MBA Programs Where Most Students Get Jobs

The U.S. News Short List, separate from our overall rankings, is a regular series that magnifies individual data points in hopes of providing students and parents a way to find which undergraduate or graduate programs excel or have room to grow in specific areas. Be sure to explore The Short List: College, The Short List: Grad School and The Short List: Online Programs to find data that matters to you in your college or grad school search.
Business school graduates can expect their degrees to boost them up the career ladder for many years to come.

The majority of business school alumni who graduated between 1959 and 2014 held midlevel positions one year after earning their degree, according to a February report from the Graduate Management Admission Council. Five years after graduation, most business school alumni were in senior-level positions or higher, the report states.

[Explore the U.S. News b-school programs and specialty rankings.]
Students who pursue an MBA, a degree that's designed to turn people into leaders, usually secure high-paying management jobs. At some schools, an entire class may find positions just months after completing their degree.

All of the full-time MBA students who graduated from the Collins College of Business at the University of Tulsa in 2014 were employed three months after graduation. Among 126 ranked business schools that submitted data to U.S. News, Collins had the highest percentage of full-time 2014 graduates who were employees within three months of graduating.
[Photos: See which graduate business schools are at the top of the rankings.]

Unlike last year, some of the highest-ranked MBA programs made this year's top 10 list for schools where students secured jobs within three months of graduating. The Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago, ranked No. 4, had 97.2 percent of 2014 graduates employed. Slightly more than 95 percent of 2014 graduates from the Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania, which is ranked No. 3, found a job three months after graduation.
The College of Charleston is new to this year's list and came close to topping it, with 97.1 percent of its full-time 2014 graduates employed three months after graduating. Of all the schools that submitted data, San Diego State University had the lowest percentage of students who were employed: 39 percent.

[Quiz: Are you ready to apply to an MBA program?]
Below is a list of the 10 schools with the highest percentage of full-time 2014 graduates who were employed three months after graduating. Unranked schools, which did not meet certain criteria required by U.S. News to be numerically ranked, were not considered for this report.

Business school (name) (state)	Full-time MBA enrollment (fall 2014)	Full-time MBA graduates employed three months after graduating in 2014	U.S. News b-school rank
University of Tulsa (Collins) (OK)	42	100%	83 (tie)
University of Chicago (Booth)	1,181	97.2%	4
College of Charleston (SC)	36	97.1%	RNP*
Washington University in St. Louis (Olin)	281	96.9%	19
University of Pittsburgh (Katz)	161	96.2%	48 (tie)
Texas A&M University—College Station (Mays)	113	96.1%	27 (tie)
University of Washington (Foster)	248	95.8%	23
Michigan State University (Broad)	150	95.6%	37 (tie)
University of Pennsylvania (Wharton)	1,711	95.6%	3
University of Kansas	57	95.5%	88 (tie)

*RNP denotes an institution that is ranked in the bottom one-fourth of its ranking category. U.S. News calculates a rank for the school but has decided not to publish it.

Don't see your school in the top 10? Access the U.S. News Business School Compass to find employment data, complete rankings and much more. School officials can access historical data and rankings, including of peer institutions, via U.S. News Academic Insights.

U.S. News surveyed 464 schools for our 2014 survey of business programs. Schools self-reported myriad data regarding their academic programs and the makeup of their student body, among other areas, making U.S. News' data the most accurate and detailed collection of college facts and figures of its kind. While U.S. News uses much of this survey data to rank schools for our annual Best Business Schools rankings, the data can also be useful when examined on a smaller scale. U.S. News will now produce lists of data, separate from the overall rankings, meant to provide students and parents a means to find which schools excel, or have room to grow, in specific areas that are important to them. While the data come from the schools themselves, these lists are not related to, and have no influence over, U.S. News' rankings of Best Colleges, Best Graduate Schools or Best Online Programs. The employment data above are correct as of March 10, 2015.

U.S. News Releases 2016 Best Graduate Schools Rankings

Find out which schools came out on top for business, law, nursing and more.

