History and Scope
The first QS ranking was actually launched in collaboration with Times Higher Education in 2004. Six years later, the higher education analytics firm QS (short for Quacquarelli Symonds) started publishing school rankings on their own called the QS World University Rankings. Over the years, the publication started releasing more higher education rankings and added the QS Global MBA Rankings to their calendar.
Typically released in September, this Global MBA Ranking includes around 300 schools from the United States, Europe, Latin America, Canada, Asia, Oceania, Middle East, and Africa. According to QS, data is collected using three surveys: their Global Employer Survey, their Global Academic Survey, and a survey completed by the business schools themselves.
Methodology and Stand-out Features
The largest factor that plays a role in this ranking is the QS Global Employer Survey (weighing 35%). It is distributed among global employers and asks them “to select the schools that they prefer to hire from.” The other components that make up the list of top schools include Return on Investment, Entrepreneurship and Alumni Outcomes, Thought Leadership, and Class & Faculty Diversity.
The focus on return on investment (ROI) is valuable especially because it is one of the few rankings that maps out a longer period – 10-year ROI – and can be helpful for cost-conscious applicants.
As for Alumni Outcomes, QS assesses alumni success stories by checking which schools are “associated with over 50,000 CEOs, executives and board members at the biggest companies in the world.” While this approach offers a broader perspective on career success rather than drilling down on salaries, it only relies on publicly available data.
Along with the overall Global MBA Ranking, QS publishes seven sub-regional rankings:
- Asia MBA Ranking
- Canada MBA Ranking
- Europe MBA Ranking
- Latin America MBA Ranking
- Middle East and Africa MBA Ranking
- Oceania MBA Ranking
- United States MBA Ranking
Limitations and Considerations
While the QS Global MBA Ranking offers a broad international perspective and emphasizes ROI and reputation, it heavily relies on employer surveys and to some extent on academic surveys. This element could make it easier for organizations to favor historically well-known programs over emerging ones. It’s also important to keep in mind that alumni surveys are not part of this ranking’s methodology and so, alumni salaries and job outcomes are not self-reported. Rankings are most useful when combined with other tools for researching schools. Comparing MBA curricula, talking to alumni or admissions consultants, and campus visits can all help candidates make a well-rounded decision.
QS Global MBA Ranking 2025
1. Stanford University: Stanford Graduate School of Business
2. University of Pennsylvania: The Wharton School
3. Harvard Business School (HBS)
4. MIT: Sloan School of Management
7. University of Cambridge: Judge Business School
8. Columbia University: Columbia Business School
11. Northwestern University: The Kellogg School of Management
13. University of California Berkeley: Haas School of Business
14. UCLA: Anderson School of Management
15. The University of Chicago: Booth School of Business
16. Yale University: School of Management
17. New York University: Stern School of Business
19. University of Oxford: SaГЇd Business School
20. SDA Bocconi: School of Management
22. University of Michigan: Ross School of Business
23. Duke University: Fuqua School of Business
25. National University of Singapore: Business School
26. Copenhagen Business School
29. Tsinghua University: School of Economics and Management
31. Cornell University: Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management
32. Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University
32. The University of Melbourne: Melbourne Business School
33. University of New South Wales: AGSM Business School
34. University of Southern California: Marshall School of Business
35. Boston University: Questrom School of Business
36. Nanyang Technological University: Nanyang Business School
37. The University of Texas at Austin: McCombs School of Business
39. University of Toronto: Rotman School of Management
40. Frankfurt School of Finance & Management
41. Singapore Management University: Lee Kong Chian School of Business
42. Carnegie Mellon: Tepper School of Business
43. The University of Hong Kong: Faculty of Business and Economics
44. Indiana University Bloomington: Kelley School of Business
45. The University of Sydney: The University of Sydney Business School
47. Alliance Manchester Business School
47. University of Mannheim: Mannheim Business School
50. Georgia Institute of Technology: Scheller College of Business
53. Indian Institute of Management Bangalore
54. Georgetown University: McDonough School of Business
55. WHU: Otto Beisheim School of Management
57. Dartmouth College: Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth
58. University of Edinburgh Business School
59. Emory University: Goizueta Business School
60. University of Florida: Warrington College of Business
60. Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad
62. Babson College: Olin Graduate School of Business
63. Shanghai Jiao Tong University: Antai College of Economics and Management
64. University of Virginia: Darden School of Business
65. Indian Institute of Management Calcutta
66. McGill University: Desautels Faculty of Management
67. Fudan University: School of Management
68. Texas A&M University: Mays Business School
68. Cranfield University: Cranfield School of Management
71. University of Minnesota: Carlson School of Management
72. Washington University in St. Louis: Olin Business School
72. Michigan State University: Eli Broad College of Business
72. POLIMI Graduate School of Management
72. University of Leeds: Leeds University Business School
76. Western University: Ivey Business School
76. Pennsylvania State University: Smeal College of Business
79. American University of Beirut: Suliman S. Olayan School of Business
80. Chinese University of Hong Kong: CUHK Business School
81. The University of Queensland: Business School
82. Yonsei University: Graduate School of Business
83. University of Washington: Foster School of Business
83. University of Notre Dame: Mendoza College of Business
85. Rice University: Jones Graduate School of Business
86. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: Kenan-Flagler Business School
88. The University of Texas at Dallas: Naveen Jindal School of Management
90. University of Rochester: Simon Business School
91. Queen's University: Smith School of Business
92. The Ohio State University: Fisher College of Business
92. Grenoble Ecole de Management
94. University of Wisconsin-Madison: Wisconsin School of Business
95. Arizona State University: W. P. Carey School of Business
97. University of Cape Town: Graduate School of Business
98. The George Washington University: School of Business
Comments