The B-school staying power — a look behind our Top MBA ranking

By Juliette Faraut and Siobhan Morrin

LinkedIn just revealed the annual list of Top MBA Programs, ranking the 100 business schools around the world that best set their alumni up for career success. Check out the list here and read more about how we built it below.

Professionals have been pursuing MBA degrees for over a century, since Harvard established the first MBA program in 1908. But the world of work has evolved far and wide since then, from the rise of skills-based hiring to the AI revolution. Does the degree have staying power in today’s rapidly-changing business landscape?

New LinkedIn data shows that the degree is hardly a relic of the past. In fact, the percentage of senior leaders hired each year with an MBA degree has increased 25% globally since 2010. The growth isn’t just among those looking to climb the corporate ladder though. The percentage of entrepreneurs with the degree has increased even more: surging 45% over the same time period.

Going global

We published our inaugural business school ranking last year, ranking the top 50 MBA Programs in the U.S. But the MBA landscape is truly global, and to reflect that, we unveiled a global ranking this year.?

Publishing one global ranking allows us to account for the international nature of MBA programs — and the diverse career paths they lead to. LinkedIn data shows that multinational companies like Amazon and McKinsey are among the top employers for grads of these schools around the world. Additionally, the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC)’s annual survey of international recruiters reveals that a third expect to hire more MBA graduates this year compared to last, with a growing emphasis on global business skills, cross-cultural competence, and expertise in tech and AI.?

Many of the schools on our list are multi-campus institutions offering rich international experiences to their students —?from Hult International Business School to ESCP Business School . And the list spans the globe, featuring 58 schools in North and Latin America, 29 in Europe and the Middle East, and 13 in Asia.?

B-school 2.0

In today’s rapidly evolving business landscape — where AI and emerging industries are reshaping the future —?employers worldwide have had to adapt to thrive. Business schools are no exception.?

The majority of prospective business students now consider social responsibility crucial, and nearly half expect AI to be an integral part of their curriculum, according to GMAC. In response, business schools globally have made waves of changes to its programs to ensure its graduates remain competitive in the job market.?

Take INSEAD , which ranks #2 on this year’s list. Last year, it overhauled its entire curriculum to address the growing demand for sustainability-focused leaders. Sustainability is now embedded in all core MBA courses at the school, and students are required to complete a mandatory capstone project focused on ESG principles.?

瑞士洛桑国际管理发展学院 (IMD) - 商学院 (#22) recently announced a fully AI-enabled program launching in January 2025. The major revamp of its one-year MBA curriculum is designed to best prepare students for the AI future: upskilling the student body with the skills that machine intelligence can’t duplicate and teaching them how to effectively collaborate with the technology.?

The Swiss school isn’t alone. A wave of other programs are making similar changes to stay on the cutting-edge of the digital transformation. Dartmouth’s The Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth (#8), launched 18 new courses, many with a large focus on generative AI. Meanwhile, Northwestern University - Kellogg School of Management (#7) offers an “MBAi” joint degree, blending core MBA classes with applied computer science at the intersection of business and AI technology.

What makes this B-school ranking different

Our ranking is built exclusively on LinkedIn data, leveraging unique insights on career outcomes of MBA alumni.?

What exactly do we measure? We look at five key pillars among full-time MBA programs: job placement (hiring rate and labor market demand), career advancement, network growth and strength, leadership potential, and gender diversity. You can read our full methodology at the bottom of this article.?

By publishing one global ranking, we’re also able to showcase how schools stack up against one another across each pillar of our methodology, revealing regional trends that are unique to our data.?

For instance, Indian programs dominate our networking pillar, which measures connection volume among alumni, the quality of that network, and how that network has grown post graduation — showing how building networks is a key attribute of the degree in India.

Ultimately, choosing where to pursue your MBA is a deeply personal decision. Different people prioritize different factors. For some, building a robust network is the primary driver for attending B-school, while for others, it’s about climbing the corporate ladder and even reaching the C-suite one day.?

Dig in to the programs that came out on top of each pillar in our methodology below:

Alternatives to a full-time program?

While an MBA continues to be a way for professionals around the world to advance their career,? it’s a significant investment of time, money and energy. Many traditional full-time programs span two years and cost more than $70,000.?

Luckily, that’s not the only option.

Online programs, which gained momentum in the wake of the pandemic, have seen enduring demand. In fact, more than four in 10 students said they would prefer a partially online degree, according to recent research. Students are seeking increased flexibility over schedules, whether it's through self-directed, part-time or accelerated learning — and schools are responding.

Nearly all of the 100 programs on our list offer a range of non-traditional programs — whether it’s part-time, online, evening, weekend or Executive MBA (EMBA) programs. You can explore more about these options in our main article.

Looking to level up? Dig into this custom LinkedIn Learning path highlighting key skills most relevant to MBA programs (free for all members until September 30).??

Methodology

Our methodology uses LinkedIn data to rank full-time MBA programs based on five pillars: hiring and demand; ability to advance; network strength; leadership potential; and gender diversity. Hiring and demand tracks job placement rates and labor market demand, focusing on recent graduate cohorts from 2019-2023. This assessment is based on LinkedIn hiring data and recruiter InMail outreach data. Ability to advance tracks promotions among recent cohorts. It also tracks how quickly all past alumni have reached director or VP-level leadership roles. This assessment is based on standardized job titles. Network strength tracks network depth, or how connected alumni of the same program are to each other; network quality of the recent cohorts (2019-2023), measured by average connections alumni have with individuals in director-level positions or above; and network growth rate of the recent cohort before and after graduation. This assessment is based on member connection data. Leadership potential tracks the percentage of alumni with post-MBA entrepreneurship or C-suite experience. Finally, Gender diversity measures gender parity within recent graduate cohorts.

To be eligible, MBA programs must be full-time programs and accredited by AACSB or Equis. Programs must have at least 1,500 total alumni, with at least 400 of them graduating within the recent cohort (2019-2023). We exclude executive MBAs, part-time MBAs, and certificate-based MBAs from our analysis. Depending on the specific metric in question, our methodology either encompasses all alumni or recent graduate cohorts, as defined by those who graduated between 2019 and 2023. This analysis represents the world seen through the lens of LinkedIn data, drawn from the anonymized and aggregated profile information of LinkedIn's members around the world.

Additional Insights

*Company insights were sourced from LinkedIn Talent Insights. Data reflects aggregated public member data from active LinkedIn profiles and includes alumni profiles associated with the program on LinkedIn. Job titles data measures the most common job titles members indicated on their profile for their first job after graduating from their MBA. Locations data measures the most common locations associated with a member’s first job after their MBA.?