10 Business Schools to watch in 2017 – Inside Finance (2024)

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Think MBA education revolves around Harvard, Stanford, and Wharton? That’s natural. The troika has been perched atop many business school rankings for decades. They boast big-name alumni and faculty, fat endowments, and brand names that transcend culture, generation, and academic background. Despite their prominence, you couldn’t help but notice a subtle shift in 2016.

Look no further than the rankings. InBloomberg Businessweek, Fuqua broke into the top three ahead of Wharton. Booth tied Stanford for second according toU.S. News and World Report. The biggest shock of them all? INSEAD leapfrogged the “Big Three” to rank first in theFinancial Timesranking.

Does this mean Harvard, Stanford, and Whartonare in decline? Quite the opposite — it is a testament to their success. They served as a template for other programs, blazing a path and setting the bar for what was possible. While theyremain the schools to beat, their example has helped to raise the quality of business education as a whole.

Last year, several schools began making big moves out of the shadows. After years of planning and experimenting, their efforts have gathered steam. They’re receiving more applications, building new campus centers, and beefing up such outcomes as graduate employmentrates and salaries. They are amplifying their special strengths to carve out defining niches. Most importantly, they’ve taken a page from their cases and applied their resources to where they’ll get the highest returns:students themselves.

As we enter 2017, which schools are poised to raise their profile among MBA applicants? Here isPoets&Quants’ list of the 10 full-time MBA programs that are most likely to gain ground or break out in the coming year.

(Editor’s Note: These schools are not ranked in any order.)

University of Michigan (Ross):What makes a great MBA program? Is it deep resources? A surplus of options to gain real world experience? Academic excellence across every discipline? Leadership in flourishing concentrations like entrepreneurship, tech, and social impact? By those measures, Ross has emerged as the go-to school for MBAs looking for a rich blend of business fundamentals and experiential learning.

Mind you, the school endured a rocky start to the year. With a lame duck dean, the school’s dirty laundry became publicwhen the faculty’s biting evaluations of outgoing Dean Alison Davis-Blake hit the net. However, history is expected to be kind to Davis-Blake. During her five-year tenure, this change agent turned a daunting budget deficit into a surplus; created more equitable faculty compensation; and raised academic performance for incoming MBAs. With the groundwork laid, Ross can now focus on what the new dean, Scott DeRue, calls“big and bold ideas.”Last spring, the school launched alife-long learning initiative, where Ross MBA graduates can return to take executive MBA courses for free.

But the boldest idea is yet to come. We expect DeRue to take experiential learning, long a mainstay of the Ross program and an increasingly popular part of MBA curriculums elsewhere, to an entirely new level. Rather than assign teams of students random projects with companies, Ross is trying to get its MBAs involved in more transformational corporate work. If it can convince a company such as Ford Motor to embrace multiple teams of students to work on the company’s move into driver-less vehicles or electric cars, DeRue could really up the ante on experiential learning.

The numbers also favor Ross. In March, the program ranked among the top MBA programs in 9 out of 10 specializations,including marketing, finance, entrepreneurship and management, according to a survey of academics conducted byU.S. News. Even more, Ross has gained increasing cache among recruiters.The 2016 graduating class pulled down a record $150,600inmedian total compensation, fourth-highest behind just Harvard, Stanford and UVA Darden. Even more, 98.4% of the 2016 class had landed a job within three months of graduation. Such numbers had to be good news for the incoming 2018 class,which saw its percentage of women jump from 32% to 40%, further ranking it among the top full-time MBA programs.

Northwestern University (Kellogg):Searching for a sign that a business school is thriving? Just look at the facilities. Come winter, Kellogg will be the envy of almost every MBA program with its new “Global Hub.” This 410,000 square structure, built at a cost of $220 million dollars, is a game changer for the program. Replacing the cramped Jacobs Center, the Global Hub is a marvel of glass, limestone, and steel. Designed to foster community and collaboration, the building is defined by wide, naturally-lit spaces and an array of classroom configurations to fit any purpose. LEED Gold energy efficient, it also includes an auditorium seating 350 and a four story plaza that boasts stunning views of both Lake Michigan and downtown Chicago.

