The top twenty
Which MBA is the best?
DARTMOUTH COLLEGE’S Tuck School of Business takes first place in The Economist’s ninth annual ranking of full-time MBA programmes, up from second position last year. Virtually all of its students found work within three months of graduating. Its MBAs could expect a basic salary of $107,000, a 65% increase on their pre-degree earnings. Tuck students also graded the quality of their alumni the best in the world—an important consideration given the often-repeated claim that who you meet is just as important as what you learn. Chicago drops to second, having come top last year, while the world’s most famous school, Harvard, also drops a place to fifth. Europe’s top programme is IMD, a Swiss school, which ranks third. Though INSEAD has campuses in both France and Singapore, no purely Asian school makes our top 20. Hong Kong University, at 36th, is the highest-placed. The Economist asks students about why they decided to take an MBA. Our ranking weights data according to what students say is important. The four categories covered are: opening new career opportunities (35%); personal development/educational experience (35%); increasing salary (20%); and the potential to network (10%). The figures we collate are a mixture of hard data and the subjective marks given by the school’s students, such as a rating of their school’s facilities. The full ranking is here.
