Harvard Tops Fortune MBA Rankings in 2023

The folks at Fortune Education recently released their third list of Fortune MBA rankings of the best business schools in 2023, and to no one’s surprise, the HBS/GSB/Wharton trifecta strikes again. Below are the top 15 B-schools and the median base salary of new grads.

Business School Ranking/ Starting Salary

1. Harvard Business School- $175,000
2. Stanford Graduate School of Business- $175,000
3. Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania- $175,000
4. Yale School of Management- $160,110
5. Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University- $165,000
6. Columbia Business School- $175,000
7. University of Chicago Booth School of Business- $175,000
8. MIT Sloan School of Management- $165,000
9. NYU Stern School of Business- $170,000
10. University of Michigan Ross School of Business- $165,000
11. Fuqua School of Business at Duke University- $160,055
12. Cornell’s SC Johnson Graduate School of Management- $165,000
13. UVA Darden School of Business- $175,000
14. UC Berkeley Haas School of Business- $155,000
15. Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business- $175,000

Methodology for the Fortune MBA Rankings

For the 2023 list, Fortune says it ranked 81 programs based on three components: Outcome Score, Brand Score, and Fortune 1000 Score. Here’s how they break down the evaluation process:

Performance Rating (65%)

• Heavy emphasis on starting salaries
• Equal importance given to median and mean base salaries of MBA Class of 2022 grads
• Did not consider additional enticements, such as signing bonuses
• Did consider employment rates three months post-graduation

Reputation Score (25%)

• Partnered with Ipsos to survey 2,500 hiring managers/business professionals to gather their perspectives on specific business schools.
• Focus was to evaluate brand reputation, including aspects that go beyond their full-time MBA programs
• Survey participants hold executive roles within corporations, have advanced education, and are familiar with at least two of the schools included in Fortune’s selection.
• The resulting score indicated a business school’s Attitudinal Equity (AE) measurement. According to Ipsos, this metric gauges “the level of interest a group of individuals has in recruiting from a particular university. It reflects the university’s presence in people’s minds.”

Fortune 1000 Assessment (10%)

• Focused on identifying schools with a well-established track record of nurturing future business leaders.
• Examined the number of MBA alums from each school in C-suite roles within Fortune 1000 companies.
• Higher representation of MBA graduates in Fortune 1000 C-level positions translated to a higher Fortune 1000 Assessment score.

Ratings can be a helpful starting point in the school selection process. But they aren’t everything. We advise our clients to pick MBA programs based on what will add value to their careers and life. We encourage our clients to research each MBA program to derive a strong belief in why that brand is meaningful to them. Prospective students would do well to focus more on each program’s culture, size, or the strength of its alumni network.

If you’re thinking about business school, you should decide the factors that will play a role in where you apply. Consider cost, location, program specialties, faculty’s areas of expertise, and so on. Keep these factors in mind as you research specific programs. This will help you home in on the ones that fit you best.

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