US News & World Report published their annual rankings of best MBA programs in the US, and for the first time ever the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business topped the list. Booth, which tied with Harvard for the top spot, ascended to first place after placing third in last year’s ranking. The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, which tied HBS for first last year, slipped to third. Stanford Graduate School of Business remained constant in fourth place for a second year. Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, which last year landed in a three-way tie for fourth place, fell to sixth place in the current rankings.  The University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business cracked the top 10 for the first time since 2005 and tied for seventh with UC Berkeley’s Haas School. In so doing, it sidled past Columbia, displaced Dartmouth’s Tuck School to 10th place and knocked Yale SOM out of the top 10.

For the U.S. News Best Business Schools rankings, all 480 MBA programs accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business International were surveyed in fall 2017 and early 2018. A total of 387 responded. The rankings were based on the following indicators:

  • Quality Assessment (weighted by 0.40)
    • Peer assessment score (0.25)
    • Recruiter assessment score (0.15)
  • Placement Success (weighted by 0.35)
    • Mean starting salary and bonus (0.14)
    • Employment rates for full-time MBA program graduates (0.21)
  • Student Selectivity (weighted by 0.25)
    • Mean GMAT and GRE scores (0.1625)
    • Mean undergraduate GPA (0.075)
    • Acceptance rate (0.0125)

Here are the top 20:

1. Harvard Business School
1. Chicago (Booth)
3. Pennsylvania (Wharton)
4. Stanford
5. MIT (Sloan)
6. Northwestern (Kellogg)
7. UC-Berkeley (Haas)
7. Michigan (Ross)
9. Columbia Business School
10. Dartmouth (Tuck)
11. Duke (Fuqua)
11. Yale SOM
13. NYU (Stern)
13. Virginia (Darden)
15. Cornell (Johnson)
16. UCLA (Anderson)
17. Carnegie Mellon (Tepper)
17. Texas-Austin (McCombs)
19. North Carolina (Kenan-Flagler)
20. Emory (Goizueta)
20. USC (Marshall)