Best undergraduate business schools by selectivity and graduate earnings

Below are the ten best undergraduate programs for business majors. We’ll cover what makes each one unique (including any program changes), how selective they are, and what graduates can expect to earn.

Graduate salaries and career outcomes at top business schools

We gathered the salaries for business majors from different sources. Wharton’s 2024 report surveyed 83% of its graduates. UNC’s Undergraduate Business Overview and Outcomes collected responses from 95% of its business grads. Poets & Quants grabs undergraduate business salary data from a two-year survey. Many of the other universities on this list publish salaries and employment data on their career pages.

For a broader look at business programs, check out Empowerly’s 50 Best Business Schools (2026 Edition). If you want a deeper dive into program competitiveness and graduate outcomes, keep reading.

MIT

MIT Sloan School of Management changed its undergraduate program in 2016. It divided its former management science major into three separate offerings: management, business analytics, and finance.

First-year students don’t directly apply to Sloan. MIT admits students to the university overall, and students declare business tracks later. This means the school doesn’t have a separate acceptance rate for business majors.

Admissions. According to MIT’s Common Data Set (CDS) 2024–2025, the university admitted 4.55% of applicants, or 1,284 out of more than 28,000 applicants. Suffice it to say, MIT is a hyper-selective school for business and other majors alike.

Career Outcomes. MIT publishes a university-wide starting salary of $126,438, but doesn’t offer a breakdown by major. Forty-four percent of its graduates enter the workforce, while another 49% go to graduate school. These numbers cover every field from mechanical engineering to business.

University of Pennsylvania

UPenn’s Wharton School of Business enrolls 2,300 undergraduate students. Wharton ranked first in the last eight of ten Poets & Quants rankings published to date. It ranks second behind UC Berkeley’s Haas School in U.S. News’ 2025 Business School rankings.

Admissions. Poets & Quants reports Wharton as the most selective of 110 business schools with an acceptance rate below 4%. The same outlet says that first-year students averaged an SAT score of 1525 and a 35 on the ACT.

Career Outcomes. Wharton’s 2024 graduates had an average starting salary of $109,628. Dual-degree graduates in business and engineering earned even more, at $159,278. Over 90.3% of Wharton graduates entered the labor market with full-time employment: 59% went into financial services, and another 18% went into consulting — investment banking led the pack with 63% of financial services placements.

University of Berkeley

When Warren “Ned” Spieker donated $30 million to the Haas School of Business in 2023, the university renamed its undergraduate business program in his honor: the Spieker Undergraduate Business program expanded from a two-year program to a four-year one, with the first cohort enrolling in August 2024. First-year students can also enter through the Global Management Program or the M.E.T. dual-degree program in the College of Engineering.

Admissions. Berkeley accepts undergraduate business majors at a 5.18% rate, compared with 11% overall. Business majors now face tougher admissions odds than Engineering students.

Career Outcomes. Haas, or “Spieker,” doesn’t publish undergraduate employment data or salaries. However, its career page quotes Poets & Quants, which reports that in-state business graduates enjoy a 20-year ROI of $1,194,000.

University of Michigan

The University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business has a unique admissions process. First-year students can enroll directly into the program, but it admits a small cohort of 250 to 300 incoming students on its Preferred Admissions track. Most students apply and enter the program as internal candidates.

Admissions. Ross admits 8% of first-year students. Students who miss out on Preferred Admissions can enter the program in their sophomore year from either the College of Literature, Arts, and Sciences (LSA) or engineering. Ross admits 32.5% of internal transfers following sophomore year.

Career Outcomes. More than 98% of the Class of 2025 undergraduate business majors had a job offer upon graduation, according to the University of Michigan. The median salary of Ross Business graduates was more than $100,000, with a $10,000 signing bonus. Financial services employed 45.6% of graduates, consulting 19%, and technology 9.3%.

University of New York

NYU’s Stern School of Business’ best asset might be its geographic reach. Students can spend a semester at any of NYU’s 14 global satellites, one of 17 International Business Exchange partner programs like Peking University, or in a Stern Around the World Course with travel carved into the syllabus.

