• Harvard Business School Harvard has the well-deserved reputation as the best business school on the country. And why not – the college is ranked in top three by four publications: Business Week, Forbes, US News and Financial Times, whereas another fifth, Economic Times, ranks its full-time MBA program as the fourth best. This 21 month program should set you back by about USD $110,000 in fees.

• The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania Ranked among the top five by four publications, including second by Financial Times, the full-time MBA program from Wharton is the byword of professional management education the world over. Once you pass out of Wharton, you will share it as your alma mater with such famous people as Donald Trump, Warren Buffet and Donny Deutsch.

• Stanford University, Graduate School of Business With a duration of 21 months, and fees of $106,000, the success rate of applicants at this school is just 6%. The applicants are required to take GMAT score, and the average score accepted is 728. This program is ranked the number one by both Forbes and US News, which is a rare feat indeed even for the best of the colleges.

• University of Chicago, Booth School of Business The Full-time program in the Booth School of Business was ranked third in the composite ranking of best business programs by the third-party site poets&quants. The composite ranking takes into account five rankings from Economist, Financial Times, Forbes, Business Week and US News.

• Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College The full-time MBA program here is ranked the number one program in the world by the economist. With a tuition fees and other allied costs at $104,000, this is a 21 month program too.

• Daytime MBA from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business Located in Durham, North Carolina, this is one of the few programs whose fees are below $100,000 – but this is hardly much comfort, because at $99,500 they are not much lower than that number. Unlike other programs mentioned here, this daytime program is 22 months old.

• Columbia Business School The school has an acceptance rate of just over 15% for first time applicants, and a rate of 24% for re-applicants.

1. Harvard Business School Widely known as the most influential business school in the world, Harvard is ranked 2nd by Business Week, 3rd by Financial Times, and 5th by The Economist. With an average salary of about USD $170,000 for its alumni, it is no wonder that Harvard has the reputation that it has.

2. University of Pennsylvania (Wharton) This college is ranked at 3rd by Business Week, 1st by Financial Times, and 5th by The Economist. Every faculty member in Wharton has a PhD, which just goes on to hint at the stellar quality of education imparted there.

3. London Business School LBS tops the rankings for FT, and in the 4th highest non-American college in the list of global MBA schools from The Economist. With a faculty to student ratio of just 1:5, you can be sure that you will not be starved of expert attention while there.

4. Stanford University Graduate School of Business Ranked 4th by FT, and 5th by Business Week, Stanford GSB has a well-deserved reputation of being one of the worlds best business schools.

5. University of Chicago, Booth School of Business It is ranked 2nd by the Economist, and first by Business Week, it is one of the best you can get in business schools.

6. Columbia Business School This business school is one of the few schools that have been ranked among the top ten colleges in all the three rankings discussed here. With a student to faculty ratio of 3:1, it is not hard to imagine why.

7. International Institute of Management Development (IMD), Switzerland Ranked 14th by the FT, it is ranked third best by the Economist. Needless to say, it is one of the top European schools of business.

8. MIT Sloan School of Management Named after Alfred P. Sloan, chairman of General Motors, who helped fund the college, this school is ranked among top 10 by two of rankings discussed here, and ranked 11th by the third.

9. University of California at Berkeley, Haas School of Management Ranked 6th and 8th by two of the rankings, and 25th by FT, this is one of the best MBA schools in the west coast.

10. York University – Schulich School of Business, Canada makes the top ten for the Economist list. This school has reserved 60% of its intake for international student, so if you desire a truly international business experience in your MBA degree, this is the college you should look into.

The following is a list of the seven of the best online MBA programs offered by universities across the world. The list has been made by looking up rankings from publications such as Business Week, Economist etc.

1. Curtin Business School’s general management program is ranked the top-most program by the Financial Times in its ranking of distance MBA programs. It is not a completely online course – you will need to take 70% of the exams on location. This requirement is not unusual, and is done to make sure that the students take the exams fairly and seriously. Another best course from this college is the specialized course in Oil and Gas Management.

2. Babson College’s Fast Track MBA program in general management is one of the most reputed online programs. This program is accredited with Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business(AACSB), as well as with Equis. All the exams of this course are done online, so this can be called a 100% online course.

3. ISEAD Though ISEAD is located in Spain, you can take its 3 year long distance MBA program from anywhere. This school is specially suitable if Spanish is your first language. The cost of the program for non-resident students is USD $12,000.

