MBA Programs With the Most International Students
The U.S. News Short List, separate from our overall rankings, is a regular series that magnifies individual data points in hopes of providing students and parents a way to find which undergraduate or graduate programs excel or have room to grow in specific areas. Be sure to explore The Short List: College and The Short List: Grad School to find data that matters to you in your college or grad school search.
Admissions officers thoughtfully construct MBA cohorts that pull together students with a range of professional and personal backgrounds. That variety brings multiple perspectives to the classroom and allows students to learn not just from their instructor, but from each other.
Adding international students to the mix is a surefire way for business schools to up their diversity quotient, and many schools are ramping up foreign enrollment to bring a truly global mindset to their MBA programs.
[Read these tips for international MBA applicants.]
One example is Clarkson University in New York, where international students accounted for nearly 55 percent of full-time enrollment for fall 2012. That's nearly double the school's percentage of foreign students from the previous year.
The F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College in Massachusetts and University of California--Riverside's A. Gary Anderson Graduate School of Management also saw increases in their international enrollment. At Olin, the percentage of international students climbed from 45.4 to 54.9 percent between fall 2011 and 2012, and Anderson's share rose from 66.5 percent to almost 74 percent.
[See photos of the top business schools.]
All three b-schools are among the 10 MBA programs with the highest proportion of international students. At these schools, foreign students make up 62 percent of full-time enrollment, on average, compared to the national average of 31.2 percent, according to data reported by 138 ranked business schools in an annual U.S. News survey.
Several of the schools that boast a large percentage of international students are designated as Rank Not Published (RNP) in the 2014 Best Business Schools rankings. U.S. News calculates a rank for all RNP institutions, but does not publish them. Unranked b-schools, which do not submit enough data for U.S. News to calculate a rank, were not considered for this report.
Below are the 10 business schools with the highest percentage of full-time international students for fall 2012.
Business school (name) (state) | Full-time enrollment (fall 2012) | Percentage of international students | U.S. News b-school rank |
|---|---|---|---|
90 | 75.6 | RNP | |
184 | 73.9 | RNP | |
78 | 69.2 | 96 | |
241 | 63.1 | 44 | |
517 | 59.4 | RNP | |
99 | 57.6 | RNP | |
380 | 56.1 | 88 | |
77 | 55.8 | 79 | |
408 | 54.9 | 56 | |
86 | 54.7 | 101 |
Don't see your school in the top 10? Access the U.S. News Business School Compass to find enrollment data, average GMAT scores and much more.
U.S. News surveyed 448 schools for our 2012 survey of business programs. Schools self-reported a myriad of data regarding their academic programs and the makeup of their student body, among other areas, making U.S. News's data the most accurate and detailed collection of college facts and figures of its kind. While U.S. News uses much of this survey data to rank schools for our annual Best Business Schools rankings, the data can also be useful when examined on a smaller scale. U.S. News will now produce lists of data, separate from the overall rankings, meant to provide students and parents a means to find which schools excel, or have room to grow, in specific areas that are important to them. While the data come from the schools themselves, these lists are not related to, and have no influence over, U.S. News's rankings of Best Colleges or Best Graduate Schools. The enrollment data above are correct as of March 26, 2013.