The school’s new home will cap a host of improvements led by Dean Sally Blount over the past six years because the Global Hub is also an expression of the program’s continuing success.In the 2016Poets&Quantsranking, which collates the major MBA rankings, Kellogg climbed a spot to rank with Wharton at 4th. It also placed 2nd inThe Economistranking, which leans heavily on student satisfaction to evaluate programs. Kellogg’s ranking may even rise further in the coming year. The 2016 class, for example, enjoyed both its highest starting pay and sign-on bonus ($139,747) and placement (96%). Hardly a surprise, however, considering that Kellogg ranked second and seventh in recruiter surveys conducted byU.S. NewsandBloomberg Businessweekthis year.

While Kellogg has a reputation for being a “marketing school,” its students are showing increasingly diverse interests…particularly in technology. Some22% of the graduating class entered the tech field, up 10 points from three years earlier. More important, Kellogg tech grads were landing jobs in such blue ribbon firms as Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Linkedin. The incoming class is also positioned to build on the past classes’ successes,boasting a higher average GMAT than Booth for the first time. The upshot? Kellogg GMAT scores have risen 20 points in the past five years, resulting in classes with increasing academic heft to go along with their trademark team-driven spirit.

Yale School of Management:Yale is the proverbial lightning rod amongPoets&Quantsreaders. The school seemingly has everything going for it: Ivy League status, a spiffy new facility, passionate alums, innovativeleadership, and a signature integrative curriculum — global in nature — that’s predicated on the principle that business is a force for good. As a result, the program has been able to poach MBA applicants who’d normally be ticketed to the Big Three.

Under Dean Edward ‘Ted’ Synder, Yale has emerged as one of the hottest tickets in the B-school universe.There are 10.6 applicants for every open seat, a better ratio than either Harvard or Wharton. This demand is reflected in the school’s incoming class numbers.Yale first years produced a median 730 GMAT, equal to Harvard and Booth. It also ranks among the most diverse student bodies, with 46% international students and 43% women. Such numbers bode well for Yale to rise in future rankings,after solidifying its credentials by finally breaking into the U.S. News top 10.

However, it is Yale’s fervent alumni who could push the school into top five territory in the coming years. InThe Economiststudent survey, the program earned top 10 marks in personal development and educational experience. The SOM merited similar sentiments from alumni inBloomberg Businessweek’s alumni survey.Even more, alumni participation peaked at 51.9% during Yale’s latest annual giving campaign, double the average reported by peer MBA programs. Even more impressive, the program raised nearly $3.4 million, more than twice the amount from three years earlier. One more thing: the alumni number just 7,000 graduates at a sprite 46 years of age on average. In other words, they are just heading into the prime of their careers and earning power, making them all the more formidable in the coming years to both contribute to the school and to lend a helping hand to future generations of students starting out.

Duke University (Fuqua):“Duke the fluke?”That was the word after the 2015Bloomberg Businessweekranking. After rocketing to the #1 spot a year earlier, Fuqua tumbled back down to earth by finishing 8th. You could almost hear the critics: ‘Those survey samples must have been too small,’ they theorized, ‘which made them vulnerable to volatility and bias.’ Fast forward to 2016 and even the critics must now concede that Fuqua is the real deal.

In a bounce back year, Duke ranked third in the latestBloomberg Businessweekranking,buoyed by survey enthusiasm from employers, alumni, and students alike. Such warmth was reflected in the starting pay of the 2016 graduating class,who cracked the $150,000 average total pay mark for the first time, with one graduate finagling a $225,000 deal to boot. At the opposite end,Fuqua netted an all-time high in applications, while holding their acceptance rate to an exclusive 22%.

However, it is difficult to measure Fuqua’s appeal through numbers. Instead, it has become a destination for MBAs looking to become part of “Team Fuqua,” a close-knit and nurturing culture characterized by openness and feedback. Here, students look out for each other and support their personal and career ambitions. A marketing gimmick, you say? Hardly! It is the criteria by which Fuqua selects its classes. Even more, it is a core value system, a way of thinking and interacting that reflects what fosters success in business…and life.

“Team Fuqua is not a notion that just lives in this building,” explains Liz Riley Hargrove, associate dean of admissions,in a 2016 interview. “They take it with them to their jobs. Students are taught to look at the team and organize around the strengths and weaknesses of each person to best solve a problem and get the most out of a group.They see how it works and so it stays with them.”

It is an appeal that has resonated with Millennial applicants and employers. “We made a bet that a great team will always beat a great individual,” admits Fuqua Dean William Boulding. Based on the returns, the bet is paying off big time.

