Michigan is now ranked seventh. Booth is tied for first with Harvard. No other big changes except maybe Yale dropping out of the top 10.
Trending Content - Business School and GMAT Forum
Career Resources
WSO Free Modeling Series - Now Open Through
June 30, 2026
9 Free Financial Modeling Lessons
Get instant access to lessons taught by experienced private equity pros and bulge bracket investment bankers including financial statement modeling, DCF, M&A, LBO, Comps and Excel Modeling.
+Bonus: Get 27 financial modeling templates in swipe file
+Bonus: Get 27 financial modeling templates in swipe file
High Finance Applications
Guaranteed
Get at least one offer GUARANTEED
- 1:1 support
- 92% success rate
- 2,000+ mentor network
- Unlimited Live bootcamps
- AI for resume + LinkedIn
- Networking automation tools
- HireVue simulation tool
- Full course library
- Private Slack community
- 20hrs of mocks
- + much more...
the fact that booth is tied w/ HBS completely invalidates the rest of this ranking.
Actually, USNews has always been the most conservative, credible and influential ranking.
No
no.
Holy moly. Those rankings shifted a ton from last year, but it's not that big a deal. A good chunk of the methodology for such rankings is based off volatile statistics from the graduating class of each school. I'd stop paying attention to the rank in the Top 10 or so.
So Harvard's tuition is the highest now? That's interesting.
M7 is a group of schools established by business school deans at H/S/B/W/C/K/S not based on USN top 7 rankings
True, though Columbia was always the 7th school, and it has arguably not managed to keep up with the other half dozen. I am guilty of using M7 as a moniker, but frankly I think it's outdated.
This is a useful page, showing how the rankings have evolved over the past 4 years.
https://poetsandquants.com/2018/03/19/chicago-booth-gains-first-in-new-…
Key takeaways:
The Big 4 exists now. HBS is at the top (avg rank 1.25), while Booth, Wharton and Stanford cluster closely around each other. HSW is now HSWB.
Kellogg and Sloan consistently compete for completing the Top 5. From 2011 to 2014, it used to be that Booth, Kellogg and Sloan would play musical chairs for 4th and 5th.
Haas is consistently 7th. Tuck is usually 8th. Columbia averages 9th. This is super consistent.
Musical chairs to round out top 10 between Ross, Yale SOM, NYU Stern, UVA Darden and Duke Fuqua.
In summation:
I've never met anyone who thought twice about taking Wharton over Booth as I'm sure most people don't think twice about taking H/S over W. I'm not sure why Booth has gained popularity in recent years but don't think it really has the recognition or brand name to compete with the top 3 schools.
Case in point - I recently applied for bschool and asked my team to write my recs. I threw in apps for H/W/Booth/Kellogg and Sloan and my team (everyone besides me came from a MF PE shop) asked me why I was applying to Booth/what school Booth was affiliated with (no questions about the other schools other than a wisecrack about me pursuing marketing if i went to kellogg). I know one fund isn't representative, but after having done my own research, Booth was at the bottom of the list for schools I applied to/don't think there is any advantage of going to Booth over Kellogg or Sloan.
This.
And everyone knows Stanford is #1 by far. LP's were calling my PM two years ago asking if he could write their kids a letter of recommendation. Not even HBS or Wharton PMs get asked that as fervently. Since then, Stanford has only gotten better.
Booth is a great program but no one hiring (which is what you should care about) considers it in the same league as the other schools I mentioned.
PS: I never went to Bschool so I have no dog in this fight.
Stanford is a clear number one now, but it has little to do with things the b-school has achieved. I would argue it has more to do with the undergrad. Snapchat and google came from the undergrad. Zuck came from Harvard but built his business next door. Reed Hastings has a Stanford masters in computer science. Amazon is on that side of the country. Same with Microsoft. Tech is big right now....if it was the days of the hedge fund gods then Harvard would be king.
How often do banks adjust their stub year comp? Or when did it last happen? Currently it seems to be 125k + bonus across the board (at least among BB). Wondering if a street-wide hike would be a boon to some of these schools with relatively higher IB placement... then again, perhaps it wouldn't matter much
Several years, mainly to catch up with inflation.
Honestly, I believe Ross MBA is top 10 material. It's a kind of a hidden gem.
Ross is lovely but doesn't make your believe any more credible.
The U.S. News methodology seems flawed. I don't think that anybody would argue that Booth is truly a better school than Stanford, especially considering that Stanford has a higher average GMAT/GPA/starting salary, lower acceptance rate, and higher yield. Same can be said about Michigan (7) vs. Columbia (9). It seems that they put too much emphasis on the peer/recruiter assessments they conduct, probably because it is the only proprietary aspect of their rankings that allow them to differentiate from all of the other rankings out there.
You posted this just to trigger everyone!
It's working.
Any sort of rankings discussion will do the trick. Even if you asked people to rank dog breeds, you would probably get 20 responses.
See this discussion on laptop rankings: https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/pc-or-mac-for-college#comment-16…
Goes to show the futility of individual opinions on these things.
@jtbbdxbnycmad" has the best take on this.
Polar, of course.
Thanks man.
Lotsa butthurt MBAs on here; I’m getting monkey shit for the most innocuous posts.
MBA's are extremely insecure because they had to shell out a down-payment on a house in direct costs for school so they're forever trying to justify that. When you pay that much you become very personally invested in everyone else thinking it's amazing and require that external validation.
