Accepted: U.S. News & World Report’s 2019 Best Business Schools/MBA Rankings

The big winners in this year’s U.S. News derby… uh, I mean rankings:

• Chicago Booth tied with Harvard and leapfrogged Wharton to snag the top spot for the first time ever.

• Michigan Ross jumped 4 places into the top 10.

There were also a few “losers” although the losses, much like the wins, are more symbolic than substantive.

• Wharton, which last year had tied with HBS for #1, got knocked down to #3.

• Yale which had been #9, went down two places to tie for #11, but that small change also knocked it out of the over-rated “Top 10.”

• Kellogg went down from #4 to #6 and Tuck went from #8 to #10.

• MIT stepped down a notch from tied for #4 to #5.

As usual there are bigger gyrations lower down the rankings.

Top 10 2019 Best Business Schools:

I know that some of you live, breathe, and dream these rankings. Know what they are before you rely on them blindly. We summarize the methodology below.

U.S. News & World Report surveyed all 480 MBA programs accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business international in fall 2017 and early 2018. Of these, 387 responded and 127 of those were ranked. These 127 schools provided enough of the needed data on their full-time MBA programs necessary to calculate the full-time MBA rankings, based on the following weighted average of the indicators listed below (more on methodology here).

• Quality assessment score (weighted by 0.40)

• Peer assessment score (0.40)

• Recruiter assessment score (0.15)

• Placement success score (0.35)

• Mean starting salary and bonus score (0.14)

• Employment rates for full-time MBA program graduates score (at graduation – 0.07; three months after graduation – 0.14)

• Student selectivity score (0.25)

• Mean GMAT and GRE scores score (0.1625)

• Mean undergraduate GPA score (0.075)

• Acceptance rate score (0.0125)

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