INSEAD: Think American programs have a distinct advantage in the MBA space? You must have missed the 2016Financial Timesranking,where INSEAD edged out Harvard to become the world’s top MBA program.

It’s rather fitting, considering INSEAD’s tagline is “The Business School for the World.” It’s no empty boast, either. The latest cohort, for example, iscomprised of 73 nationalities, with 93% of the class hailing from outside France. By the same token, 93% of INSEAD faculty grew up outside France. As a result, students are exposed to a breathtaking number of business practices and cultural nuances in their day-to-day interactions. Immersed in the unfamiliar and sometimes uncomfortable, INSEAD grads are often better prepared to adapt to plum overseas assignments and forge teams from different backgrounds. It is a hopeful juxtaposition to 2016, where the Brits lionized Brexit and Americans pondered building a border wall after calling for the iron curtain to be torn down a generation earlier.

Despite being the world’s largest business school, INSEAD could still be considered a waking giant that is still grasping with its own potential. In recent years, it has poured heavy resources into career services. The result has been better placement and salaries. INSEAD has also devoted more care to alumni engagement,quintupling its annual fund-raising dollars over five years in the process. Don’t expect INSEAD to rest on its laurels. The school is currently putting the finishing touches on a new curriculum, launching in September of 2017, that places greater emphasis on leadership, ethics, and public policy — all key business drivers in the 21st century.

In fact, you could argue that INSEAD provides the template for tomorrow’s business school. Cosmopolitan in makeup with far-flung campuses in Singapore and Abu Dhabi, INSEAD features an intensive 10-month-longcurriculum that enables students to quickly return to making money — and well-heeled alumni across the globe who can help them achieve their career goals. That’s a tough combination to beat…and one to watch for in 2017.

Cornell University (Johnson Graduate School of Management):In recent years, no MBA program has undergone more changes than Cornell. The wave started in 2014, when the program rolled out a dynamic new curriculum. Based on feedback from CEOs, alumni, and students, the updated coretaps into the needs of employers and the roots of long-term success by infusing leadership, analytics and critical thinking from top-to-bottom. In 2016,the school completed a three-pronged merger of the undergrad Dyson School, the graduate Johnson School, and the acclaimed School of Hotel Administration. Along with creating the country’s third largest business school faculty, the merger also breaks down institutional barriers to deliver more opportunities for collaboration between student and faculty members alike.Come summer, the school will be cutting the ribbon on its 76,000 square foot Breazzano Family for Business Education Building. In the process, they will double the available space at the school.

However, the centerpiece of the Cornell makeover is Cornell Tech, a campus in New York City that’s slated to open its doors on a two million square foot facility on Roosevelt Island in July. Already into its third year, Cornell Tech is a one-year degree program where business students work in tandem with engineers, computer scientists, and lawyers in a studio environment. In the process, they partner with area tech giants on projects along with commercializing their own tech solutions. This dual campus option will also open up to full-time MBAs in the coming years. The benefit? Students can gain hands-on experience in the tech field and build a network in the Big Apple’s thriving tech and entrepreneurial markets — all without sacrificing their picturesque Ithaca digs.

Not surprisingly, the word about Cornell is getting around. In 2016, the school arrested a 28% decline in applications from 2014-2015with a 13% upswing during the 2015-2016 cycle. GMAT scores for the incoming class rose in the process. Now that the pieces are falling into place, Dean Soumitra Dutta is moving into an even more ambitious phase of his long-term agenda. “Our goal is not to become another generic business school,” he insists in a recent interview withPoets&Quants. “The goal really is to do things that other schools would not be able to do easily.” That’s the right message to applicants who are increasingly looking to make an impact over taking the easy road.

Rice University (Jones):Happy students make happy alumni… and happy alumni make even better employees. That’s the big takeaway from Rice University in 2016. In 2015, Rice made headlines in theBloomberg Businessweekstudent and alumni surveys, earning the 2nd and 3rd highest respective marks. What could the school do for an encore? On one hand, you might call falling to 14th (student survey) and 4th (alumni survey) to be a disappointment. However, those declines were offset by the recruiter survey, where Jones soared 26 spots to finish 14th. As a result,the school now ranks 8th among American programs—higher than Kellogg, Haas, Columbia, Darden, Yale, and Ross inBusinessweek’slatest ranking.