Fewer U.S. citizens are headed to graduate school, and the decision not to go could put a dent in their paychecks.
First-time enrollment of U.S. citizens and permanent residents shrank by about 1 percent between fall 2012 and fall 2013, according to a September report from the Council of Graduate Schools. But a 2014 Pew Research Center analysis of the latest available salary data showed that median monthly earnings for young adults with master's degrees were 24 percent higher than for those with bachelor's degrees. Graduates with professional or doctoral degrees had earnings that were 51 percent higher.
For prospective students interested in the potential payoff and other benefits, figuring out where to go to graduate school, what to study and how to pay for it can take months. To help with those decisions, U.S. News has released the 2016 Best Graduate Schools rankings, which include admissions information for those aspiring to study law, business, medicine, education and engineering.
For the first time, U.S. News is also offering expanded rankings and data for nursing schools.
Graduate schools in these six disciplines, which are ranked annually, are evaluated on standardized test scores of newly enrolled students, employment outcomes of graduates and other criteria. The rankings methodology varies across disciplines to account for differences in each graduate program. The MBA rankings, for example, take into account the mean starting salary and bonus for graduates from full-time programs, while law schools are evaluated in part by the ratings of each program's quality by practicing lawyers and judges.
In one notable change to the law school methodology this year, U.S. News altered the way it evaluates students' success at landing jobs after graduation. Less weight was given to jobs for graduates if they were funded by the law school or the university.
[Video: See highlights of the new graduate schools rankings.]
Business: The Graduate School of Business at Stanford University took the No. 1 spot for top business schools, followed by Harvard Business School in second and the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in third.
Those three schools topped the rankings in a tie for first place last year. But other institutions moved significantly. Mays Business School at Texas A&M University rose 10 spots to No. 27, where it's tied with two other schools. Wake Forest University's business school, which tied for No. 58 in last year's rankings, leaped to a tie for No. 45.
Among part-time MBA programs, the University of California—Berkeley's Haas School of Business again took the No. 1 spot, followed by the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago in second place and the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in third. The Fox School of Business and Management at Temple University saw one of the largest changes in the rankings, moving from a tie at No. 53 to a tie for No. 20.
[See photos of the 20 top-ranked business schools.]
Law: Yale Law School remained No. 1 among the top law schools, but there was some reshuffling among other schools. Harvard Law School kept the No. 2 spot, but had to share it with the law school at Stanford University.
The School of Law at the University of California—Irvine, which was not ranked last year, advanced to No. 30. The law school at Wake Forest University fell from No. 31, where it was tied with several other schools, to a tie for No. 47.

 

Striking the Perfect Tone in MBA Essays

Finding the right balance between confidence and humility is one of the critical challenges you will face in crafting your b-school essays and in delivering answers to admissions interviewers.

No one likes a blowhard, but at the same time, no one else is going to "toot your horn" in your MBA application either. It's all about your attitude, which will permeate your essays and set the tone for the way the admissions committee views you.

One of the key questions applicants often have is how confident they should try to appear. When you tell a story lauding your achievements to the admissions official across the table, that person's visual cues can help you know when to scale back the confidence by one or two levels.

With b-school essays, you have one shot to craft your message, and admissions committee members with diverse personality types and differing levels of acceptance and patience for bravado will read your prose.

Likewise, some applicants face the dilemma of how much of an "expert" to paint themselves as in their field. It is critical to portray yourself as someone from whom your classmates can learn.

Many business schools are case study-oriented; the quality of the education is essentially determined by the content the students contribute in the classroom. Additionally, offline conversations are a huge part of the learning process for both academic subjects as well as issues related to career choices.

[Find out which MBA programs are worth the investment.]

However, the "I've seen it all" attitude is definitely not something b-schools are looking for from their typical 25-to-30-year-old applicant. Even as you highlight the fascinating experiences you've had and the cutting-edge knowledge you possess, make sure you take careful stock of what you want to learn, both from your professors and your fellow students.

The people who take the best advantage of business school are those who come in with a high level of curiosity and a willingness to absorb new information like a sponge. In short, the appropriate balance is struck when you have a developed a detailed awareness of what you have to teach and what you have to learn.

So, how can you highlight your business and leadership achievements without sounding like you think you are God's gift to commerce? Here are three pointers:

1. Acknowledge the team: NASCAR drivers use the "we" technique to a fault. "We were running great today. When we took that first turn, our car was running perfectly."

You don't want to sound like a cliché, but positioning your achievements as team achievements works wonders. Plus, your abilities as a business leader will ultimately be more dependent on your abilities to achieve in a team format than in an individual setting.

[Learn how to convince MBA admissions officials you've done your research.]

2. Balance your portfolio of essays: You will probably have more license to emphasize your impressive achievements in some of your essays if you gain credibility in others by being honest and open about failures, weaknesses, and doubts.

If you just highlight how the incredible amount of work you pitched into an entrepreneurial venture led to its success, you shouldn't half-heartedly chime in with "sometimes I work too hard" as a personal or professional weakness in another essay.

3. Highlight mentors: If you are shining the spotlight on your leadership capabilities, make sure you also acknowledge people in your academic, extracurricular, or work settings from whom you learned some of these skills. This works equally well for hard skills—such as finance and negotiation—and for "soft" skills, such as leadership, communication, and mentoring abilities. Doing so shows you are good at recognizing the strengths in others and know how to learn from them.

[Read about how online MBA students may face challenges finding mentors.]

It's also important that folks who come from positions and industries lacking that "glamour" factor don't downplay their accomplishments. Certain high-profile investment banks and consulting firms are definitely the main feeder companies to American business schools, but it is often the people who come from less well-represented areas that have the most to teach the section or study group.

You may have run a T-shirt shack. Or conducted accounting audits for sketchy firms. Or monitored quality control at a Senegalese ball bearing plant. Rest assured, you do have valuable things to teach your classmates. The trick comes in thinking through what those lessons are and showing you have an unusual perspective on them.

Source : usnews.com