The Financial Times released its 2025 MBA Rankings this week with some major surprises. This year the top of the Financial Times Best Business Schools list is dominated by European business schools. In fact, only four US schools remained in the top ten.
Wharton was ranked at the top, thanks to its academic research output. Wharton is followed by Columbia Business School, ranking second again this year. IESE, which Personal MBA Coach visited last year, is the European school with the highest ranking, mainly due to its graduates’ praise of the alumni network. INSEAD, another host of AIGAC 2024, tied with SDA Bocconi for #4. MIT Sloan remained in sixth place, followed by London Business School. Esade and HEC Paris ranked seventh and eighth, respectively, with Kellogg closing out the top ten and being one of the two schools to report a 50:50 gender split on campus.
Looking a bit farther down the Financial Times list of top MBA programs, Duke Fuqua ranked #11, followed by CEIBS, Asia’s highest-ranking business school for almost a decade. Dropping a few positions down, Harvard Business School tied with Cornell Johnson for #13. According to the Financial Times, HBS alumni reported receiving the highest average weighted salary at $256,731. Berkeley Haas shares the fifteenth position with Shanghai University of Finance and Economics: College of Business in this year’s ranking. Chicago Booth was ranked #17, followed by IE Business School and UCLA Anderson at #18 and #19, respectively. Dartmouth Tuck and UVA Darden rounded out this year’s top 20.
While at Personal MBA Coach we have seen an increase in the number of applicants applying to international programs, despite this year’s Financial Times rankings, the majority of our clients continue to favor the US-based programs traditionally topping the best business school rankings.
What drove the change in MBA rankings this year?
It is important to note that the Financial Times updated its ranking methodology this year. Find out more about the Financial Times criteria here.
While these rankings provide beneficial information to MBA hopefuls, they should be taken with a grain of salt. Harvard Business School’s drop to #13, for example, is not likely to change HBS’s desirability. However, the broader list of schools moving in and out of the top 20 reconfirms that many MBA candidates can be served by looking outside of the traditional M7 as they develop their school lists.
See below for more tips from Personal MBA Coach on how to use MBA rankings.
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1) Look at MBA rankings to get an overview of the business school landscape.
If you are in the early stages of your MBA application journey, rankings can be useful to get a general lay of the land. Use these rankings to see what schools are out there, where they are located, and how they compare to one another.
2) Review statistics as an initial guide.
Statistics including acceptance rate, average undergraduate GPA, and average test scores of enrolled students will give you some strong benchmarking information. That said, these numbers should be used only as an initial guide since the whole applicant package is far more important.
Plenty of applicants with GPAs or GMAT/GRE/EA scores below average are accepted every year while others with higher statistics are not. This disparity is why we encourage candidates to apply to a range of programs (ideally 5 to 8 schools).
3) Consider average ranking over the years.
A school’s average ranking over time is important to consider when looking at MBA rankings. When you are applying to jobs down the road, recruiters likely will not know your school’s ranking when you applied, but they may look at its current standing.
Therefore, it is worth evaluating how the schools you are interested in have placed over time. Have they consistently stayed in the top tiers or has their placement fluctuated greatly?
4) Analyze general trends.
While the latest Financial Times MBA rankings show Columbia in the second spot this year, other rankings scales are likely to show different results (see the latest U.S. News & World Report rankings and Bloomberg Businessweek rankings for reference).
Of course, certain schools will consistently place in the top ten, but the general list will vary from source to source. As mentioned with ranking over time, the general trend across different ranking sources is the most significant.
5) Notice how rankings vary from one industry to the next.
While all MBA programs highlight strong general management education, each school has different areas of expertise. Thus it will be helpful to consider how schools perform in industry-specific rankings as well. Think about your MBA goals and check out rankings that pertain to these goals.
Contact Us Today for MBA Application Support
School selection is part of our Comprehensive Packages. For those planning to apply to business school in September 2025, it is not too early to get started! Personal MBA Coach is already beginning to work with clients on round 1 MBA applications. Reach out today to find out how our Comprehensive Packages can help you!
