitted. Class size represents the number of students who enrolled (for the class of 2020).

The median GMAT data comes from Forbes, but it is worth noting that data for ten schools (e.g. #2 Stanford’s 732 score) is probably the mean GMAT score. Since GMAT scores are given in increments of 10, a median score must end in a zero or a five. Although not shown in our table, the median work experience for the vast majority of these schools is 4 to 5 years. The current Forbes survey does not report GPA, but a prior survey listed the median GPA for every school in the tight range of 3.2 to 3.7. For more information about the rankings, including profiles of each school, visit Forbes.

 
Click on any column heading to sort the table by that data; click again to reverse sort.
Rank School Location Prior Rank Salary ($000s) Jobs Rate Tuition ($000s) Number Applied Accept Rate Class Size Median GMAT
1 Chicago (Booth) Chicago, IL 7 245 96 149 4,289 23 591 730
2 Stanford Palo Alto, CA 2 250 88 144 7,797 6 419 732
3 Northwestern (Kellogg) Evanston, IL 4 215 92 150 4,471 22 478 740
4 Harvard Boston, MA 3 230 89 161 9,886 11 930 730
5 Pennsylvania (Wharton) Philadelphia, PA 1 230 95 158 6,245 21 862 732
6 Dartmouth (Tuck) Hanover, NH 5 233 92 153 2,621 23 287 720
7 Columbia New York, NY 6 230 90 160 6,029 17 756 740
7 MIT (Sloan) Cambridge, MA 8 215 94 154 5,560 13 409 730
9 Cornell (Johnson) Ithaca, NY 10 195 91 142 1,600 33 280 700
10 Michigan (Ross) Ann Arbor, MI 12 180 94 140 3,188 27 423 720
11 UC Berkeley (Haas) Berkeley, CA 9 205 93 126 3,822 15 291 730
11 Yale New Haven, CT 13 198 90 146 3,785 20 347 730
13 Virginia (Darden) Charlottesville, VA 11 185 92 142 2,249 25 335 720
14 Duke (Fuqua) Durham, NC 14 184 94 144 3,557 22 443 710
15 UNC (Kenan-Flagler) Chapel Hill, NC 16 161 92 131 1,757 46 276 700
16 UCLA (Anderson) Los Angeles, CA 15 190 89 131 3,424 24 362 710
17 Carnegie Mellon (Tepper) Pittsburgh, PA 18 185 90 134 1,656 35 236 700
18 Texas-Austin (McCombs) Austin, TX 17 184 86 109 2,076 34 284 710
19 Indiana (Kelley) Bloomington, IN 25 145 95 104 1,084 38 184 680
20 NYU (Stern) New York, NY 21 190 94 153 3,781 23 370 720
21 USC (Marshall) Los Angeles, CA 33 165 96 133 2,017 28 221 710
22 Emory (Goizueta) Atlanta, GA 23 145 95 132 1,314 38 181 680
23 Washington (Foster) Seattle, WA 30 165 99 100 934 35 125 710
24 Brigham Young (Marriott) Provo, UT 19 145 98 53 294 56 131 672
25 Notre Dame (Mendoza) South Bend, IN 22 151 90 112 579 48 123 680
26 Rice (Jones) Houston, TX 32 153 95 125 587 39 118 710
27 Michigan State (Broad) East Lansing, MI 25 125 87 103 323 44 83 690
28 Georgia Tech (Scheller) Atlanta, GA 30 143 97 42 495 35 86 690
29 Washington U-St. Louis (Olin) St. Louis, MO 35 125 88 119 1,115 33 135 700
30 Vanderbilt (Owen) Nashville, TN 49 160 90 117 704 62 179 680
31 Georgetown (McDonough) Washington, DC 35 170 94 119 1,459 55 270 700
32 Minnesota (Carlson) Minneapolis, MN 27 143 85 104 529 39 92 690
33 Texas A&M (Mays) College Station, TX 20 142 90 77 375 42 69 640
34 Penn State (Smeal) University Park, PA 29 130 92 88 432 19 58 657
35 Wisconsin-Madison Madison, WI 24 155 90 84 465 33 79 680
36 Utah (Eccles) Salt Lake City, UT -- 125 80 60 182 51 58 650
37 Pittsburgh (Katz) Pittsburgh, PA 39 115 91 67 426 34 64 640
38 Arizona State (Carey) Tempe, AZ 40 125 87 97 764 20 90 700
39 Boston (Questrom) Boston, MA 48 134 91 111 932 51 157 690
40 Purdue (Krannert) West Lafayette, IN 28 127 81 85 231 49 48 633
41 Ohio State (Fisher) Columbus, OH 47 137 97 107 588 36 94 685
42 Rochester (Simon) Rochester, NY 37 126 93 94 905 33 104 670
43 UC Irvine (Merage) Irvine, CA 41 130 85 107 549 27 71 680
44 William & Mary (Mason) Williamsburg, VA 58 120 88 93 293 67 103 620
45 SMU (Cox) Dallas, TX 38 142 87 106 469 46 90 650
46 Texas-Dallas (Jindal) Dallas, TX 44 123 88 62 276 35 50 670
47 Maryland (Smith) College Park, MD 46 138 89 110 475 36 61 635
48 Georgia (Terry) Athens, GA 50 108 90 69 227 33 52 680
49 Buffalo Buffalo, NY 42 86 88 57 231 69 101 595
50 Alabama (Manderson) Tuscaloosa, AL 43 93 92 66 303 62 152 650
51 Rollins (Crummer) Winter Park, FL 44 84 80 75 126 66 65 550
52 Case Western (Weatherhead) Cleveland, OH 53 117 74 83 162 68 39 625
53 Missouri (Trulaske) Columbia, MO 56 85 95 68 63 56 29 620
54 Tennessee (Haslam) Knoxville, TN 54 112 84 63 134 49 42 650
55 Miami (Herbert) Coral Gables, FL 62 116 84 100 313 56 74 640
56 UC Davis Davis, CA 63 120 88 114 290 39 44 660
57 Willamette (Atkinson) Salem, OR 54 85 79 86 147 61 59 545
58 Fordham (Gabelli) New York, NY 70 141 77 103 269 44 56 640
59 Tulane (Freeman) New Orleans, LA 61 120 83 117 92 71 42 640
60 Colorado (Leeds) Boulder, CO 69 100 75 63 292 72 102 610
61 Pepperdine (Graziadio) Los Angeles, CA 65 105 36 101 317 54 50 600
Note: The Forbes ranking includes two sets of ties, for spots #7 and #11.
 
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