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January 30, 2014

Adam's Global Top MBA Rankings 2014

As I have been doing since 2008, I wanted to provide my Global Top 100 MBA Rankings for 2014. The rankings below should hopefully be of value for both those engaged in initial school application selection and for admitted applicants who have been accepted to multiple programs and need to determine where to go.  Programs are ranked in many ways, so certainly look at other rankings lists. There is no one objective measure of an MBA programs’ value and no ranking that can account for an individual student’s positive or negative return on their investment of time and money for a graduate business education.



One advantage of a salary-based list of programs worldwide is that it helps to see the rising global market value of MBA programs. It also means that those of us who help applicants considering worldwide application, start to pay more attention to such national leaders and not just to dominant US and European programs.
For those with a US MBA bias, this ranking should be humbling because so many of what are usually ranked quite highly in the US, don't, at least at the weighted salary level, look as attractive as rankings might suggest.
From a school selection perspective, I think looking at the stark reality of the expected financial outcome is critical. Looking at this solely helps to put the outcome into focus. "The 100" is only one possible way of doing this.

"Methodology": All FT “Global MBA Rankings 2014” Data was ranked in order of " Weighted Salary ($)." No other methods were employed. I have included the FT 2014 rankings as well.

Justification #1: Whatever you get paid when you graduate is the base market value of your degree.

Justification #2: One may very well value an MBA beyond mere salary calculations, but salary will certainly be a factor for almost everyone.

Justification #3: Since each school reports its own data, assuming that data is good, the ranking is based on objective criteria that all programs have in common. Note: This a big assumption because it is based on the belief that schools are not manipulating their data).  

Disclaimer #1: I could use some other accumulation of salaries for this same purpose, but FT’s list is global, so I decided to use it. If your school is not included on this list of the top 100, please don't be offended. If FT ranked more programs, so would I.

Disclaimer #2: Actual market value will very much depend on your situation. The numbers below are only averages.

Disclaimer #3: Salary is but one measure of ROI. This survey does not account for relative increase in salary, opportunity costs, or other less tangible, but important factors.

Disclaimer #4: These rankings in no way measure the value of the educational experience at any of these programs, merely the reported average weighted post-MBA salary outcome.

I would like to thank “my team” at FT for doing all of the hard work. They have this nifty way of generating excel documents that really reduced my work by hours.

I better version of the table below can be found here.

