A New Winner Is Crowned In U.S. News’ Executive MBA Ranking

Northwestern Kellogg jumped two spaces and unseated its neighbor, Chicago Booth, as the top Executive MBA program in the U.S. News ranking

The top executive MBA program in the United States is no longer located in the city of Chicago. It has moved a few miles east — or, depending on the student and the circumstances, more than a thousand miles south.

That’s according to U.S. News & World Report, which published its 2023 ranking of MBA programs today (March 29). Along with the regular rankings, U.S. News also published a series of specialized rankings, as well as a ranking of executive programs; the latter shows the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, last year’s No. 1, being unseated by Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management, last year’s No. 3.

That means a shift of only a few miles, as the Kellogg School’s main campus is located in Evanston, Illinois, on the banks of the same Great Lake as the city of Chicago. But Kellogg’s executive MBA program operates out of the school’s Miami campus, too — one of the big selling points for the $111,000-per-year program.

JESUIT SCHOOLS UNSEAT SOME HIGH-PROFILE PROGRAMS

U.S. News‘ Executive MBA ranking grew this year to 31 schools from 30. Five schools that were unranked last year made the list this time: the highest of these, the University of San Francisco, is ranked 20th. The others are Loyola Chicago Quinlan School of Business (23rd), Pepperdine Graziadio Business School (28th), Notre Dame Mendoza College of Business (also 28th), and Fordham Gabelli School of Business (31st). Three of those are Jesuit schools.

Interestingly, the five schools that fell off the ranking from last year are much higher-ranked in the magazine’s overall MBA ranking: Washington Foster School of Business, a top-25 MBA program which was ranked 21st in Executive MBA last year; Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management (24th in EMBA); Maryland Smith School of Business (26th); Minnesota Carlson School of Management (also 26th); and Michigan State Broad College of Business (30th).

See the complete ranking below.

MORE ABOUT KELLOGG’S EMBA

Kellogg’s executive program, based in both Illinois and Florida, currently has about 500 students, skewed heavily male: Only about 31% of students in the program are women, according to U.S. News data.

Besides its two U.S. campuses, Kellogg’s executive MBA enjoys network partnerships with schools around the world — including schools in China, Germany, Israel, and Canada. Each year, more than 400 students from Kellogg’s seven campuses convene in Evanston for Global Network Week; students based on the Miami or Evanston campuses take courses for six days, while students based on any non-U.S. campus take courses for 12 days.

The round one deadline for application to the September 2022 cohort is April 20; round two ends June 1. Learn more here.

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