Are you a woman candidate looking to pursue a management qualification abroad? Do you want to know which top B-schools overseas have a strong focus on encouraging women candidates?
Latest market insights by Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), which publishes the global university rankings annually, suggests that B-schools in the US followed by the UK, Canada, Australia, France, China, Spain, India, Japan and Germany had a good representation of women students in their classrooms over the last three years. In the 115 B-schools surveyed in the US, the average percentage of women in the starting class of full-time MBA in 2020 was 41%, an increase from 38% in the previous two years.
At A Glance
- QS insights suggest that B-schools in the US followed by the UK, Canada, Australia, France, China, and Spain had a good representation of women students in their classrooms over the last three years.
- The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, US, topped with 52% of women in its starting Class 2021.
- The Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, US, was the second with 49% women in its starting Class 2021.
Out of the 27 business schools in UK, the average percentage of women in the starting class of full-time MBA in 2020 was 42%, a drop from 45% the previous two years. As many as 21 management schools from Canada were surveyed for the insights and it was found that the average percentage of women in the starting class of full-time MBA was 41% in 2020, 40% in 2019 and 37% in 2018.
Australia had 13 schools participate in the insights, which revealed 40% as the average percentage of women in the starting class of full-time MBA in 2020, 42% in 2019 and 41% in 2018.
This data compared the last three years of data for the full-time MBA program across more than 250 global programs and extracted the top 10 countries which have the most business schools. It included a sample size of 223 MBA programs.
Top B-Schools
When it comes to the top 20 B-schools (by rank) for women candidates, the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, US, topped with 52% of women in its starting Class 2021.
The Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, US, was the second with 49% women in its starting Class 2021.
The Fuqua School of Business at Duke University, US, was third with 48% women. Ross School of Business, Michigan, US, Harvard Business School, Stanford Graduate School of Business, MIT Sloan, Yale School of Management and Chicago Booth School of Booth School of Business were all among the top 10 with the highest percentage of women in their starting Class 2021.
UCLA Anderson; NYU Stern; Spain’s Esade Business School; Columbia Business School; IE Business School in Spain; Cambridge Judge Business School, UK; London Business School, INSEAD France; UC Berkeley; HEC Paris; IESE Business School, Spain were other institutions with most women students.
In terms of the global average, there has been an increase in the representation of women in the classroom with 39% women pursuing full-time MBA programs in 2020, which increased to 40% in 2021 and 41% in 2024, as per the QS Online Ranking Data.
“This data is new for us and will be used in the upcoming September ranking of the best full-time MBA programs. The US has made big strides, whilst the rest of the world is still catching up. One of the reasons we see a lot of US-based B-schools doing well when it comes to admitting more women students is the pressure from accreditation bodies such as Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business who are encouraging diversity in the classroom,” Daniel Kahn, Senior Insights Specialist – Graduate Management Education, QS, tells Yocket.
As more B-schools gear up to welcome international students in the coming months, these insights indicate a strong push that they intend to give to boost gender diversity in their classrooms.
