After a surprising absence from the 2023 Financial Times global ranking of business schools, the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania was not only back on the list this year but in first place. Wharton was left out of last year’s survey due to not being able to meet the alumni response rate needed to participate.
Columbia Business School, which was ranked first in 2023, was third this year. INSEAD stood in second place both years. Nearly half of the ten top-ranked schools this year were international: SDA Bocconi, which is based in Italy, shared the third place with Columbia Business School, while the Spanish IESE Business School was fifth and London Business School came in eighth.
Some of the more notable shifts in position included the Stanford Graduate School of Business’s fall from fourth place to 23rd. The school did rank first in the alumni network category, which measures post-graduation alumni satisfaction. The Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan was ranked 26th in 2023 but was not included in the 2024 survey for the same reason that left Wharton out last year.