The Wharton School’s Huntsman Hall at the University of Pennsylvania. Courtesy photo
The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania once again sits at No. 1 in Niche’s annual ranking of Best Colleges for Business.
It shouldn’t be a surprise. Wharton also topped Poets&Quants’ 2025 ranking of undergraduate business programs as well as U.S. News & World Report’s latest list.
Niche’s next best business schools also aren’t unexpected. Cornell University’s Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management finished No. 2 in both Niche and Poets&Quants while tying for No. 9 in U.S. News. University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business landed at No. 3 in both Niche and P&Q while also tying for No. 9 in U.S. News.
Rounding out the top five are Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management at No. 4, the same Niche ranking as 2025. Sloan offers undergraduate majors in management, business analytics, and finance. Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business was No. 5, down three spots from last year.
The table below show how the top 10 business programs in Niche’s 2026 ranking fared in the latest rankings by P&Q and U.S. News.
A THREE RANKING COMPARISON
2026 Niche Rank |
School |
2025 P&Q Rank |
2025 U.S. News Rank |
| 1 | University of Pennsylvania (Wharton) | 1 | 1 |
| 2 | Cornell University (Dyson) | 2 | 9 |
| 3 | University of Southern California (Marshall) | 3 | 9 |
| 4 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Sloan) | NR | 2 |
| 5 | Georgetown University (McDonough) | 4 | 14 |
| 6 | Carnegie Mellon University (Tepper) | 10 | 6 |
| 7 | University of Georgia (Terry) | 33 | 23 |
| 8 | Northeastern University (D’Amore-McKim) | 13 | 65 |
| 9 | University of Florida (Warrington) | NR | 23 |
| 10 | Florida State University | NR | 53 |
RANKING PROGRAMS BY STUDENT PREFERENCE
Like other broad-based rankings, Niche starts with a university-wide methodology, then allows users to drill down by area of study. Prospective students can filter not only by major such as finance, marketing, or real estate. Those areas of study can be further broken down into specific majors. Business and management, for example, can be drilled down even further to find the best schools for finance and accounting, operations management, marketing, sports management, real estate, entrepreneurship, and more than a dozen other related majors.
Niche – a website catering specifically to prospective college students researching their target schools – also lets users filter its ranking by personal criteria like affordability, diversity, or school size.
That customization is where Niche distinguishes itself. Students can generate lists based on their own priorities: best schools for international students, best moderately selective programs, or even best party schools. (Shout out again to UC–Santa Barbara.)
HOW NICHE RANKS BUSINESS PROGRAMS
Niche’s Best Colleges for Business Ranking combines data from the U.S. Department of Education with millions of student and alumni reviews.
Here are the factors that contribute to the rankings, along with their relative weights:
- Overall Niche Grade (36.8%): Represents a broad view of the student experience across various categories such as academics, diversity, value, safety, campus quality, and student life.
- Percent Majoring in Business (19.1%): Proportion of undergraduate students enrolled in business majors at each school. It helps indicate how significant the business program is relative to the school’s overall student population.
- Business Program Demand (13.5%): Ratio indicating how many Niche users express interest in a particular school’s business program, compared to the actual size of the program. This factor helps show how popular and sought-after the program is.
- Business Student and Alumni Surveys (10.5%): Scores are based on a 1-5 scale, highlighting personal perspectives from those who have experienced the program firsthand.
- Business Research Expenditures per Student (7.7%): Amount of money dedicated to business research per full-time undergraduate business student, sourced from the National Science Foundation.
- Percent of U.S. Business Graduates (7.7%): Percentage of total annual U.S. business graduates that come from the program. This factor measures the impact and size of the program nationally, as reported by the U.S. Department of Education.
- Total Business Research Expenditures (4.7%): Amount spent by the school on research in business, indicating the level of investment in expanding knowledge and innovation in the field.
NEXT PAGE: Niche’s 2026 Best Colleges for Business
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