Wharton is no longer the best business school in the U.S.
The school’s post-graduation employment rate played a role in its drop from the top spot in U.S. News & World Report’s annual ranking.
The Wharton School is no longer the top-ranked business school in the country, according to an annual list from U.S. News & World Report.
The University of Pennsylvania’s business school, which held the No. 1 spot in 2025, fell to No. 2 this year. Wharton has shared the top spot with other schools in recent years.
The change “was primarily driven by a sizable drop in Wharton’s three-month employment rate, combined with micro-level changes in underlying data metrics,” said Eric Brooks, director of education data analysis at U.S. News, in a statement shared via email.
U.S. News reports that 72% of Wharton students are employed when they graduate, and 87% have jobs three months after graduating, earning $179,909 on average.
The Graduate School of Business at Stanford University got the top spot this year, and the University of Chicago Booth School of Business came in third.
The U.S. News ranking is built on a survey of 333 business programs, and 134 schools with sufficient data were included in the list. The ranking takes into account the proportion of students employed after graduation and how much they earn, as well as assessments from corporate recruiters and peers at other educational institutions.
The Wharton School did not immediately provide comment Tuesday.
What is the Wharton experience like?
Wharton offers a full-time MBA track, as well as an executive track for working adults which can be completed part-time from Philadelphia, San Francisco, or remotely.
While the school is no longer in the top position overall, it does rank first among several specialties it offers: management, marketing, real estate, and the executive MBA program. The school tied for the top position in its accounting and finance specialties.
Wharton’s acceptance rate is 18.6% for the full-time program. The school has 2,304 students enrolled across the full-time and part-time tracks, according to U.S. News. Roughly 55% of students in the full-time program are male.
Tuition and fees for the full-time MBA program total $92,820 per year, and students typically complete the program in two years.