Poets&Quants’ Best Undergraduate Business Schools Of 2026

ACADEMIC EXPERIENCE

Data for our Academic Experience category is taken entirely from an alumni survey we send graduates from each school in our ranking. This year, we surveyed the Class of 2023.

We used a weighted average of three years’ worth of alumni data in our ranking calculations, with the most recent class surveys weighted 50% and the other two class surveys weighted 25%.

We calculate this category based on three metrics: The average of 15 core experience questions that ask alumni to rate their satisfaction on a 10-point scale (accounting for 80% of the category score). Questions range from rating the quality of their professors to evaluating the effectiveness of their school’s career advising services.

We also consider the percentage of alumni who took part in a “significant experience” in their undergraduate business education. That might include a major consulting project, thesis, or other program feature instrumental to their professional development, or a meaningful global immersion.

Finally, we measure the percentage of students whose first jobs after graduation were in their desired industries and companies. (See how 2023 alumni rated their schools on each of our survey questions here.)

 

Academic Experience Rank
School
 Index Score
1 University of Virginia (McIntire) 100.00
2 Georgia Institute of Technology (Scheller) 99.46
3 Susquehanna University (Weis) 99.38
4 University of Southern California (Marshall) 98.95
5 University of Illinois (Gies) 98.86
6 University of Notre Dame (Mendoza) 98.34
7 University of North Carolina (Kenan-Flagler) 97.73
8 Marquette University 97.67
9 University of Evansville (Schroeder) 97.43
10 University of Michigan (Ross) 97.36
11 University of Pennsylvania (Wharton) 97.25
12 Texas Christian University (Neeley) 96.58
13 Cornell University (Dyson SC Johnson) 96.58
14 The Catholic University of America (Busch) 96.40
15 Bryant University 95.89
16 Longwood University 95.42
17 University of Richmond (Robins) 95.40
18 Washington University in St. Louis (Olin) 95.39
19 Georgetown University (McDonough) 95.35
20 Bucknell University (Freeman) 95.23
21 Southern Methodist University (Cox) 95.02
22 Trinity University (Neidorff) 94.99
23 Butler University (Lacy) 94.80
24 Fordham University (Gabelli) 94.75
25 Wake Forest University 94.21
26 Elon University (Love) 94.07
27 Miami University (Farmer) 94.04
28 Emory University (Goizueta) 94.01
29 William & Mary (Mason) 93.09
30 Villanova University 93.07
31 New York University (Stern) 92.85
32 University of Dayton 92.82
33 University of Colorado Boulder (Leeds) 92.79
34 Brigham Young University (Marriott) 92.66
35 Christopher Newport University (Luter) 92.64
36 Texas A&M University (Mays) 92.41
37 Marian University (Indianapolis) 92.37
38 Binghamton University 92.32
39 University of Pittsburgh 91.91
40 Tulane University (Freeman) 91.75
41 Hult International Business School 91.61
42 University of Tennessee (Haslam) 91.18
43 University of New Hampshire (Paul) 91.06
44 Providence College 90.89
45 Iona University (LaPenta) 90.78
46 University of Georgia (Terry) 90.75
47 University of Minnesota (Carlson) 90.62
48 Roger Williams University (Gabelli) 90.05
49 University of Wisconsin-Madison 89.93
50 Purdue University (Daniels) 89.82
51 Fairfield University (Dolan) 89.53
52 University of Miami (Herbert) 89.18
53 Carnegie Mellon University (Tepper) 88.84
54 The College of New Jersey 88.74
55 University of Houston (Bauer) 88.57
56 Syracuse University (Whitman) 88.52
57 Boston University (Questrom) 88.28
58 Northeastern University (D’Amore-McKim) 88.08
59 University of Washington (Foster) 88.04
60 Loyola Marymount University 87.88
61 University of Connecticut 87.53
62 University of Massachusetts at Amherst (Isenberg) 87.46
63 University of San Diego (Knauss) 87.32
64 Bowling Green State University (Schmidthorst) 87.24
65 Duquesne University (Palumbo Donahue) 87.10
66 Seton Hall University (Stillman) 87.05
67 Ohio University 86.98
68 University of Delaware (Lerner) 86.86
69 University of South Carolina (Darla Moore) 86.84
70 Saint Louis University (Chaifetz) 86.83
71 University of the Pacific (Eberhardt) 86.78
72 University of Mary Washington 86.50
73 University of St. Thomas (Opus) 86.49
74 University of North Carolina-Wilmington (Cameron) 86.35
75 Lehigh University 86.34
76 Florida Southern College (Barnett) 86.22
77 Hofstra University (Zarb) 85.90
78 St. John’s University (Tobin) 85.80
79 University of Missouri-Columbia (Trulaske) 84.95
80 Texas State University (McCoy) 83.97
81 Ithaca College 83.51
82 Lipscomb University 83.49
83 Drexel University (LeBow) 82.72
84 University of Texas at Dallas (Jindal) 81.98
85 Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) 81.80
86 Sacred Heart University (Jack Welch) 81.19
87 University of Rochester (Simon) 81.10
88 Rutgers Business School – New Brunswick 80.51
89 University of Denver (Daniels) 80.49
90 Adelphi University (Willumstad) 80.43
91 Rutgers Business School – Newark 80.17
92 San Jose State University (Lucas) 80.07
93 American University (Kogod) 79.80
94 Rochester Institute of Technology (Saunders) 78.25
95 North Carolina State University (Poole) 78.10
96 Seattle University (Albers) 77.60
97 Towson University 77.53
98 Case Western Reserve University (Weatherhead) 76.31
99 University of Oregon (Lundquist) 73.87
100 University of Michigan-Dearborn 72.97
101 Texas Tech University (Rawls) 69.80
102 Stony Brook University 69.18
103 Northern Illinois University 66.09
104 University of Kansas 56.15
105 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Lally) 41.49
106 Oregon State University 41.13
107 San Diego State University (Fowler) 40.32
108 Florida International University 36.86
109 Kennesaw State University (Coles) 8.43
110 University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (Lubar) 0.53

Page 3: Admission Standards rank
Page 4: Career Outcomes rank
Page 5: Academic Experience rank
Page 6: Final P&Q ranking of 2026

NEXT PAGE: Final Undergraduate Business School Ranking of 2026

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