Cost and return · figures from each school’s own report
Which MBA for which industry, region or job
Pick a goal and your salary today: every school is re-ranked on what its own employment report says about that goal.
Best fit for consulting, on your salary
UVA Darden
37.3% of the class (about 135 graduates) · $190,000 · payback 3.5 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 5% of the class are not ranked. Method.
| # | School | Share | About | Salary | Payback | 10-year NPV | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | UVA DardenCharlottesville · 21 months | 37.3% | 135 | $190,000 | 3.5 years | $365,502 | 86 |
| 2 | KelloggEvanston · 21 months | 37.5% | 200 | $190,000 | 3.7 years | $349,220 | 84 |
| 3 | Dartmouth TuckHanover · 21 months | 41% | 125 | $190,000 | 3.7 years | $343,094 | 84 |
| 4 | Chicago BoothChicago · 21 months | 36.7% | 233 | $190,000 | 3.5 years | $368,625 | 83 |
| 5 | Duke FuquaDurham · 21 months | 34% | 122 | $190,000 | 3.5 years | $375,543 | 82 |
| 6 | Michigan RossAnn Arbor · 21 months | 33.5% | 127 | $190,000 | 3.4 years | $380,749 | 82 |
| 7 | Yale SOMNew Haven · 21 months | 36.9% | 135 | $190,000 | 3.8 years | $342,309 | 76 |
| 8 | Texas McCombsAustin · 21 months | 28% | 66 | $190,000 | 3.0 years | $428,448 | 74 |
| 9 | MIT SloanCambridge · 21 months | 32.3% | 140 | $190,000 | 3.6 years | $353,870 | 72 |
| 10 | ColumbiaNew York · 20 months | 33.2% | 326 | $190,000 | 3.9 years | $333,666 | 69 |
| 11 | WhartonPhiladelphia · 21 months | 28.2% | 250 | $190,000 | 3.7 years | $348,278 | 69 |
| 12 | Berkeley HaasBerkeley · 21 months | 26.8% | 73 | $190,000 | 3.6 years | $360,456 | 68 |
| 13 | Emory GoizuetaAtlanta · 21 months | 40.8% | 52 | $175,000 | 3.9 years | $282,532 | 67 |
| 14 | Vanderbilt OwenNashville · 21 months | 29% | 46 | $175,000 | 3.6 years | $302,793 | 54 |
| 15 | HarvardBoston · 21 months | 21% | 198 | $190,000 | 3.8 years | $336,138 | 53 |
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 10% (no salary published) · Alliance MBS 12% (no salary published) · CEIBS 9.7% (no living budget published) · EDHEC 10% (no salary published) · Fudan 13.7% (no salary published) · HKU 9% (no salary published) · IE 18.29% (no salary published) · IESE 41% (no salary published) · IIM Ahmedabad PGPX 17.9% (no living budget published) · IIM Bangalore EPGP 50% (no living budget published) · IIM Lucknow IPMX 35% (no living budget published) · Rice Jones 24.1% (no living budget published) · SKK GSB 21% (no salary published) · SMU 10% (no salary published) · WashU Olin 5.8% (no living budget published) · RSM 4% (under 5%).
Built by Radif Partners · figures checked · Method · Editorial policy
The best MBA depends on where you want to work. This finder takes, for each school, three figures from its own employment report: the share of the graduating class hired in the industry, finance segment, region or job you choose, the salary the school reports for it, and the ten-year net present value of the degree for a person with your current salary. Each figure becomes a percentile among the schools that publish it, and the fit score weighs them 40, 30 and 30 percent. For consulting, UVA Darden comes first today with 37.3% of its class in the industry; for private equity, Stanford GSB; for working in Asia, where few schools give a regional salary and the share placed decides alone, IIM Ahmedabad PGPX. Sort the table on any single column to see the schools in another order.
Three figures from the school, one from you
Every school on this site publishes an employment report: who answered, who found a job within three months, in which industry, in which region, in which job and for what pay. The finder reads those lines for the goal you pick. The share of the class tells you whether the school is a real pipeline into that path, the salary tells you what the path paid last year, and the net present value tells you whether that salary repays the full cost for someone in your situation. Only the last one depends on you.
The reports use different words for the same thing, and we keep the school's own label on its page. Here they are grouped into one list of industries (consulting, finance, technology, healthcare, consumer goods, energy, manufacturing), four finance segments (investment banking, private equity, venture capital, asset management), nine regions and the most common job functions. The method page explains each grouping and the rules that keep two overlapping lines from being added together.
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.
Reading a share without being misled
A share is a percentage of a group that the school defines: most often graduates who were seeking a job and accepted an offer within three months, sometimes the whole reported class. A school of 900 placing 20% in a sector sends more people there than a school of 200 placing 40%, which is why the column "about" shows the share applied to the class size. Small shares are fragile: a single graduate moves a share of 0.5% to 1%. Below 5% of the class (2% for a finance segment), a school is listed apart and not ranked.
Salaries are the school's own figure for the segment when it publishes one. Most American schools give a median by industry, many European and Asian schools give a school-wide figure only, and some give averages rather than medians. Averages are marked: they tend to sit above the median of the same class, because a few large offers pull them up.
Regions are ranked on placement
Very few schools publish what their graduates earn in each region, so a regional ranking that required a regional salary would be a ranking of three schools. For regions, the fit score is the share of the class placed there, and salary and payback are shown when they exist. This favors schools located in the region, which is the honest answer: an American program sending 2% of its class to Asia is not a route to Asia, however famous it is.
What the finder cannot see
Employment reports describe one past class. They say nothing about your visa, your language, your previous industry or the year's hiring cycle, and they leave out sponsored students who return to their employer. Use the finder to build a short list, then open each school page, read its report through the links we give, and use the comparison tool for the last two or three.