The Financial Times published their annual global rankings of the top MBA programs in the world, and as last year, Harvard took the top spot followed by Stanford. LBS came in third (climbing from fourth last year), Wharton was in fourth (dropping from third) and Columbia and INSEAD tied for fifth and sixth.
This represents the fifth time FT has ranked Harvard as the top MBA program in the world since the start of the ranking in 1999. The ranking did include a number of surprises, like Yale’s climb to the tenth spot (as opposed to 14th in 2013 and 20th in 2012), IMD to 12th (as opposed to 19th last year) and Chicago and Kellogg (in the ninth and 15th spots respectively). Michigan, UCLA, and Darden (23,26,27) earned relatively low spots in this year’s ranking.

The top 20 programs in the world according to FT 2014:

1-Harvard
2-Stanford
3- LBS
4-Wharton
5-6-Columbia, INSEAD
7-IESE
8-MIT
9-Chicago
10-Yale
11-Berkeley
12-IMD
13-IE
14-HKUST
15-Kellogg
16-Cambridge
17-18-19-Duke, CEIBS, NYU
20-Tuck

A bit about the ranking’s methodology: The Financial Times conducted a survey of 2010 MBA alumni around the world, with only schools with at least 20% of alumni responding were included in the ranking. This year 10,986 alumni responded, a participation rate of 47%. The data gathered from alumni related mainly to their salary and careers, the elements that bore the most significance toward the building of the ranking. The data shows that alumni salary three years post-graduation is highest among Stanford alumni at $184,566, followed by Harvard alumni at $178,300, Wharton alumni at $170,472, Columbia alumni at $164,180, and Kellogg alumni at $157,719.

 

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