Wharton undergraduate students
It’s Wharton again. In its annual ranking of undergraduate business schools, U.S. News & World Report has once again bestowed top honors on the University of Pennsylvania’s vaunted B-school.
Wharton was first in last year’s ranking, as well as the year before that, the year before that, and the year before that. It has been the top B-school in Poets&Quants’ undergraduate ranking for six of the last seven years, too.
Much of the top 10 in U.S. News‘ 2025 ranking of B-schools was unchanged from last year, with MIT and UC-Berkeley once again tied for second place, followed by Michigan and NYU to round out the top 5. The University of Texas at Austin dropped to 6th from 5th, and Carnegie Mellon University climbed to 6th from 7th.
In 13 separate rankings for business specializations, Wharton — with an undergraduate enrollment of 9,995 in fall 2023 — was again the biggest winner, ranking in the top five in analytics, finance (where it was No. 1), international business, management (also No. 1), marketing, operation management, quantitative analysis and real estate. Its parent school, the University of Pennsylvania, ranked No. 10 overall in best colleges and universities.
U.S. NEWS TOP 10 (REALLY 11) UNDERGRADUATE BUSINESS SCHOOLS
| 2025 Rank | School | State/District | 2024 Rank | 2023 Rank |
| 1 | University of Pennsylvania (Wharton) | PA | 1 | 1 |
| 2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | MA | 2 | 2 |
| 2 | University of California-Berkeley (Haas) | CA | 2 | 2 |
| 4 | University of Michigan (Ross) | MI | 4 | 4 |
| 5 | New York University (Stern) | NY | 5 | 5 |
| 6 | University of Texas-Austin (McCombs) | TX | 5 | 7 |
| 6 | Carnegie Mellon University (Tepper) | PA | 7 | 5 |
| 6 | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Kenan-Flagler) | NC | 8 | 8 |
| 9 | Cornell University (Dyson) | NY | 8 | 8 |
| 9 | Indiana University (Kelley) | IN | 8 | 8 |
| 9 | University of Southern California (Marshall) | CA | 8 | 8 |
A LOT OF TIES
U.S. News & World Report‘s Best Undergraduate Business Programs rankings are based on the judgments of deans and senior faculty members at peer institutions who participated in a peer assessment survey. The magazine, surveyed deans and senior faculty members at all 532 undergraduate business programs accredited by AACSB International in the spring and summer of 2024; all 532 programs were ranked. The respondents — two at each AACSB-accredited business program — rated the quality of all programs with which they were familiar on a 5-point scale: outstanding (5), strong (4), good (3), adequate (2) or marginal (1).
This year, the business survey had a 46.9% response rate. That’s down from 49.9% last year.
The magazine’s methodology leads to a lot of ties. In the top 10 alone, three schools were tied at No. 6 and three more at No. 9 — making the top 10 a top 11, in reality. Further down the ranking, four schools tied at No. 14, five schools at No. 18, four at No. 23, nine at No. 27, four at No. 36, 13 at No. 40, 12 at No. 53, 12 at No. 65, 17 at No. 77, and 20 (!) at No. 94.
NOTABLE JUMPS & DROPS
Noteworthy changes in standing occurred for Washington University in St. Louis, whose Olin Business School dropped to 18th from 13th, and for two Midwestern schools: The Ohio State University and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, both of which climbed to 14th from 17th.
The University of Oklahoma had among the biggest improvements in rank, climbing from 70th to 53rd, while the Air Force Academy flew from 84th to 65th. Among the biggest drops in rank: Texas Christian University dropped to 94th from 70th, and Northeastern University and University of Massachusetts–Amherst both fell from 47th to 65th. Louisiana State University-Baton Rouge dropped out of the top 100 altogether, falling from 84th to 114th.
Among states, California had the most B-schools on the list, with 11, followed by New York (10), Texas (nine), Massachusetts (eight), and Pennsylvania (seven).
U.S. NEWS 2024-2025 BEST NATIONAL UNIVERSITIES TOP 10
| University | 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 |
| Princeton University | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Massachusetts Institute of Technology | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 7 | 7 | 7 |
| Harvard University | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| Stanford University | 4 | 3 | 3 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 7 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 4 |
| Yale University | 5 | 5 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| Johns Hopkins University | 6 | 9 | 7 | 9 | 9 | 10 | 10 | 11 | 10 | 10 | 12 |
| California Institute of Technology | 6 | 7 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 12 | 12 | 10 | 12 | 10 | 10 |
| Duke University | 6 | 7 | 10 | 9 | 12 | 10 | 8 | 9 | 8 | 8 | 8 |
| Northwestern University | 6 | 9 | 10 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 12 | 13 |
| University of Pennsylvania | 10 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 8 | 6 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 9 | 8 |
SOURCE: U.S. NEWS
DAILY PENNSYLVANIAN GOT IT RIGHT
The Best Undergraduate Business Schools list is published as part of the magazine’s Best National Universities ranking. The Daily Pennsylvanian, the student newspaper of the University of Pennsylvania, published an advance copy of the 10 top schools in the Best National Universities ranking on September 10. It turned out to be accurate, despite the magazine insisting what the student paper had published was only a preliminary list.
In this overall ranking for universities and colleges, Princeton University took No. 1 for the 10th consecutive year, MIT placed second for the fourth straight year, and Harvard University placed third for the third year in a row. Stanford University was fourth, down from third in 2023-2024, and Yale University was fifth, same as last year. See the rest of the top 10 above.
Penn dropped to 10th from sixth place, its lowest rank since 1997, when it ranked 13th. The school, home to The Wharton School, which was No. 1 in Poets&Quants’ most recent ranking of undergraduate business programs, ranked as high as No. 4 on U.S. News‘ university list as recently as 2010.
See the next page for the U.S. News ranking of schools by business specialization. See page 3 for the top 100 U.S. undergraduate business schools.
