Guides · figures from each school’s own report
How to read an MBA employment report
Of the 75 schools we read, 33 publish a median base salary, 12 an average base, 4 an average of total pay and 22 no usable salary at all.
Best fit for any industry (whole class), on your salary
Wharton
87% of the class (about 773 graduates) · $185,000 · payback 3.9 years
Fit score: share of the class (40%), salary (30%) and ten-year NPV for you (30%), each as a percentile among the schools shown. Schools under 0% of the class are not ranked. Method.
| # | School | Share | About | Salary | Payback | 10-year NPV | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | WhartonPhiladelphia · 21 months | 87% | 773 | $185,000 | 3.9 years | $312,208 | 91 |
| 2 | HarvardBoston · 21 months | 84% | 792 | $185,000 | 4.0 years | $300,068 | 82 |
| 3 | Stanford GSBStanford · 21 months | 81% | 352 | $185,000 | 4.0 years | $296,469 | 74 |
| 4 | UVA DardenCharlottesville · 21 months | 89.3% | 322 | $175,000 | 4.1 years | $257,290 | 87 |
| 5 | Chicago BoothChicago · 21 months | 87.8% | 558 | $175,000 | 4.1 years | $260,413 | 85 |
| 6 | ColumbiaNew York · 20 months | 90.4% | 888 | $175,000 | 4.5 years | $223,915 | 85 |
| 7 | MIT SloanCambridge · 21 months | 87.1% | 377 | $175,000 | 4.2 years | $245,659 | 82 |
| 8 | Dartmouth TuckHanover · 21 months | 87% | 264 | $175,000 | 4.3 years | $234,883 | 79 |
| 9 | KelloggEvanston · 21 months | 85.5% | 457 | $175,000 | 4.3 years | $241,009 | 76 |
| 10 | NYU SternNew York · 21 months | 86% | 289 | $175,000 | 4.7 years | $194,432 | 72 |
| 11 | Emory GoizuetaAtlanta · 21 months | 81.7% | 105 | $175,000 | 3.9 years | $282,532 | 70 |
| 12 | Cornell JohnsonIthaca · 21 months | 83% | 229 | $175,000 | 4.5 years | $220,137 | 67 |
| 13 | Yale SOMNew Haven · 21 months | 79.9% | 293 | $175,000 | 4.3 years | $234,097 | 59 |
| 14 | Michigan RossAnn Arbor · 21 months | 84.3% | 319 | $170,000 | 4.2 years | $236,467 | 69 |
| 15 | Berkeley HaasBerkeley · 21 months | 84.1% | 230 | $167,250 | 4.5 years | $196,335 | 64 |
Share: % of the graduating class (or of those who accepted a job) the school reports for this goal. About: that share applied to the class size. * no salary published for this goal: school-wide figure. Salaries in US dollars at the ECB rate of the last update; “average” marks a mean where the school publishes no median.
Placing graduates here but not ranked: AGSM UNSW 87% (no salary published) · Alliance MBS 94% (no salary published) · CEIBS 90% (no living budget published) · EDHEC 84% (no salary published) · Esade 90% (no salary published) · Fudan 94.4% (no salary published) · HKUST 95% (no salary published) · IESE 80% (no salary published) · IIM Ahmedabad PGPX 96.4% (no living budget published) · IIM Lucknow IPMX 92.6% (no living budget published) · Nanyang (NTU) 93% (no salary published) · NUS 93% (no living budget published) · Rice Jones 71.3% (no living budget published) · SDA Bocconi 79% (no living budget published) · SKK GSB 93% (no salary published) · SMU 80% (no salary published) · USC Marshall 71% (no living budget published) · WashU Olin 78% (no living budget published).
Built by Radif Partners · figures checked · Method · Editorial policy
An MBA employment report describes one past class: who looked for a job, who found one within three months, in which industry and region, and at what pay. The figures are only comparable if you check five things. First, the statistic: of the 75 schools on this site, 33 publish a median base salary, 12 an average base salary and 4 an average of total pay, and an average sits above the median of the same class. Second, base or total: the headline is usually base salary, with the signing bonus apart (Wharton's median bonus is $30,000, for the 48% who received one). Third, who answered, since salary figures cover only graduates who reported pay. Fourth, who is left out: sponsored students and founders are usually outside the salary figure. Fifth, shares of what: most reports give percentages of graduates who accepted a job, not of the whole class. 22 schools publish no starting salary on their open pages, some behind a form.
