The Stanford Graduate School of Business tops the FT list of Top MBAs for Finance 2017 with 27% graduates choosing to work in the sector and managing to rake in a salary of $ 266,000, with a salary increase of 104% in three years after graduation.
Harvard Business School (HBS) comes second with 24% of its Class of 2013 drawing a salary of $ 232,000 and recording a salary increase of 113%. Cambridge Judge Business School is ranked 3rd with 31% of the graduates drawing a salary of $209,000 and a salary increase of 126%.
Fourth placed in the top 10 of the 50-school list is NYU Stern School of Business followed by University of Chicago Booth, INSEAD, University of Pennsylvania Wharton, Oxford Said Business school, Dartmouth Tuck School of Business and Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
However, it is 12th ranked University of Hong Kong that has the maximum 67% of graduates working in finance followed by University of Toronto Rotman school of Management with 49% and CUHK Business School in the third position with 44%.
In terms of salary increase, University of Virginia’s Darden Business School tops with a 151% rise followed by University of Notre Dame Mendoza at 149% and IESE Business School at 144%.
The ranking, however, is not that of specialised finance programs. It was based on responses of graduates working in finance three years after completing the MBA program. The data was collected in 2016 for the FT Global MBA Rankings 2017. It considered only those schools with more than 10 graduates working in finance sector among the respondents.
It revealed that about 27% of the 2013 graduates worked in the finance sector, making it the biggest employer. Consultancy that comes next, is 10% lower in employment.
FT says it adopted 13 different criteria that included salary and salary increase of alumni, as well as career progression. It also took into consideration research published by the schools’ full-time faculty in five internationally recognised financial journals.
It took into account the overall proportion of alumni employed in finance, the proportion of those who worked in finance before their MBA and chose to remain in the sector as well as those who switched over to Finance after their MBA. Overall, 15% of such graduates joined the sector.
Kelley School of Business was ranked number one for career services. NYC Stern came second and Chicago Booth third. Stanford was ranked first in career progression, Oxford Said second and London Business School, third.
Melbourne Business School has the most gender-balanced cohort, with 45% of women, while all of Esade’s graduates were from overseas. Alumni from HEC Paris were the most internationally mobile, just ahead of those from Insead.
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The 50 ranked schools were from 11 countries, with more than half (27) in the US. The UK has the second-largest representation with six schools, China, with four schools, has the third-largest group. Three of these are in Hong Kong and are ranked between 12 and 16. India was represented by the Indian Business School (ISB) ranked 46. with a salary of $142,000, a salary increase of 135% and career progress rank of 45.
Canadian schools have the second-largest proportion of alumni in finance at 43%. Ivey Business School, Rotman School of Management and Smith School of Business are all located in or near Toronto, Canada’s main financial centre.