While Rice’s jump may come as a surprise to some, it was foreshadowed in March,when the program leaped eight spots in theU.S. Newsrankings to finish in the top 25, a move fueled by higher salaries and placement rates for the 2015 class. Come 2017, you could see Rice take another step forward,as its GMAT scores rose 14 points with the incoming class.With Rice ranking among the best schools for low debt(thanks, in part, to generous financial aid packages that cover over 80% of students), the school won’t see a downturn in applications anytime. That’s particularly true in a boomtown like Houston, with a diverse industry base — and two dozen Fortune 500 firms headquartered there too.

Still, you can’t help but return to Rice’s culture when it comes to what sets the school apart. “Every time I came on campus, I felt really welcomed,” says Jasmine Richard, a 2016 graduate andmember of Poets&Quants’ MBAs to Watch, when discussing what drew her to Rice. “Everyone, the admissions team and current students, seemed excited about having me join the school. It’s a really small program. People support each other.” This outgoing, passionate, and supportive culture starts all the way at the top, adds newly arrived Dean Peter Rodriguez who had been a key player at UVA’s Darden School. “We place great value on being attentive, responsive and kind to everyone we touch. We know that if we keep our focus on how we treat our students even before they’re our students, good things will always follow.”

University of Chicago (Booth):Booth…an emerging MBA program? Aren’t they really the establishment? They are…to an extent. In 2016, the program made news on several fronts. Par for the course,Booth again ranked #1 inThe Economistranking, notching its standard high scores in delivering stellar personal development, educational experience, and new career opportunities. However,Chicago also tied Stanford for the honor of being runner up to Harvard in the MarchU.S. Newsrankings, thanks (in part) to their usual 97% placement rate. In addition, Booth remained the darling of recruiters, with survey scores that placed them 2nd in U.S. Newsand 3rd inBloomberg Businessweek.

Does this mean a changing of the guard is at hand? Should we now talk about the “Big Four?” That’s decidedly mixed. Among the five major rankings (Poets&Quants,U.S. News,Financial Times,Bloomberg Businessweek, andThe Economist), Booth does rank higher than Wharton in all but theFinancial Times. A year earlier, Booth had pulled ahead of Wharton inPoets&Quants,The Economist, andBloomberg Businessweek. Looking ahead, however, the see-saw between the schools favors Wharton on quantifiable inputs and outputs. In the 2018 class, Wharton held the advantage in GMAT scores, applications, and percentage of women. 2016 Wharton grads also pulled down $3,000 more in total starting pay on average than their Booth counterparts, with Wharton’s enviable 98.2% three-month employmentrate encroaching on Booth’s traditional strength. That said, Booth has typically bested Wharton on qualitative survey data (such as recruiter sentiments).

Alas, there is a wild card at play here.Booth Dean Sunil Kumar departed over the summer to become the senior vice president of academic affairs at John Hopkins University. With any transition, you have the great question: Will the school lose its slow and steady momentum during the process…or will new leadership spark an intellectual renaissance and take Booth to the next level? Stayed tuned on this one. There’s precedent on both ends and it’s going to make for a fascinating study.

MIT (Sloan):How do you measure your brand appeal? In the MBA market, you could say applications are a good gauge. Based on 2015-2016 numbers, it might be time for Sloan Admissions Director Dawna Levenson to ask for a pay raise.

35% — That’s how many more applications Sloan received for a seat in its 2018 Class. From 2011-2015, you could count on Sloan to receive 4,100-4,700 applications. Last year, that number spiked at 5,707. To put it another way, there were 14 applicants for every slot in Sloan’s Class of 2018. Not impressed? Just compare that number to the applications-to-openings ratio at Harvard and Kellogg (9.5-to-1), Wharton (8-to-1), and Booth (7-to-1). It also puts Sloan in the same conversation as Stanford (19.5-to-1) and Haas (16-to-1) as one of the most desirable and selective MBA programs in the world.

Sloan is renowned for its experiential and interdisciplinary curriculum. This forges a collaborative mindset that’s perfect for an increasingly tech-driven world that values communication and innovation.While pay and placement dipped slightly with the 2016 graduating class, the program’s popularity with employers — ranking 2nd in both of the 2016 recruiter surveys conducted byU.S. NewsandBloomberg Businessweek— you can expect those numbers to rebound with a vengeance in 2017.