The standard most reports follow
American business schools agreed long ago on a common way to report the outcomes of their full-time MBA classes, now maintained by MBA CSEA, the association of MBA career services and employers. The standards define who counts as seeking a job, when the count is taken (at graduation and three months after), which salary is reported (base salary, with signing and other bonuses apart) and which graduates are left out. Of the 75 schools we read, 20 say they follow these standards; the others use their own rules, which may be close or quite different. The first page of a report, or its footnotes, usually says which applies. When it does not, read the definitions before the numbers.
Median, mean, and the quartiles that tell you more
The median is the salary of the graduate in the middle of the list. The mean adds all salaries and divides by the number of people, so a few very large offers pull it up. Ivey publishes both for the same class: the median is CA$100,000, the mean CAD 114,984,. London Business School publishes means only, £91,928 for the class of 2025, as does Oxford, £81,466. On this site every salary carries its statistic, and the rankings never mix the two silently. The more useful figures are the quartiles, when a school gives them: Wharton's middle half of salaries runs from $165,000 to $192,000 around its $185,000 median, a narrow band that says most of the class lands on similar offers.
Base salary, signing bonus and the pay nobody reports
The headline salary is base pay. The signing bonus is reported apart, usually as a median among those who received one, together with that share: at Wharton, $30,000 for 48% of graduates. A few schools publish a total: IMD gives an average of total pay, $136,940, and HEC Paris an average salary package, $123,170. What no report can include is pay decided after graduation: year-end bonuses in banking, carried interest in private equity, stock grants that vest over years in tech. Our calculators add the signing bonus in the first year, weighted by the share who received it, and nothing else. Try a bonus of your own below.
A signing bonus, on average
Expected value
$15,000
| Chance of getting one | 50% |
The model counts the bonus once, in the first year, times the share receiving it.
Who answered, and who was left out
A salary statistic covers only graduates who reported a salary, and that group is never the whole class. Some schools publish the response rate: MIT 99.2%, Booth 96.8%, Oxford Saïd 87%. INSEAD states that 73% of its class reported full salary information. Ivey's salary covers the 78% of graduates with an accepted offer who reported pay. Graduates with good offers tend to answer, so a low response rate usually flatters the median.
Several groups are left out by design. Sponsored students, whose employer paid for the degree and who return to it, are not seeking a job and are excluded from the employment rate and the salary. So are graduates who start a company, those who continue their studies and those who say they are not looking. LBS writes that its salary figure excludes sponsored and self-employed graduates. A school with many sponsored students reports on a smaller group than its class size, and the share "employed within three months" is a share of that smaller group. Use the calculator below to see how a response rate changes what a median can tell you.
How much of the class a salary figure describes
Share of the class behind the salary
68%
| Graduates behind the figure | 272 |
| Not seeking (sponsored, start-ups, studies) | 80 |
Sponsored students and founders are usually out of the salary count.
Offers, acceptances and shares of what
Three words that look alike measure different things. "Had an offer" counts graduates who received at least one offer, including those who turned it down; "accepted an offer" counts those who said yes; "employed" may count those who have started. Of the 75 schools we read, 59 report accepted offers within three months, 4 report offers received, among them INSEAD and Oxford, and 12 report employment. The first figure is always the highest of the three for the same class.
Industry and region shares raise the same question. Most reports give them as percentages of graduates who accepted a job, not of the class. A school that says 40% of graduates went to consulting may mean 40% of the 85% who found a job, about a third of the whole class. The finder on this site shows the share as the school publishes it and an estimate of the number of graduates, which is easier to compare between a class of 900 and a class of 100.
When the report is gated, missing or borrowed
Not every school publishes a report anyone can read. Esade, ESSEC, HKUST and IESE keep their full report behind a request or download form, and we did not use figures we could not read openly. Alliance MBS, Esade, Lisbon MBA (Nova SBE / Católica), SKK GSB and UCD Smurfit show, on their open pages, figures taken from the Financial Times ranking, which describe alumni some years out rather than starting salaries, so we do not use them as a graduation salary. HEC Paris hosts its report as an online flipbook. In total, 22 of the 75 schools have no starting salary we could use, which is why they appear on this site with their fees and shares but without a payback. The method page lists every rule we apply, and the salary table shows each school's figure with its statistic.