Financial Times has released their 2018 ranking of the top MBAs for a career in Finance. The list takes the top schools from FT’s Global MBA rankings and orders them based on how many students from each School go on to find jobs in finance and banking, or at fintech startups.

This year, FT’s top ten MBA programs for working in finance are:

1. Stanford Graduate School of Business
2. University of Pennsylvania Wharton School
3. University of Chicago Booth School of Business
4. Harvard Business School
5. New York University Stern School of Business
6. MIT Sloan School of Management
7. INSEAD
8. University of Cambridge Judge Business School
9. CEIBS
10. Columbia Business School

Included in the rankings are the portion of MBA students at each school who are working in finance three years after graduation, their average salary and their average salary increase.

For example, at Stanford GSB, the number one MBA program in the ranking, 38 percent of alums went into finance. Their average salary bump after attending Stanford GSB was 124 percent, for an average salary of $252,000.

As FT points out in their summary of the ranking, geography plays an important role in determining which schools lean more heavily toward the finance industry.

This is true on a country-to-country level, for starters. FT’s top six MBA schools for financial careers are in the United States. INSEAD, which ranks second in FT’s Global MBA ranking is the highest-ranked non-U.S. MBA program for finance at seventh.

Within the United States, geography makes a difference too. Stanford, the top MBA program for finance, is situated in the Bay Area, which FT points out now has a higher concentration of financial services jobs than New York.

Of course, New York is still a major financial capital, which NYU Stern benefits from. While Stern pulls in at a mere 23^rd in FT’s overall MBA rankings, the school is fifth on FT’s list of the best MBAs for a career in finance.

In FT’s overview of the MBA for finance rankings, Stern’s assistant dean of career services Beth Briggs highlights the close connections that this geographic advantage helps nurture. So many Stern students are able to go into finance, she says, because “we have very deep relationships.”

These rankings are a good reminder that choosing the right MBA program means considering the program’s track record in the particular area you’re interested in, not just how “prestigious” the program is in general.

At EXPARTUS, we can help you parse how particular programs align with your background and goals – as well as how you can emphasize this overlap to adcoms. To get started, contact us for a free assessment!