Arizona State University (Carey):In an era of niche specialization, the conventional wisdom to “cast a wide net” almost seems passé. The result? Applying this maxim today can seem fresh and disruptive. The W.P. Carey School of Business is a case in point.

Let’s harken back to 2015, shall we? Back then, Carey had announced a game-changing proposition: The school would give every student accepted into its program a full ride scholarship. In essence, they made their MBA program free. In the process, they cut class size by 40% and booked an annual loss of $10-$20 million dollars. Bold? Yes. Risky? No question. Sure, a free education boosts a school’s profile and re-channels demand…in theory, at least. In reality, doesn’t it also de-value the degree?

This approach almost conjures up an image of some Silicon huckster sage, drunk with angel cash, offering free software…hoping to make up the difference later. To be honest, that’s exactly the model being used by Carey, with Dean Amy Hillman optimistically noting,in a 2015 interview with Poets&Quants, that the payoff would ultimately come when graduates “pay it forward” after they’ve become successful.

That could take some time, obviously, but the model is less batty than it sounds. Paid for through a generous “Forward Focus” endowment, the “Free MBA” represents an ingenious end-around from the so-called “scholarships arm race.” Now, MBA students paying full sticker price are, in essence, footing the bill for their select few peers. Carey is simply removing the middle man, creating transparency, freeing students from tuition debt, and placing every student on equal footing. Rather than de-valuing the MBA degree, the free tuition should flood the admissions center with more applicants, enabling the school to cherry pick the high ceiling candidates most capable of becoming successful business leaders — and big time donors. Oh, and the model comes with a by-product. Better candidates equal higher rankings over time.

Sounds great in theory? Sure…but how has it worked out so far? Well, the numbers don’t lie.Applications soared from 443 in 2014-2015 to 1,160 in the latest cycle. At the same time, Carey’s acceptance rate plummeted from 31.4% to 14%, making the program as selective as Harvard, MIT, and Haas.Even more, nearly three-quarters of students who were accepted ultimately enrolled, a percentage that bests figures traditionally posted by stalwarts like Wharton and Fuqua. Even some applicants to Harvard now include Carey as a target school. Not surprisingly, GMAT scores rose 10 points. Even more, the program was also able to construct its most diverse cohort yet, with 43% of the class comprised of women. Along the way, the school doubled the number of countries represented in the class from 11 to 24.

That’s just the first year results, mind you. As word gets out, you can expect Carey to see even more applications. However, the “free MBA” may come at a price —to other schools— as applicants potentially use their Carey acceptance to leverage better deals from their target schools. In the meantime, expect Carey to crack the domestic top 25 in 2017. Question is, can they move the needle beyond that?

Here are some additional programs worth watching for 2017:

University of Texas (McCombs):The Longhorns are bullish on their 2017 prospects, particularly with the opening of the 458,000 square foot Robert B. Rowling Hall, the new home of the MBA graduate program. With Rowling set to rival Kellogg’s “Hub” and Yale’s Evans Hall as the most spacious and state-of the-art business school facility, McCombs can expect to build on a solid 2016,which included a 10% increase in applications and a six point rise in GMAT scores(with median GMATs now equaling those produced by Ross and Anderson).

London Business School:The second half of 2016 was kind to LBS. In July, the program enlisted François Ortalo-Magné,an architect behind the Wisconsin Business School’s revolutionary KDBIN teaching model,as its new dean. In December,the program nabbed the top spot inBloomberg Businessweek’s international MBA ranking, thanks to high pay and placement and high survey grades from recruiters and students. In addition, the program’s incoming class’average GMATs shot up eight points, while the graduating class’ starting salaries climbed 7.5%. In a further sign of health, the school achieved its $177 million dollar fund-raising goal two years early.Not only that, its endowment has experienced the second-highest growth of any business school in the past six years. Like Kellogg and McCombs, the school is gearing up for a move to its new digs at the Sammy Ofer Centre.

Dartmouth College (Tuck):By the numbers, it was a great year all around at Tuck.The school vaulted nine spots to rank fifth overall in the Bloomberg Businessweek ranking. This was their best performance ever and helped the school climb two spots in thePoets&Quants’ annual ranking. The Class of 2016 also continued to rake in the big bucks, with graduates pulling down a median $125,000 salary, with another 87% landing bonuses of $25,000 on average (with one student maxing out with a $250,000 base and another enjoying a $90,000 bonus). In addition,Tuck recruited a class with 44% women, tied with Wharton for highest among the top MBA programs (and an increase of 11 percentage points over the past three years). Coupled with its signature culture and fund-raising prowess, Tuck has a lot to build from in 2017.