I knew this kindergarten teacher that kept insisting K came before W in this bizarre ranking she called “The Alphabet”
Crazy old kook, obviously W comes right after S
Michigan is a public ivy in the same tier as UCLA/Virginia/UC Berkeley. Look at the long-term trends. Only recently did their GMATs exceed 710 while their mgmt consulting stats have been strong for a long time. Results within each class do vary a lot. In corporate finance, you can be as low as 90K base after graduation in some CPG firm or get 130K at a Silicon Valley firm (think Xilinx, Intel, Cisco, Juniper Networks, LinkedIn). Averages are simply averages with varying outcomes.
Only 14 schools can boast average GMATs exceeding 710 and average base salary exceeding $115K:
Ivy League: Harvard Yale Columbia Dartmouth UPenn
Public ivy: UCLA UC Berkeley Michigan Virginia
Other private: Northwestern U of Chicago NYU MIT Stanford
Lower GMAT averages but with base salaries exceeding $115K: Duke Cornell Texas U of Washington Carnegie Mellon Emory
Cornell should be on this list.
I would include Duke as well.
The criteria for his list included 710 GMAT average as a cutoff (I kind of get it, but totally arbitrary)...
In the Public School bracket
I don't understand this. The Ivy/Public Ivy/Other designations mean nothing to recruiters/hiring managers in traditional industries when evaluating MBA candidates.
it means a lot for tuition/fees at public schools versus privates
Imo maybe a indifference except turnover rates can be high for high flyers
We should just use WSO users as a representative sample of the average person any one of us might encounter in the business world and just accept the fact that some people will recognize / think that a specific school is better than another while others might refute that same claim.
Lets just all agree to disagree.
Honestly to me. I think outside Stanford or Harvard you just go local.
If I lived in LA I’d go to UCLA. If I was from Texas I’d go there. New York id go to stern.
I could see maybe MIT being worth going to if my goal was to be a ceo/cfo for an engineering/tech firm.
Kellogg I don’t understand. I’ve never met anyone talk about it and know a ton of northwestern grads.
Plain BS sorry
Agree IF you are not doing PE/VC/HF
I was interested in mgmt consulting or corporate finance during b-school. I did not recruit for those "high finance" roles, so it made no sense to apply to Stanford GSB as a California kid. I went to UCLA.
Then turn down harvard and go to booth lol
I have personally never met someone who works in finance and turned down H/S/W for Booth. "A ton of people take Booth over Wharton. I'm not claiming it's more than 50% but it is a legitimate decision point." That would really shock me. I would love to see any data that supports that, because my real world experience has been so different.
H/S wins cross-admit decisions by a landslide vs everyone, W included, and of course B. This is no-contest. H/S are in a class of their own in terms of yield. As for your "shock" in the face of BreakingOutOfPWM 's comment, be shocked, but it's true. As stated, outcomes are very similar from either school, but they're very different experiences culturally.
Of course, within that small % of people who get into H/S and go elsewhere, like B, there are some very notable cases. You're in Asset Management. Surely you know who Cliff Asness is, right? Sure, he went on to get a PhD and not stop at an MBA, but he is most definitely quite vocal about supporting Booth, recruiting there, and that he chose it over Stanford.
Can you share your sources/data? I'm curious.
Esse aliquam sit distinctio quidem deserunt. Quia exercitationem cum libero maxime unde totam. Odio id aspernatur architecto suscipit culpa ducimus aut. Est omnis et alias voluptas consectetur ipsam rerum est.
Non aliquid adipisci officiis officia tempora. Necessitatibus quisquam vel atque sed distinctio. Voluptate quia aut deserunt praesentium officia.
Vitae eum quis ea necessitatibus ipsam voluptatem. Sed modi facere non similique ut consequatur officia. Eaque dicta modi et aperiam accusamus. Vitae quo repudiandae et voluptatibus aliquam sed. Fugit et facere commodi eaque enim veritatis voluptas. Earum atque quaerat quasi voluptas in libero sint.
Autem autem ab rem quia. Quia minima distinctio et dolor praesentium velit. Tempore facere omnis eaque quia at tempora. Eaque ut tenetur voluptatum et. Reiciendis quo earum architecto quidem et deserunt ipsa. Voluptatem enim et omnis corrupti in est exercitationem. Eius vel voluptatum reiciendis reprehenderit repudiandae qui.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...
Iusto aut commodi optio labore consequuntur. Distinctio perspiciatis et libero iusto sapiente. Natus voluptas culpa et quia aut. Error voluptatibus rerum itaque consequatur.
Velit fugiat repellendus non dicta. Voluptatum dolor nobis quos iusto est quam et. Molestiae similique officiis ut. Sed recusandae dolorum est.
Magni repellat sed accusamus exercitationem quidem vero. Id dolorem beatae sunt eum eum et. Ut quas inventore sint quia sint adipisci. Voluptatibus harum excepturi voluptatum aliquam molestiae. Et omnis optio est sit. Facilis qui accusamus quia quasi nostrum quis.
Repudiandae et rerum libero excepturi et. Qui corporis at iure sequi nesciunt. Aut maiores expedita magnam reprehenderit provident accusamus est. Fugit ut occaecati harum qui voluptatem cupiditate assumenda.