Adam's Global Top MBA Rankings 2014

Salary Rank FT Rank in 2014 School name Country Weighted salary (US$)
1 2 Stanford Graduate School of Business US 184566
2 1 Harvard Business School US 178300
3 4 University of Pennsylvania: Wharton US 170472
4 5 Columbia Business School US 164181
5 15 Northwestern University: Kellogg US 157719
6 30 Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad India 157459
7 8 MIT: Sloan US 157262
8 3 London Business School UK 156553
9 9 University of Chicago: Booth US 156004
10 10 Yale School of Management US 150880
11 20 Dartmouth College: Tuck US 150754
12 11 University of California at Berkeley: Haas US 149487
13 5 INSEAD France/Singapore 148183
14 13 IE Business School Spain 146933
15 16 University of Cambridge: Judge UK 144350
16 7 IESE Business School Spain 143168
17 12 IMD Switzerland 142446
18 27 University of Virginia: Darden US 142131
19 17 Duke University: Fuqua US 141772
20 26 UCLA: Anderson US 140712
21 17 New York University: Stern US 140662
22 59 University of Cape Town GSB South Africa 140069
23 23 University of Michigan: Ross US 136828
24 27 Cornell University: Johnson US 136707
25 23 University of Oxford: Saïd UK 133315
26 34 Carnegie Mellon: Tepper US 129296
27 39 University of Texas at Austin: McCombs US 129225
28 17 CEIBS China 127117
29 68 Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore India 125249
30 14 Hong Kong UST Business School China 125060
31 36 Georgetown University: McDonough US 124990
32 33 University of North Carolina: Kenan-Flagler US 124669
33 52 The Lisbon MBA Portugal 123062
34 41 Emory University: Goizueta US 122468
35 65 University of Southern California: Marshall US 122308
36 46 Cranfield School of Management UK 120941
36 22 ESADE Business School Spain 120718
38 21 HEC Paris France 120016
39 25 Warwick Business School UK 119121
40 35 Rice University: Jones US 118473
41 59 Vanderbilt University: Owen US 117484
42 36 Indian School of Business India 117308
43 29 University of Hong Kong China 113038
44 31 SDA Bocconi Italy 112901
45 44 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign US 112482
46 47 Indiana University: Kelley US 112353
47 62 Australian Graduate School of Management (AGSM) Australia 111280
48 45 Sungkyunkwan University GSB South Korea 110828
49 55 University of Rochester: Simon US 110607
50 54 University of Minnesota: Carlson US 110390
51 81 Wisconsin School of Business US 110338
52 41 City University: Cass UK 110260
53 82 Boston College: Carroll US 109614
54 75 Texas A & M University: Mays US 108699
55 95 Babson College: Olin US 108694
56 93 Brigham Young University: Marriott US 108549
57 75 Boston University School of Management US 108256
58 71 Georgia Institute of Technology: Scheller US 108033
59 52 Michigan State University: Broad US 107808
60 64 Washington University: Olin US 107556
61 50 University of Maryland: Smith US 107236
62 48 University of California at Irvine: Merage US 106764
63 58 University of Washington: Foster US 106632
64 43 Manchester Business School UK 106535
65 56 Purdue University: Krannert US 106320
66 62 Pennsylvania State University: Smeal US 105988
67 61 Hult International Business School US/UK/UAE/China 105844
68 91 University College Dublin: Smurfit Ireland 105384
69 94 Wake Forest University: Babcock US 103696
70 49 Imperial College Business School UK 103604
71 70 Ohio State University: Fisher US 102899
72 88 University of St Gallen Switzerland 102158
73 68 Melbourne Business School Australia 102068
74 87 Arizona State University: Carey US 100203
75 89 Western University: Ivey Canada 99072
76 39 Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University Netherlands 98771
77 99 George Washington University US 98374
78 84 University of California, San Diego: Rady US 98258
79 66 Mannheim Business School Germany 97962
80 92 Tulane University: Freeman US 97962
81 98 University of California, Davis US 96864
82 38 Nanyang Business School Singapore 96202
83 73 University of Strathclyde Business School UK 95716
84 95 EMLyon Business School France 93356
85 84 University of Bath School of Management UK 92676
86 32 National University of Singapore Business School Singapore 91358
87 100 Vlerick Business School Belgium 90831
88 51 University of Toronto: Rotman Canada 90304
89 74 Tilburg University, TiasNimbas Netherlands 89848
90 84 McGill University: Desautels Canada 89604
91 66 York University: Schulich Canada 89332
92 89 ESMT – European School of Management and Technology Germany 89172
93 77 Lancaster University Management School UK 89009
94 72 University of British Columbia: Sauder Canada 88881
95 79 Coppead Brazil 88256
96 97 Durham University Business School UK 86887
97 80 University of Pittsburgh: Katz US 86410
98 77 Shanghai Jiao Tong University: Antai China 84890
99 57 Peking University: Guanghua China 81914
100 83 Fudan University School of Management China 76140


Please see School Selection Based on Reported Post-MBA Salary for how the information here can be utilized for school selection purposes.

-Adam Markus
I am a graduate admissions consultant who works with clients worldwide. If you would like to arrange an initial consultation, please complete my intake form. Please don't email me any essays, other admissions consultant's intake forms, your life story, or any long email asking for a written profile assessment. The only profiles I assess are those with people who I offer initial consultations to. Please note that initial consultations are not offered when I have reached full capacity or when I determine that I am not a good fit with an applicant.
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