Top Feeders to Business School (MBA Programs)
Updated December 2022
High schoolers who desire to be among the next generation of corporate leaders know that they may one day wish to get an MBA from one of the nation’s elite business schools like Wharton (Penn), Stern (NYU), or Harvard Business School. These future CEOs, CFOs, and entrepreneurs should be aware that certain undergraduate colleges serve as “feeders,” annually sending a sizable number of graduates to the crème de la crème of graduate business school programs. Being aware of which colleges have a direct pipeline into the graduate business program you aim to one day attend, can help put you on the path to making that dream a reality.
The two lists that follow showcase the top 30 “feeder” schools into the most highly-ranked MBA programs. On the first list, for each school, we look at the raw number of students who go on to attend elite MBA programs, as well as the two MBA programs enrolling the most graduates from that undergraduate school. The second list looks at the top 30 producers when adjusted for a school’s undergraduate enrollment, which allows us to highlight schools that may be smaller in size, but that still send a consistent flow of graduates to the world’s premier graduate business programs.
In order to identify "top feeder” colleges, we relied on publicly available data from LinkedIn, a professional networking site featuring profiles of approximately 170 million workers across the United States. Specifically, we identified and analyzed the undergraduate backgrounds of more than 100,000 MBA students who enrolled at ten of America's most reputable MBA programs, including Columbia Business School, Harvard Business School, MIT’s Sloan School of Management, NYU’s Stern School of Business, Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, Stanford Graduate School of Business, UChicago’s Booth School of Business, The Wharton School (Penn), UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, and the Yale School of Management.
Top Feeder Rankings (by total graduates enrolled)
Top Feeder Rankings (adjusted for undergraduate enrollment)
Rank (Adjusted) Institution #MBA Graduates Top Business School (#1) Top Business School (#2)
1 Dartmouth College 70 UC Berkeley Haas School of Business Stanford Graduate School of Business
2 University of Chicago 86 University of Chicago Booth School of Business The Wharton School
3 Claremont McKenna College 17 Stanford Graduate School of Business The Wharton School
4 Yale University 75 Stanford Graduate School of Business Yale School of Management
5 Williams College 24 Stanford Graduate School of Business Yale School of Management
6 Harvard University 106 Stanford Graduate School of Business Harvard Business School
7 Northwestern University 87 UC Berkeley Haas School of Business Northwestern Kellogg School of Management
8 Stanford University 71 Stanford Graduate School of Business Harvard Business School
9 Duke University 65 MIT Sloan School of Management Harvard Business School
10 Amherst College 17 Stanford Graduate School of Business NYU Stern School of Business
11 Middlebury College 22 The Wharton School Columbia Business School
12 Brown University 60 Yale School of Management Stanford Graduate School of Business
13 Princeton University 46 The Wharton School Northwestern Kellogg School of Management
14 Wellesley College 19 Harvard Business School Yale School of Management
15 University of Pennsylvania 86 The Wharton School Stanford Graduate School of Business
16 Colgate University 21 Northwestern Kellogg School of Management NYU Stern School of Business
17 Swarthmore College 11 University of Chicago Booth School of Business The Wharton School
18 Rice University 27 Harvard Business School Northwestern Kellogg School of Management
19 Bowdoin College 12 Yale School of Management Stanford Graduate School of Business
20 Cornell University 98 MIT Sloan School of Management Yale School of Management
21 Georgetown University 48 University of Chicago Booth School of Business The Wharton School
22 Pomona College 10 Stanford Graduate School of Business UC Berkeley Haas School of Business
23 Vanderbilt University 43 Columbia Business School Northwestern Kellogg School of Management
24 University of Notre Dame 53 Northwestern Kellogg School of Management Yale School of Management
25 Tufts University 34 Yale School of Management Northwestern Kellogg School of Management
26 Wesleyan University 18 The Wharton School NYU Stern School of Business
27 Columbia University 48 Columbia Business School The Wharton School
28 Colby College 11 UC Berkeley Haas School of Business Yale School of Management
29 Washington and Lee University 10 Stanford Graduate School of Business Columbia Business School
30 Bates College 10 UC Berkeley Haas School of Business MIT Sloan School of Management
Does institutional selectivity matter?
When applying to business school, yes, it appears that institutional selectivity does in fact play a role. In our sample, of the students who went on to enroll at America’s best MBA programs, approximately 54% graduated from colleges categorized as “Most Selective” or “Extremely Selective.” However, 27% of elite business school students in our sample did graduate from schools indicated as minimally selective or non-selective, suggesting that attendance at a highly selective undergraduate college or university isn't a prerequisite to earning a top-flight MBA. Click here to see how we group colleges by selectivity.


Colleges Worth Your Money
2023 Edition
A Guide to What America's Top Schools Can Do for You
“Innovative and invaluable...use this book as your college lifeline.”
- Lynn O'Shaughnessy, Nationally Recognized College Expert