Admissions. According to Poets & Quants, Stern accepted 4% of students in 2025 — down from 4.8% in the prior year. The same source reports that Stern’s first-year class posted the highest average SAT score at 1551.

Career Outcomes. Stern’s internal report puts the average income for the Class of 2025 at $107,420, which it remarks is 50% greater than the national average for business majors. This figure rivals Wharton.

Carnegie Mellon

Admissions. Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business admitted 10.9% of applicants for its 2025 first-year class, according to Poets & Quants. Its six-year graduation rate of 99% is among the highest for any undergraduate business school.

Career Outcomes. Poets & Quants reports Tepper graduates' average first-year compensation at $102,397. Average annual salaries were $92,170, excluding a $14,000 signing bonus received by 73% of graduates.

University of Texas, Austin

University of Texas’s McCombs Business School offers the Canfield Business Honors Program, whose students double major. It produces the largest business school salary gap: Canfield students averaged $108,446 in base salary compared to $89,337 for business school graduates overall.

Admissions. Acceptance in the McCombs Business School is highly competitive at a 9% rate. Unlike Michigan’s Ross School of Business, internal transfer into McCombs is exceedingly rare, and business students cannot reliably depend on a backdoor.

Career Outcomes. Across 621 graduates in 2024–2025, salaries ranged from $30,000 to $206,000. Graduates entered financial services at 38.8%, consulting at 19.7%, and technology at 18.2%. The spread by major matters more than the average: finance graduates earned $92,315, while marketing graduates earned $66,542.

Cornell University

Cornell’s Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management is its business school, residing inside two colleges: the SC Johnson College of Business and the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Because the latter is a land-grant college, New York residents enjoy lower tuition rates. An Ivy League business degree at in-state pricing is unusual, and would-be New York business majors with a strong academic profile should strongly consider it.

Admissions. Cornell’s Dyson School acceptance rate is 5% — lower than the university’s overall 8.3% acceptance rate. Cornell reinstated mandatory testing following its most recent cycle, and programs like Dyson see average SAT scores north of 1500.

Career Outcomes. According to Poets & Quants, Dyson graduates report an average starting salary of $98,943. Additionally, 79.2% of graduates received a signing bonus averaging $12,974.

Indiana University, Bloomington

Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business is actively changing its admissions standards. Beginning in 2026, Kelley will no longer offer direct admission based on grades and test scores. The previous bar was a 3.8 GPA with a 1370 SAT or 30 ACT. Indiana is replacing that with a holistic review process.

The standard admit process has also tightened. Students now need an A- or better in every course, up from a B.

Admissions. Poets & Quants reports a more generous admissions rate than other elite undergraduate business programs: 34.1% for the 2024 incoming class, with an average SAT of 1439.

Career Outcomes. Poets and Quants also found that Kelley posted a 97.7% employment rate, though with a lower starting salary than other business schools: $78,809 — roughly the average rate for business grads.

University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School undergraduates typically carry a second major or minor. Fifty-eight percent completed a for-credit immersive international experience.

Admissions. Poets & Quants reports a 6.2% acceptance rate for its business school — the sixth most selective of 110 programs.

Career Outcomes. According to Poets & Quants, every UNC undergraduate business major completed at least one internship, and 98.6% were employed three months after graduation. UNC business graduates earned an average starting salary of $87,212, with 78% receiving an $8,728 bonus.

How to get into a top business program

Top undergraduate business programs want to see more than a high GPA and stellar test scores. Extracurriculars make or break an application at the business schools listed above.

Students often make the mistake of participating in DECA or FBLA and calling it a day. Competitive applicants to programs like Wharton or Stern build a pitch deck — one with actual financial projections — and enter it into competitions. For a complete list of these competitions, check out our earlier blog.

If you win, fantastic. But the doing is really the important part: building a pitch deck, showing you’re comfortable with financial figures, and working with a team. Our advice is to build one strong project and enter it across multiple competitions.

Empowerly’s counselors can help you pick a course schedule and develop a business project that will wow admissions committees.