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#MBA Rankings: Top Schools for Entrepreneurship

Photograph by Paul Sakuma/AP Photo

As part of the 2012 Best B-Schools ranking. Bloomberg Businessweek asked MBAs from the Class of 2012 to tell us, via an online survey, about the full range of their business school experience, from getting in to getting a job. One section of the survey singled out specific aspects of the business program and asked the students to rate them on a scale from “poor” to “outstanding.” Over the next few weeks, we will publish the top 10 B-schools in each of the nine specialty areas, from diversity to sustainability, culminating with publication of the entire specialty MBA ranking, including each of the 82 ranked schools.

Today we look at entrepreneurship. The ranking is based on student responses to the question asking them to rank their program’s entrepreneurship offerings. Points are awarded for each response—one point for “poor” through six points for “outstanding”—and then averaged for each school. The average entrepreneurship score for all 82 U.S. and international schools in the ranking was 4.49. At the top of the list is Stanford’s Graduate School of Business .

At Stanford, MBAs have the opportunity to partner with alumni to develop and launch businesses through the school’s Center for Entrepreneurial Studies (CES). The CES also offers students specialized advising sessions from experienced entrepreneurs and executives. Aspiring entrepreneurs can apply to work in the Stanford Venture Studio, where they interact with other students who have similar interests.

Additionally, the MBA curriculum is full of entrepreneurship options, ranging from courses like “STRAMGT 355: Managing Growing Enterprises” to “MKTG 335: Product Launch.” Ninety-nine percent of Stanford B-school students take at least one entrepreneurship class.

Following Stanford in the entrepreneurship rank is MIT’s Sloan School of Management. where students have more than 50 courses on the subject to choose from. At MIT, business students can take part in the university’s popular $100K Entrepreneurship Competition. with the winning business plan taking home $50,000. Since the competition was founded in 1989, more than 130 companies have been successfully launched, raising more than $770 million in financing.

In the business school, Sloan MBAs can work toward a certificate in entrepreneurship and innovation as part of their graduate business coursework. To earn the certificate, students must complete a handful of required courses and entrepreneurship electives and submit at least one business plan for the $100K competition.

“Sloan really breeds an ecosystem of innovation and entrepreneurship, whether from its connection to the rest of MIT, or from within, with professors or coursework,” says 2012 Sloan MBA grad Omar Mitchell. “This innovation creates a groundswell of ideas and discourse that runs in the veins of the programs that comprise Sloan.”

Babson College in Massachusetts, UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. and the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business round out the top five.

Top MBA Programs by Specialty: Entrepreneurship