How (and why) we launched the all-new LinkedIn Top MBA Programs ranking

By Taylor Borden and Juliette Faraut

LinkedIn just revealed its inaugural Top MBA Programs list, ranking the 50 business schools that best set their alumni up for career success. Check out the list here and read more about how we built it below.

A master’s in business administration is the most common graduate degree in the U.S. — but it’s a large investment of money, time and energy. 

Earlier this year, LinkedIn News partnered up with our Economic Graph team to understand the value a B-school investment provides. Analyzing anonymized and aggregated profile information of MBA alumni on LinkedIn, the research revealed the career-boosting power of an MBA for those who want to join the corporate world and quickly rise the ranks. For instance, MBA grads from the class of 2012 were 139% more likely to secure a VP-level role within 10 years of graduation than those with a bachelor’s alone. 

That research made us ask: Which MBA programs best set up their alumni for long-term career success? So, we turned back to the data. Working hand-in-hand with our Economic Graph data scientists, we set out to build a data-backed ranking that leverages what we know about career success via our long-running lists: Top Companies, Top Startups and Jobs on the Rise. 

For much of the initial brainstorming and scoping back in June, our efforts centered around defining the end goal for our ranking. As our own Chief Product Officer Tomer Cohen puts it, “Once you have an understanding of your desired end-point, it's a lot easier (and fun!) to work backwards from it.” 

This led us to two fundamental questions: What motivates people to pursue an MBA? And how can we measure the value an MBA degree has on one’s career? 

We first turned to published research, drawing from perspectives of career experts, faculty, alumni, professors and current and prospective students on the value of an MBA degree. It became clear that applicants to business school are mostly motivated by a potential pathway to better, more interesting work. 

From there, we were able to compile a list of universally important factors. The goal was to focus on career outcomes — looking at post-MBA success — rather than traditional prestige markers like acceptance rates or test scores. These outcomes boiled down to: job opportunities, the ability to progress in one’s career, network strength, leadership potential and a diverse learning environment. 

Next, it was time to figure out what LinkedIn data could effectively capture that vision.

An MBA is a large investment — and a Graduate Management Admissions Council survey showed that most candidates (72%) are looking to up their earning potential to make it worthwhile. While LinkedIn data can’t measure salary outcomes, a crucial consideration for many MBA candidates, it can measure how fast graduates get to senior-level positions that are historically accompanied by larger pay packages. 

LinkedIn data can also measure promotion rates — a metric that is essential to our Top Companies methodology, which analyzes the companies that best set their workers up for long-term career advancement. We leveraged this same framework in looking at MBA alumni.

To analyze the immediate payoff of a degree, we looked at job placement rates, assessing the percentage of recent graduates (classes of 2018-2022) who landed a full-time job within the same year of graduating. We also measured sustained demand for these graduates by assessing InMail messages received from recruiters in the past 12 months. 

MBA graduates notably make up nearly 40% of C-suite executives on the Fortune 1000 list; they’ve also founded some of the most influential startups, including DoorDash, Peloton and Hulu. We wanted to capture that long-term impact and specialized leadership an MBA can help graduates attain. Our methodology captures both the percentage of alumni with post-MBA C-suite experience as well as those with entrepreneurial experience. 

‘Culture’ is often the hardest thing to capture in data, but we know that growing one’s personal and professional network is a key reason many people choose to pursue an MBA.

Research shows there’s strength in weak ties — your network can improve your job prospects, mobility and even wages. After reviewing and comparing nearly a dozen metrics illustrating how MBA alumni are using LinkedIn to connect with one another, we found network depth (how connected alumni of the same program are to each other), quality (how connected alumni are to business leaders) and the growth rate (comparing one’s network size pre-MBA and post-graduation) to be the most meaningful.  

In building this methodology, we also analyzed how each program fares in achieving gender parity. Schools are working to improve and diversify their recruiting efforts, which will become even more important as the makeup of MBA programs shapes the face of corporate America since such a high percentage of senior leaders come from business school.

Does any of this mean you need an MBA to have a successful career?

Definitely not. LinkedIn data also shows us that skills-based hiring — and the idea that you don’t need a college degree to land certain roles — is gaining traction. LinkedIn Editor Taylor Borden breaks down how to achieve similar career outcomes to the ones we’ve outlined above without pursuing an MBA here. 

But if you do decide that getting an MBA is right for you, these are the programs that can best set you up to get ahead in your career. 

Methodology

Our methodology uses LinkedIn data to rank U.S. 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 2018 to 2022. 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 (2018-2022), 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. Gender diversity measures gender parity within recent graduate cohorts.

To be eligible, MBA programs must be U.S.-based, AACSB-accredited and full-time programs. They must have had at least 2,000 alumni as of August 31, 2023, with no fewer than 500 alumni having graduated between 2018 and 2022, based on LinkedIn data. We exclude executive MBAs, part-time MBAs, mini-MBAs and certificate-based MBAs from our analysis. Furthermore, eligibility criteria for alumni include completion of the program within a two-year timeframe. Depending on the specific metric in question, our methodology either encompasses all alumni or those who graduated between 2018 and 2022. 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.