Stanford’s Graduate School of Business edged out Harvard Business School (HBS) to second and the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School to third in U.S. News & World Report rankings of the nation’s best MBA programs. Last year, the three schools tied for first place.
U.S. News focuses on quality assessments by deans and MBA directors at peer schools and corporate recruiter survey scores. Wharton’s scores slipped in both these regards, as well as in average pay for its MBA graduates.
Stanford's average GMAT/GRE scores stood at 732, the average undergraduate GPA was 3.75 and had an acceptance rate of just 7.1 percent, it was by far the most selective school of all those ranked, with HBS accepting 11 percent and Wharton, 20.7 percent.
Average salary and bonus, another core metric employed by U.S. News, varied very little among the top 10 schools. In terms of salary the ranking was
1. HBS: $144,750
2. MIT: $142,936
3. Stanford: $142,834.
4. Wharton, at $142,574
5. Dartmouth College’s Tuck: $142,489 (and #9 overall)
The top 10 MBA programs as ranked by U.S. News & World Report for 2016 are as follows:
1. Stanford Graduate School of Business
2. Harvard Business School
3. University of Pennsylvania Wharton School
4. University of Chicago Booth School of Business
5. MIT Sloan School of Management
6. Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management
7. UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business
8. Columbia Business School
9. Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business
10. University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business
Please see the full 2016 U.S. News & World Report MBA Rankings for more information.