Wharton Slips in New U.S. News MBA Rankings
The “Best Business Schools” list is out, and the school dropped from the top spot. But Wharton MBAs still have this one major advantage over other students, the ranking shows.
Jon M. Huntsman Hall at the Wharton School. Photo via flickr.
U.S. News & World Report announced its highly anticipated 2019 Best Graduate Schools list on Tuesday, and the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton business school dropped out of the top spot in the Best Business Schools category. The full-time MBA program didn’t drop far, though. It sits at No. 3 behind Harvard and the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, which both tied for the No. 1 spot. Last year, Wharton tied with Harvard for No. 1.
While Wharton can’t say it sits at the very top of the latest U.S. News rankings, new graduates of the school can claim that they have the highest starting salaries nationwide.
On average, bright-eyed Wharton grads earn an average of $159,815, while Harvard grads will start at $158,049 on average — the third highest starting salary nationwide. Stanford comes in second on the measure, with alumni earning $159, 440 on average after graduation. Starting salary for Booth School graduates is $151,085 on average.
And according to the list, the Wharton School, the country’s first business school, now has the largest alumni network, with close to 90,000 alumni worldwide. Notable graduates include former Apple CEO John Sculley, Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn; and J.D. Power III, founder of the global marketing information firm J.D. Power and Associates.
Full-time tuition is still steep. Students pay $70,200 per year and those on the executive degree track pay $198,600 total for the program. About 82.3 percent of full-time graduates are employed at graduation, and the average base salary of alumni is $135,716.
Other schools across Pennsylvania made the top 50. Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business tied for No. 17, and Penn State’s Smeal School of Business tied for No. 31. Drexel’s LeBow College of Business is tied at No. 82. Temple’s full-time MBA program at the Fox School of Business is unranked on the list this year.
To compile the 2019 ranking, U.S. News assessed a number of factors including GMAT and GRE scores, undergraduate GPAs, peer assessment scores, recruiter assessment scores, employment rates, starting salaries and bonuses.