University of Washington (Foster): Think an MBA from a top 25 MBA program will lead to a hermit lifestyle and ramen noodle diet after graduation? What if I told you that there was a top 25 MBA programwhere graduates leave with $45,000 debt…and $111K starting salaries (and average $29k bonuses to boot)? Does that sound too good to be true? Well, if you can stand the rain, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better value that the Foster School of Business. Located in the heart of Seattle —home to a thriving startup scene and such Fortune 500 jewels as Amazon, Starbucks, Microsoft, and Boeing — Foster bridges high tech leadership with global know-how for a truly transformative MBA experience.

A small program squeezed inside a resource-rich public university, Foster is slowly coming of age. The Class of 2018, for example,attracted a student body of 43% women, the second highest rate among top MBA programs. Being a Foster MBA student is rather exclusive company too, with just 24% of applicants being accepted into the program.

It’s also a program that’s very comfortable with who they are and where they stand. How comfortable? In 2016,Foster created the first “Do It Yourself” ranking, where students can weigh the value of various metrics in an automated “MBA rankings calculator” to spit out a list of programs that best suit their preferences. Think of it like the Progressive Insurance model “Name Your Price” tool. Foster may not always be the top choice, but the school is confident enough in their proposition to know they’ll make it into a lot of the conversations.

University of Illinois:Speaking of debt, what if you could earn an MBA for just $22,000? Pretty tempting, right? That’s the bet being made by the University of Illinois through its iMBA program.Partnering with Coursera, the school has taken its MBA program online, with a few nifty twists. For one, students enjoy the flexibility to take one course, earn a specialization certificate, or run the gauntlet for an MBA. Thanks to Coursera, Illinois can focus on the content end, passing the savings along to students. How much can they save? Well, an online MBA can run anywhere from $50,000 (Temple) to $118,000 (Carnegie Mellon), making the iMBA a steal!

Isn’t the curriculum just a glorified MOOC, you ask? Ha! If it were, the iMBA program wouldn’t have retained 265 of the 270 students from its first year class. While admissions standards are lax and the network negligible — it doesn’t require a GMAT or GRE, just three years of professional experience — it can act as a quick-and-dirty way to earn the credential. “We did not just take a face-to-face MBA degree and put it online,” explains Raj Echambadi, the school’s senior associate dean, in a 2016 interview withPoets&Quants. “We created a degree with online experiences that arenew and unique. At a broader level, we have created a new definition of what a global MBA means. We have redefined who an MBA student is.”

IESEandIE Business School:Why combine the two? Simple: They produced similar, albeit sterling, results over the past year. At IESE,enrollment shot up by 22%, as its average GMATs surged from 680 to 690. In contrast,IE Business School rode a 17% increase in applications to 57 additional students, a 13% bump. At the same time, GMAT scores also climbed 10 points to 680.You can also give IE Business School extra credit points after Santiago Iñiguez walked away withPoets&Quants’ “Dean of the Year” honor in 2016.

Alas, these weren’t the only schools posting lofty numbers in 2016.Applications to the University of Rochester (Simon) swelled by 22%. The University of Toronto (Rotman) and Columbia Business School fared nearly as well, with applications rising by17%and14%clips respectively.

University of Oxford (Saïd):Calling 2016 a smashing success at Saïd would be an understatement. Looking for a diverse cohort?Saïd’s 2017 Class enrolled 36% women and 94% international students, the highest rate of any top tier international MBA program in either category. At the same time,the school climbed to third inPoets&Quants’ international MBA ranking, leapfrogging esteemed programs like Cambridge, IESE , and IMD in the process.

BYU (Marriott):Afraid of drowning in debt after graduation? Head west…as in Provo, Utah. At Marriott,MBAs came away with just a $54,704, while earning nearly $110,000 within three years of graduation. Talk about a strong selling point! It’ll become even more compelling as it continues its steady climb in the rankings,shooting up nine spots to 34th in thePoets&Quantsranking(a placement that would’ve been even better had it been ranked byThe Economist.