4. RMIT Online executive MBA program in general management is one of the top five programs in the Financial Times list. The average time taken to complete this program is three years.

5. IE Business School Many of the full-time programs from this Spanish school find mention in the global rankings. This school offers an online program called the Global MBA which has a class strength of 65 for the English class; students are also encouraged to attend community integration events in Shanghai, London, Madrid and New York.

6. Walden University’s online MBA program is one of the largest online programs, with a total of 2,255 students enrolled in the academic year 2010-2011. Walden University is itself part of a network of online universities, and has a very good reputation.

7. Warwick Business School from UK has two online MBA programs. The Warwick MBA by distance learning program is the one you should look for if you want a general MBA. This program is accredited to AACSB, Amba and Equis, making it one of the most recognized programs in the world.

• Harvard Business School When someone talks about the best business school in the world, they are most likely talking about Harvard. The question of the best B-school is a tough one, with no objective criteria to make the judgment, but it is widely agreed that Harvard is definitely one of the best B-schools in the world. With alumni that includes such luminaries as George W. Bush, Jeffrey Immelt, Meg Whitman, Robert Kraft, Ratan Tata, Robert McNamara, the reputation is well-deserved.

• Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania Popularly known just as Wharton, it is one of the worlds oldest business schools, established in 1881. Wharton offers B.S. and M.B.A; it also has an Ph.D. program, apart from other diploma programs. Though the student to faculty ratio of this school is pretty high at 17:1, the faculty here is notable for being the world’s most cited and published among all business schools.

• Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth University Ranked the top b-school in the world by the Economist magazine, Tuck school of Business is one of the six Ivy League business schools ( the other five are: Harvard, Wharton, Columbia Business School, Samuel Curtis Johnson School of Management at Cornell, and Yale School of Management).

• Stanford University Graduate School of Business This school offers a MBA program, the ten-month long Sloan master’s program, and a Ph.D. program along with other joint degrees in sciences etc with other schools at Stanford University.

• Columbia Business School of the Columbia University Located in Manhattan, New York City, the school has the rare distinction of being associated with as many as thirteen Nobel Prize winners in Economics. Getting into Columbia School of Business can be a tough nut to crack with the school having an acceptance rate of only 15%.

• University of Chicago, Booth School of Business Ranked second by Economist, it was known as University of Chicago Graduate School of Business before 2008, when it was renamed following the grant of an $300 million endowment by alumnus David G. Booth. The school has two additional campuses in Singapore and London, apart from two campuses in Chicago, USA.

• Haas School of Management, University of California at Berkeley Apart from a full-time MBA program, the school also offers Evening/Weekend MBA program, a Ph.D. program, undergraduate courses, Master of Financial Engineering program and an Executive Education program.

Business Week Rankings

The Business Week MBA school rankings are presented for six different heads: Undergraduate MBA, EMBA, Full Time MBA, Part-time, Executive education, and distance education. The rankings are generally presented for United States only, except in the case of Full Time MBA, where the magazine has ranked non-US colleges too. The methodology used by the magazine consists of taking a survey of students and recruiters, accounting for median salary for graduates, for the SAT score of business majors, faculty-student ratio, class size among other factors. The top business school ranked by the university is University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Financial Times Rankings

The Financial Times Business School rankings are published for five different types of colleges or courses: for MBA, EMBA, Executive Education courses, Master in Management programs, and for top European Business schools. The Financial Times has the best presentation of its results: the site allows you to interactively see the rankings for various types of degrees. You can evaluate the programs and college by different criteria such as value for money, the average salary of the alumni after graduation, placement of students etc. The top business school rated under the MBA section of the FT rankings is the London School of Business. The second ranked school is Wharton, University of Pennsylvania.

The Economist Rankings

The Economist brings out yearly rankings it calls “Which MBA”. It brings out rankings for four different geographical regions: Asia and Australasia, Europe, North America, and finally a Global ranking of Full Time MBA colleges. The Global ranking is mostly dominated by schools from United States, with the Tuck School of Business from Dartmouth College ranked at the top. The methodology used by The Economist consists of first selecting 130 most prestigious business schools from around the world, and inviting them to take part in a survey. Of these 130, fifteen schools were not ranked, and from among the rest of 115 schools, the top 100 were ranked based on the results from the survey.