The best business schools don’t just do one thing well. They commit to holistic excellence in every dimension: programming, experience, support, and satisfaction. That cohesion—and the strategy and execution behind it—bleeds into every corner of the program. All the right people come along. Call it a virtuous cycle: Respected leaders hire A-level talent and recruit high-potential talent—with the latter joining top-tier firms and opening doors for those who follow.
MBA rankings are designed to boil down data into one neat number. Princeton Review takes a different approach. Instead of aggregating the data, The Princeton Review breaks it down into sections so readers know specifically where their target schools excel. The rankings are made up of 18 categories, such as faculty quality or advising programs. Instead of a final index score that is tied to questionable weighting, Princeton Review only shares the top 10 performing programs in each category. In the process, readers can identify the programs that provide the highest satisfaction to students and alumni in the areas that matter most to them. Call it a ranking that lets readers think for themselves, an imperfect instrument that respects its audience and has the courage to be different.
The result? Like most rankings, Stanford Graduate School of Business and Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management bolster their M7 credentials by consistently ranking among the best in all areas. As before Princeton Review Within the rankings, there are several new companies – including Virginia Darden, Michigan Ross and Vanderbilt Owen – whose ratings position them as undervalued assets worth a closer look.
METHODOLOGY
“Since we began ranking business schools in 2004 across multiple categories rather than a single list, our goal has been to help students entering business school identify the MBA program that is the best fit for them,” writes Rob Franek, Princeton ReviewEditor-in-Chief, in a press release, “The schools on our 2024 list all have impressive qualities. Three characteristics they share in common form underlie our criteria for this ranking: outstanding academics, a strong experiential learning component, and excellent career services. Equally impressive to us—and perhaps to prospective applicants—is that every one of our top business schools for 2024 ranks highly among the MBA students we survey.”
Launched on July 16, 2024 Princeton Review MBA rankings are a better late than never choice. However, the 2023 rankings were released in February 2023, with a gap of nearly 18 months between previous rankings. To compile the student portion of the 2024 rankings, Princeton Review surveyed more than 21,500 on-campus respondents from 244 graduate business schools who had enrolled in their programs in the past three years. As part of the student survey, respondents rated a variety of areas ranging from faculty to campus life. In addition, Princeton Review submitting surveys to school administrators to compile data on “academics, selectivity, faculty, technical platforms, career services and other topics.”
Whole, Princeton Review collects 60 data points to produce rankings across its 18 categories, which contain a mix of student-specific data, administrator-specific data, and combined student and administrator data. However, instead of providing actual school grades, Princeton Review only ranks the Top 10 in each category. This makes it impossible to know the gap between ranked programs or even where unranked programs finished compared to their peers.
YALE AND NYU REPEAT WHILE KELLOGG DISTURBS
Princeton ReviewProgramming rankings are perhaps the most valuable measure. Think of them as a mix of school data like placement and starting salaries and students’ assessments “of how well the school prepared them for a career in a particular field.” In this area, Princeton Review covers seven different industries:
Consultation
Finance
Management
Marketing
Operation
Non-profit
Human Resources
Unsurprisingly, different schools top all seven lists. Yale SOM is again the top program for Consulting, with Michigan Ross dethroning Virginia Darden as the #2 MBA program in the field (and Northwestern Kellogg moving up from unranked to #4). NYU Stern regains the #1 spot in Finance, edging out Columbia Business School and Virginia Darden (while UNC Kenan-Flagler and Rice Jones hold on to #4 and #5). Northwestern Kellogg shakes up the Management category, taking the top spot from Stanford GSB (which drops to #4). Like Consulting and Finance, a newcomer – UC Berkeley Haas – moves up to #4 in Management.
Although Kellogg has traditionally been dubbed the “Marketing School,” it actually comes in at #6 in this regard. In fact, Stanford GSB is the only program that remains in the Marketing Top 5 – and it drops from #1 to #5. Washington Foster takes its place at #1, followed by lesser-known programs like Indiana Kelley, Wisconsin Business School, and UCLA Anderson. Additionally, last year’s #2 in Marketing – Dartmouth Tuck – actually falls out of the Top 10.
Kellogg MBA Students
WHAT SETS KELLOGG AND OWEN DIFFERENT
In a confusing twist, Purdue Krannert tops the list for Operations – despite no longer offering a full-time MBA program. The same can be said for Penn State Smeal, which is in 3rd place. After finishing runner-up to Stanford GSB in Nonprofit last year, Bard College takes the top spot, while Pepperdine Graziadio moves up from 5th to 2nd. BYU Marriott joins Bard in moving up from #2 to #1 – this time in Human Resources.
Among the various academic program rankings, three programs are ranked in the Top 10 in four categories: Stanford GSB, Northwestern Kellogg, and Vanderbilt Owen. Unfortunately, Stanford GSB lost its #1 spot in three categories this year. At the same time, Duke Fuqua and Virginia Darden are ranked in the Top 10 in three categories.
Historically, Kellogg has been more associated with teamwork than management. In fact, the school notes that MBA graduates are likely to participate in 200 team meetings during their time at Evanston. In Kellogg’s worldview, service and collaboration are the foundations of being an effective manager. The school has branded itself as “low ego, high impact” leadership – an approach based on reflection and self-awareness that fosters dialogue and trust.
“The school’s focus is on developing leaders who are able to navigate an environment of change, and leaders who are shaped by and embody the essential qualities of creativity and collaboration,” explained Emily Haydon, Kellogg’s Assistant Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid, in a 2023 interview with P&Q“With this shared focus and culture, we produce leaders who leverage this empathetic mindset to drive relationships and performance both professionally and personally.”
Instead, you could say the success of Vanderbilt Owen’s programming is a byproduct of its personalized approach, where each student receives intensive support to achieve their career growth plans.
“Having every resource to succeed is critical – world-class faculty and dynamic classrooms, life-changing career opportunities, immersive experiences and environments, and faculty, staff and peers who care about your success,” said Bailey McChesney, Director of MBA Admissions at Owen, in a 2024 interview with P&Q. “The Vanderbilt MBA program has all of those things, but what sets us apart is our small, tight-knit community and incredible setting in Nashville, Tennessee, which means all of those resources are easily accessible and the people behind them all know you. Within a minute’s walk through our building, a student can see a Leadership Coach, a Career Coach, an Academic Advisor, and professors, and will walk past dozens of their classmates gathered together. Our community cares deeply about not only the outcomes our students achieve, but also their experience and growth in the program, and their success far beyond business school.”
Vanderbilt student Owen takes notes in a marketing class
WHY DARDEN LECTURER IS RANKED #1
The rankings also feature seven categories that are based exclusively on student survey results. These categories cover the following areas:
Best Class Experience: “The teaching abilities of the professors, the integration of new business trends and practices into the curriculum, the intellectual level of their classmates’ contributions to course discussions, and whether the business school meets their academic expectations.”
Best Professor: “How good their professors are as teachers and how accessible they are outside of class.”
Most Competitive Students: “How competitive their classmates are, how heavy their workload is, and the perceived academic pressure.”
Most Family Friendly: “How happy are the students who are married, how many students have children, how much assistance the school provides to students who have children, and how much assistance the school provides to student couples.”
Best Campus Environment: “How happy students are and how they rate the city where the school is located and the campus community, the availability of school activities, and the level of participation from fellow students.”
Best Given: “How smoothly this school is managed, and how easily students can take compulsory and elective courses.”
The Greenest MBA: “How well their schools prepare them for environmental/sustainability issues and social responsibility, and for careers in a green job market.”
Next page: Links to 18 business school rankings from Princeton Review.
