location based blog: The World's Best Business Schools

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

The World's Best Business Schools

best business schools

What is the best business school in the world?

Businessweek and The Economist say it's the University of Chicago. U.S. News says it's Stanford. Unfortunately they both got it wrong.

Over the past month, we've conducted a survey to find out the true ranking of the top 50 schools. Harvard Business School ranked No. 1, for the second year running.

Jump right to the list >

When other publications develop business school rankings, they analyze factors like class size, facilities and the celebrity of professors.

When it comes to assessing the value of a business school, however, there's only one factor that really matters: How much a school will help your future career.

That means looking at not only the skills and knowledge you acquire from the school's curriculum, but two other factors:

The network of contacts you build while you're there, and
The brand value of a school and its degree.

These two factors will help your career way more than any accounting course or case study, and they're the real asset you're buying when you spend up-to $100,000 and two years on an MBA program.

Our readers confirm that a network of contacts acquired at the school is important. When asked the most valuable assets a business school provides, 35% named the network of contacts; 32% said the skills and knowledge acquired in courses; and 31% said the brand value of a school and its degree.

Unlike the other business-school ranking lists, which often trigger bewilderment among those who actually work in business, our rankings probably won't surprise you (because it reflects reality). Our list is also global. The business world has gone global, and we know too many wildly successful executives educated at INSEAD, LSE and other schools located outside the U.S. to confine our rankings to the U.S.A.