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, The Short List: Grad School and The Short List: Online Programs to find data that matter to you in your college or graduate school search.
If you’ve graduated from an MBA program and landed that job you interviewed for, the company may offer you a signing bonus as an incentive to come on board.
All 10 of the MBA programs whose graduates saw the highest average signing bonuses in 2015 were ranked within the top 20 of the U.S. News Best Business Schools rankings for 2017. More than half of them were ranked in the top 10.
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These bonus figures, submitted to U.S. News by 74 schools in an annual survey, apply to graduates from full-time MBA programs who had accepted jobs when data were collected three months after their 2015 graduation.
Topping the list is Yale University’s business school. Graduates received an average signing bonus of $31,155, with 141 students reporting these data out of a class of 244 job-seeking graduates. Yale tied for No. 8 in the U.S. News rankings.
Meanwhile, the business school ranked No. 1, Harvard University, had the eighth-highest average signing bonus. The University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, which tied for No. 2 in the rankings with Stanford University, was fifth on the list. Stanford didn’t make the top 10 list for bonuses, with an average signing bonus of $26,823 among the 93 students who reported this information out of a class of 283 job-seeking graduates.
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Among all 74 schools that submitted these data, the average signing bonus for graduates was $25,381 — lower than the average signing bonus for the 10 schools at the top of the list, which was $29,899.
Below are the 10 business schools with the highest average signing bonuses for 2015 graduates. Unranked schools, which did not meet certain criteria required by U.S. News to be numerically ranked, were not considered for this report.
| School (name) (state) | Average signing bonus | Number of students reporting | U.S. News rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yale University (CT) | $31,155 | 141 | 8 (tie) |
| University of Pennsylvania (Wharton) | $31,045 | 342 | 4 |
| New York University (Stern) | $30,410 | 208 | 20 |
| Columbia University (NY) | $30,133 | 277 | 10 |
| University of Chicago (Booth) | $30,009 | 288 | 2 (tie) |
| Cornell University (Johnson) (NY) | $29,890 | 181 | 14 |
| University of Virginia (Darden) | $29,634 | 238 | 11 |
| Harvard University (MA) | $29,277 | 368 | 1 |
| Duke University (Fuqua) (NC) | $28,926 | 275 | 12 (tie) |
| Dartmouth College (Tuck) (NH) | $28,630 | 166 | 8 (tie) |
Don’t see your school in the top 10? Access the U.S. News Business School Compass to find employment data, complete rankings and much more. School officials can access historical data and rankings, including of peer institutions, via U.S. News Academic Insights.
U.S. News surveyed 470 colleges and universities for our 2015 survey of graduate business programs. Schools self-reported myriad data regarding their academic programs and the makeup of their student body, among other areas, making U.S. News’ 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’ rankings of Best Colleges , Best Graduate Schools or Best Online Programs . The employment data above are correct as of March 24, 2016.
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10 MBA Programs Where Grads Score the Highest Signing Bonuses originally appeared on usnews.com
