The U.S. News and World Report has posted the 2024-2025 Best MBA rankings. Stanford GSB and University of Pennsylvania Wharton are tied for the top spot, followed by a tie for third rank between Northwestern Kellogg and Chicago Booth.
Notable changes to the top 25 from the last year’s rankings include:
Stanford’s five-rank jump, which moved it from 6th in 2023 back to 1st, a position it also held in 2021 and 2022.
Harvard, which has spent the past two years in 5th, dropped one spot into the 6th position in 2024.
The biggest increases this year, apart from Stanford, were Vanderbilt Owen, which moved up seven ranks to the 20th spot, and Berkeley Haas and UVA Darden, which both moved up four positions to take 7th and 10th, respectively.
Dartmouth Tuck and Michigan Ross experienced the largest declines from 2023, both falling four positions. Tuck now shares the 10th spot with Darden, while Ross joined Columbia and Duke in a three-way tie at 12th.
According to Poets & Quants, U.S. News acknowledged that its addition of a new post-graduate salary metric explains some of the movement seen within this year’s ranking. The addition of the metric de-emphasizes post-graduate starting salary/bonus slightly, incorporating MBA graduates’ starting salaries based on the field in which they’re entering. A description is available here.
Rank School Name, Change from 2023
1 Stanford University (tie), +5
1 University of Pennsylvania, Wharton (tie), +2
3 Northwestern University, Kellogg (tie), -1
3 University of Chicago, Booth (tie), -2
5 MIT, Sloan, -1
6 Harvard University, -1
7 New York University, Stern, (tie), +3
7 University of California–Berkeley, Haas (tie), +4
7 Yale University (tie), +1
10 Dartmouth, Tuck, (tie), -4
10 University of Virginia, Darden (tie), +4
12 Columbia University (tie), -1
12 Duke University, Fuqua (tie), -1
12 University of Michigan, Ross (tie), -4
15 Cornell University, Johnson (tie), –
16 Carnegie Mellon, Tepper (tie), +2
16 University of Texas–Austin, McCombs (tie), +2
18 Emory University, Goizueta (tie), -1
18 University of Southern California, Marshall (tie), -3
20 Indiana University, Kelley (tie), +2
20 University of California–Los Angeles, Anderson (tie), -1
20 University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill, Kenan-Flagler (tie), +2
20 Vanderbilt University, Owen (tie), +7
24 Georgetown University, McDonough, –
25 Georgia Institute of Technology, Scheller, +1