The McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University finished at No 4 in our 2025 undergraduate business school ranking – down only place from 2024.
Out of our three ranking categories, McDonough placed highest in Career Outcomes where its 2024 graduates reported the highest starting salaries out of all 105 ranked schools: $100,732. Factor in average signing bonus ($10,952 reported by more than 70% of graduates), and the Class of 2024 ranked in more than $110,000 in total first-year compensation.
The school also posted a 96.28% employment rate for the most recent graduates, down slightly from the 97.29% posted by the previous class.
McDonough also finished 10 in Academic Standards and 11th in Academic Experience (as reported by alumni in our alumni survey.)
The acceptance rate at McDonough was slightly lower for the latest incoming class (meaning it was harder to get into), falling to 11.7% from 12.90% the year before. The class’s average SAT score was 1428, while it’s 6-year graduation rate was 96.37%.
COMPREHENSIVE CURRICULUM
The McDonough curriculum offers a strong foundation in critical thinking and reasoning with a blend of business and liberal arts courses. McDonough students are required to complete 120 semester hours of courses in the liberal arts core, business core, a chosen major(s), and electives.
Students enroll in the business school during their first year and declare a specific major in their sophomore year. These include Accounting, Finance, Marketing, Operations & Analytics, and Management, Business and Global Affairs, and International Business, Language, and Culture. They can also take specialized programs in International Business including Political Economy and Business as well as Regional Studies.
One of the more hands-on learning opportunities is the First Year Seminar, a collection of courses designed for first-year McDonough students on unique business topics ranging from global leadership to the anthropology of business.
The McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University distinguishes itself through a strong integration of global business, ethical leadership, and analytics, all rooted in a Jesuit liberal arts foundation. McDonough’s interdisciplinary approach fosters cross-sector learning through collaborations with Georgetown’s other prestigious schools. Signature programs like the Global Business Experience provide hands-on international consulting opportunities, while a strong emphasis on ethical decision-making prepares students to lead with integrity in an evolving business landscape.
What makes the McDonough curriculum truly comprehensive, however, is the variety of subjects and fields that courses dive into. One of those unique courses is “Signal Class,” where students learn entrepreneurship first-hand by creating a book that would demonstrate their purpose. Students in the course use startup methodologies, from ideation to marketing, to create a book manuscript throughout the semester.
McDonough’s geographical placement in Washington D.C., and being part of the greater Georgetown university gives business students unique access to government and policy perspectives.
A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
One of the most popular global programs at McDonough is the Global Business Experience. Offered as a three-credit course, the Global Business Experience offers students the opportunity to work in teams and conduct a substantive consulting project for a private, public, or nonprofit organization abroad. To cap the experience, student teams travel to the client organization’s country during the week of spring break to present their recommendations to senior management.
“For my international business degree I was required to study abroad. I chose to study abroad in Barcelona at ESADE and it was one of the best experiences of my life. We were able to visit a bunch of different offices and manufacturing spaces including Grifols and a start incubator, and I felt like it was a great exercise in seeing the operations of companies outside the US,” one alumni told Poets&Quants.
Alumni say:
“At Georgetown I was a part of the club Georgetown Ventures which was a seed stage startup accelerator for student run businesses out of Georgetown. I believe that the experience I got as a consultant/ associate at GV really helped me get my foot in the door in the venture capital industry where I worked straight out of undergrad.”
“I worked deeply with the entrepreneurship department leading the development of an internship program, meeting a large set of entrepreneurs and investors enabling me to understand how to start a business.”
“What I really found most impactful from my business education at Georgetown, beyond the intangible things like the people and the connections, was that every single business class had a team project. These projects felt a lot like consulting case studies and I believe they really helped in developing my critical thinking skills towards business problems, improved my ability to work and teams, and present work to my peers.”
“Georgetown does an exceptional job preparing undergraduates for entry into finance and consulting fields after graduation. Where the school falters is support for students who choose alternative career paths. The culture of the business school prioritizes blue-chip investment banking roles; the further a student lands from that field after graduation, the lower their esteem in the eyes of faculty and advisors. I would encourage Georgetown to develop more resources and change the messaging around what success looks like for business students. They offer a well-rounded degree that exceptionally prepares students for a broad range of postgraduate roles. I’d like to see the culture reflect that!”
