Personal MBA Coach’s Take on the US News Best Business Schools 2023

by Personal MBA Coach, Apr 15, 2022

The US News Top Business Schools report for 2023 has just been released, with some interesting changes in this year’s rankings.

Wharton has regained the #1 spot (which it held in the 2021 rankings but lost in 2022), sharing this top honor with Chicago Booth. This is a jump from 3rd place for Chicago Booth. Wharton reported an acceptance rate of 18.2%, with an average GMAT score of 733. Chicago Booth’s average GMAT score was 732 while its acceptance rate was 22.6%.

Stanford GSB fell in this year’s US News Best Business Schools rankings to #3 (it held the #1 spot for the previous two years), tying with Northwestern Kellogg. This was a jump for Kellogg, which had fallen from 3rd to 4th in the 2022 US News Rankings. Despite the drop to #3, Stanford GSB, with a much smaller student body, reported the highest average GMAT score of the top 10, at 738, while accepting only 6.2% of its applicants. Kellogg’s average GMAT score was 727 and the school reported a 26% acceptance rate.

Harvard Business School and MIT Sloan School of Management were once again tied for 5th place. HBS reported a 12.5% acceptance rate and an average GMAT score of 727. HBS also reported an average GRE score of 163 for both GRE quant and GRE verbal. MIT Sloan’s acceptance rate was just slightly lower, at 12.1%, while the average GMAT score was 728.

Yale School of Management jumped to #7 this year, up two spots from #9 in 2022. This is the best-ever finish for Yale SOM, which reported an acceptance rate of 23.6% and an average GMAT score of 726.

Columbia Business School and Berkeley Haas tied for #8, a one-place drop for both schools. University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business rounded out the top 10, a sizeable jump from #13 in 2022.

Dartmouth Tuck, which made it into the top 10 last year, fell slightly to 11th place. NYU Stern also dropped out of the top 10, now sharing the 12th place with Duke Fuqua. Fuqua’s positioning remains consistent, however, as this is the third year in a row that the school has ranked 12th.

UVA Darden has seen a slight decline in the U.S. News Top Business Schools rankings over the past couple of years, now taking 14th place. Cornell Johnson, on the other hand, has not seen much fluctuation, taking 15th place for the third consecutive year.

CMU Tepper, UCLA Anderson, Texas McCombs, UNC Kenan-Flagler, and USC Marshall rounded out the top 20, in that order, with a tie between UNC and USC.

How To Use MBA Rankings

Personal MBA Coach would like to remind you that changes over time are more significant than year-to-year and guide-to-guide fluctuations. The constant shuffling at the top and the rotation in and out of the top 10 demonstrates the growing competition among elite business schools. While the M7 business schools receive a lot of attention, Personal MBA Coach urges our clients to consider a broad range of schools. Our average client applies to five to seven programs to maximize their chances of acceptance.

For more information on how to use the US News Best Business Schools 2023 report or other MBA rankings, check out our tips in this blog.

Beyond MBA rankings, in choosing a business school one should consider factors including a school’s location, culture, academic programming, areas of specialization, and job placement rate. Similarly, culture and teaching style vary across schools. To learn more, we encourage you to review Personal MBA Coach’s new school guides.

Finally, available financing also should be a key consideration since you may be able to secure more funding from one school versus another. Last cycle, Personal MBA Coach’s clients earned $6.5M in scholarships. Depending on your personal circumstances, you might be inclined to select a school with a more favorable financial package regardless of ranking. Some M7 schools are very generous with scholarships while others award them much more sparingly.

About Personal MBA Coach:

Founded by a Wharton MBA and MIT Sloan graduate who sits on the Association of International Graduate Admissions Consultants Board of Directors, Personal MBA Coach has been guiding clients for 15 years and is consistently ranked #1 or #2 by leading sources including Poets&Quants.

We help clients with all aspects of the MBA application process including early planning, GMAT/GRE/EA tutoring, application strategy, school selection, essay editing, and mock interviews. Our team includes former M7 admissions directors and former M7 admissions interviewers.

Last cycle, our clients earned more than $6.5M in scholarships!