Top 10 MBA Programs

Are you wondering which business schools have top 10 MBA programs?

Usually, Business Week (BW) and US News (USN) are the two rankings to watch to find the top U.S. MBA programs.

When BW or USN rank top MBA schools, they actually rank their respective full-time MBA programs.

However, this top ranking of "programs" has the effect of also designating top "schools".

Therefore, the term "top MBA schools" is often used instead of "top full-time MBA programs".

The methodology used for this ranking includes compliling historical rankings from both BW and USN since the year 2000 (comprising of 15 rankings total). We found the average ranking score and then prioritized the schools from lowest to highest.

This methodology favors the USN rankings because of its yearly ranking (compared to the BW ranking done every two years). Therefore, we have also listed the average BW and USN rankings in parenthesis. See the list below...

• 1. Harvard University (BW #4, USN #1)
• 2. University of Pennsylvania (BW #2, USN #3)
• 3. Stanford University (BW #6, USN #2)
• 4. Northwestern University (BW #1, USN #5)
• 5. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (BW #7, USN #4)
• 6. University of Chicago (BW #3, USN #6)
• 7. Columbia University (BW #8, USN #7)
• 8. University of Michigan (BW #5, USN #11)
• 9. Duke University (BW #9, USN #10)
• 10. University of California-Berkeley (BW #13, USN #8)

Note: Dartmouth College (BW #11, USN #9) was #11 on the list, but had an actual ranking average under 10. So Dartmouth could definitely be considered in the "top 10".

We should also note that five more schools where ranked in the top 10 by either BW or USN at least once since 2000...Universtity of California-Los Angeles, University of Virginia, New York University, Cornell University, and Yale University.

A "definitive" top 10 ranking is hard to pin down because a school can be considered a "top 10 school" regardless of its ranking history. Sometimes, it has more to do with status than with rankings.