U.S. News recently named the Darden School the No. 12 MBA program in the United States, up one spot from the previous year’s ranking.
What does the U.S. News ranking measure? The U.S. News ranking assesses schools on admissions selectivity factors for incoming students and on career outcomes of the most recently graduated class. The ranking also takes into consideration the opinions of deans of other business schools and recruiters’ evaluations of the School’s program and graduates.
Career Impact. One of the highlights of this year’s ranking was Darden’s performance across salary and career outcome metrics. The mean starting salary and bonus for the School’s Class of 2018 ($160,711) ranked No. 3 for highest compensation among all U.S. business school graduating classes, up one spot from the previous year and trailing only the Stanford Graduate School of Business and Wharton School. The Class of 2018 also ranked No. 6 for highest percentage of graduates employed by graduation.
For additional career-related insights, be sure to check our blog coverage of the Full-Time MBA Employment Report for our Classes of 2018 and 2019.
Rankings Rise Continues. The U.S. News rankings build upon Darden’s positive momentum from the Financial Times, Bloomberg Businessweek, The Economist and The Princeton Review rankings:
Darden’s full-time MBA rose in every ranking of programs in which the School participates, and moved firmly into the Top 10 in key rankings, including to No. 8 in the U.S. in The Economist and No. 9 in the U.S. in Bloomberg Businessweek.
Additional highlights of recent rankings include:
- 1 — Best Education Experience for eight consecutive years (The Economist, 2011–18)
- 1 — MBA program for General Management (Financial Times, 2013–17, 2019)
- 1 — MBA program for Corporate Social Responsibility (Financial Times, 2019)
- 1 — Student Rating of Faculty (The Economist, 2018)
- 1 — Overseas Study Trips Score (The Economist, 2017–18)
- 1 — Best Professors (The Princeton Review, 2017–18)
- 1 — Best MBA for Consulting (The Princeton Review, 2018)
Want even more rankings news? Check out the full coverage on the Darden Report Online.
