The Californian business school topped the list for the second consecutive year, beating off competition from Harvard Business School, INSEAD, The Wharton School, and the Indian School of Business.
First published in 2023, the LinkedIn ranking is distinct from other annually published global MBA rankings due to an overwhelming focus on career outcomes, with the list built around five key pillars: hiring and demand, ability to advance, network strength, leadership potential, and gender diversity.
Here’s a breakdown of the top 20 programs in the list, plus reflections on the ranking from industry experts.
The LinkedIn Top MBA Programs ranking: 2025
This year’s LinkedIn Top MBA list is most notable for the inclusion of the Indian School of Business (ISB) within the top five. It’s rare that a program outside of the US or Europe features among the top five of a global MBA ranking.
ISB’s position is one of a few surprises in the LinkedIn list when compared with other offerings from the likes of the Financial Times and QS. The Tuck School of Business placed eighth in the world, Oxford Saïd Business School was 12th, while three additional Indian schools appeared in the top 20 (Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, and Indian Institute of Management Bangalore).
Italy’s SDA Bocconi, which finished fourth in the 2025 Financial Times Global MBA Ranking, was only 47th in the LinkedIn list. Similarly, Spain’s Esade—a top 10 school in the FT ranking—could only finish 46th in the Top MBA Programs 2025.
How is the LinkedIn MBA ranking compiled?
While business school rankings have been increasingly incorporating factors such as sustainability, research impact, and diversity into their methodology, the LinkedIn Top MBA Programs list largely ignores those metrics. Instead, it focuses heavily on graduate career outcomes using the wealth of data it has access to.
The ranking is built around five key pillars:
⇨ Hiring and demand, which tracks job placement rates and labor market demand from 2019-2024. This metric is based on LinkedIn’s hiring and recruiter InMail outreach data.
⇨ Ability to advance, which tracks promotions among recent MBA graduates. It also tracks how quickly alumni have reached director or VP-level leadership roles.
⇨ Network strength measures the quality of an MBA program’s alumni network. It tracks how connected alumni of the same program are to each other, the average connections alumni have with individuals in director-level positions or above, and the network growth rate of recent cohorts.
⇨ Leadership potential tracks the percentage of alumni with post-MBA entrepreneurship or C-suite experience.
⇨ Gender diversity simply measures gender parity within recent MBA classes. This metric carries half the weight (0.5) of the other pillars.
Besides each entry in the ranking, LinkedIn also provides a summary of the program’s most common graduate job titles, most notable skills, and top locations.
To be eligible for the ranking, an MBA program must be full-time and accredited by either AACSB or Equis. It must have at least 1,500 alumni, with at least 400 of them graduating within the recent cohort (2019-2024).
It should be noted that this list excludes all MBA programs based in mainland China, as LinkedIn doesn’t have access to alumni data in the country.
What do experts think of the LinkedIn MBA ranking?
Because the LinkedIn MBA ranking works differently from other rankings—focusing exclusively on its own data and eschewing student or alumni surveys—it has drawn a mixed reaction from industry experts.
“LinkedIn has all of the data to produce an incredible ranking, such as one that measures each MBA program's placement at top firms and top roles,” says David White, a founding partner of MBA admissions firm Menlo Coaching. “However, some parts of their methodology do not align with what MBA applicants value.”
“For example, the ‘Network strength’ measure, which monitors LinkedIn connections, is not a reliable indicator of a graduate's ability to advance their career. Many people accept most LinkedIn invitations even if they do not know the person inviting them to connect, which means that LinkedIn connections do not always represent real-world connections that can lead to career advancement.”
“Also, their ‘Hiring and demand’ measure is based on LinkedIn hiring data and recruiter InMails, which ignores on-campus recruiting processes,” he adds.
But, Barbara Coward, founder of MBA 360 Admissions, feels the list is “an informative and welcome addition to the [rankings] space.”
“MBA programs encourage students to make data-based decisions, and nobody has more data on MBA job placement, career progression, and networking than LinkedIn,” she says. “While many of the usual names from other notable rankings also rank highly in LinkedIn, there are some differences that create opportunity.”
“Candidates who care most about career outcomes can find some ‘hidden gems’ in these rankings—programs that deliver strong career results and also have relatively high acceptance rates relative to others with similar rankings.”
Having such a strong focus on data-driven career outcomes means that the more traditional measures of a program’s quality are not taken into account in the LinkedIn ranking. For instance, it does not measure things like classroom experience, student satisfaction, or value for money.
Ultimately, it’s important to consider both career outcomes and your individual outlook when it comes to choosing the right MBA, Barbara advises.
“The LinkedIn rankings are highly focused on post-graduation outcomes,” she says. “These rankings do not help candidates assess how well programs fit their personal preferences for their MBA experience.”
