US MBA Programs by Metro Area

How can these lists help me?

1) To craft portfolios of schools in large urban areas. Many students have a spouse who works or need access to a large city for other reasons. These lists present large urban areas in order from the largest to the smallest to help identfy schools in large markets.

2) To see relatively oversubscribed academic markets. Compare the Boston and San Francisco metros. San Francisco is the larger metro area but has only two schools in these top clusters and they are both quite small for their clusters. On the other hand, Boston has two ultra elites and three NEF schools (HBS alone is larger than both SF schools together).

3) To see relatively underserved labor markets. For instance, look at Dallas, one of the ten largest metros in the US yet served by only one NEF or higher school.

Has anyone found these lists helpful?

I have found it very helpful. It helps you find out which markets may be "easier" to enter. Your Dallas example is spot on. When looking at law school, I looked at SMU. It is the only law school within 70 miles of Dallas, and it has many large firms. These Big Law firms pay the same rate as NYC, but the cost of living is much lower in Big D.

Hi Hjort,
I see that a lot of the schools in close proximity to the metros have been marked as NEF ...
What does this imply?

Thanks,
Naynesh.

Hjort,
This is really useful information, particularly to me, who is new to US (~6 months) and needs to decide B school, wrt employment opportunities for my wife.

Really appreciate your efforts..

Hjort,

The list really useful.
It is specially helpful for all international students, who don't have too much idea about locations in US.

Thanks a ton!

Thanks for the note- I'm glad to see people are still finding and using this post.

Hjort

exellent!!!!

Great list, especially for people outside the US, with limited knowledge of the US geography ( like myself )

Thanks again. If there is additional information on US geography that you would find helpful, I welcome your suggestions.

what does NEF mean?

Extended Proximity List Including Schools within roughly 90 miles of Metro Area (ranked by Personal Income in Economic Area)

1. New York (1.031 trillion USD): Columbia (UE), New York University (E), Fordham (NEF), Yale (E) 75 miles

2. Los Angeles (0.664 trillion USD): UCLA (E), USC (TE), UC Irvine (NEF)

3. San Francisco/San Jose/Oakland (0.420 trillion): Stanford (UE), UC Berkeley (E)

4. Washington/Baltimore (0.397 trillion): Georgetown (NE), Maryland (NE), George Washington (NEF)

5. Chicago (0.394 trillion): University of Chicago (UE), Northwestern/Kellogg (UE), Notre Dame (NE) 90 miles

6. Boston (0.346 trillion): Harvard (UE), MIT/Sloan (UE), Boston College (NEF), Boston University (NEF), Babson (NEF)

7. Philadelphia (0.271 trillion): Penn/Wharton (UE), Temple/Fox (NEF)

8. Dallas (0.259): SMU (NEF)

9. Detroit (0.244 trillion): Michigan/Ross (E), Michigan State/Broad (NEF) 90 miles

10. Houston (0.233 trillion): Rice (NEF), Texas A&M (NEF) 90 miles

11. Miami (.228 trillion): There are quality institutions but none in these clusters

12. Atlanta (0.228 trillion): Emory (TE), Georgia Tech (NEF), Georgia (NEF) 70 miles

13. Minneapolis (0.190): Minnesota (NEF)

14. Seattle (0.171): University of Washington (NEF)

15. Denver (0.150): There are quality institutions but none in these clusters

16. Cleveland (0.149): Case Western/Weatherhead (NEF)

17. Phoenix (0.137) : ASU (NEF), Thunderbird (NEF)

18. Orlando (0.125): University of Florida is within range (NEF)

19. San Diego (0.119): There are quality institutions but none in these clusters

20. St. Louis (0.113): Washington University/Olin (NE)

21. Indianapolis (0.105): Indiana/Kelley (NE) 50 miles, Purdue (NE) 60 miles

22. Pittsburgh (0.101): Carnegie Mellon (TE), University of Pittsburgh (NEF)

23. Portland (0.098): There are quality institutions but none in these clusters

24. Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill (0.091): Duke (E), UNC-Chapel Hill (TE)

25. Sacramento (0.090) : UC Davis (NEF)

This is not an exhaustive list of schools in these clusters

Praetorian's recent statement that he would like to see more discussion of schools outside of the top few clusters inspired me to create this listing of schools by personal income of the Economic Area associated with the school's metropolitan area.

I readily concede that personal income is an incomplete measure of the economy of different regions of the US, especially in light of the fact that some forms of economic activity tend to be concentrated in specific metro areas (e.g., finance in New York, media in Los Angeles). However, personal income does provide a useful first approximation of the relative size of different regional economies as well as some sense of the "internally created" demand for professional managers in different metro areas.

Some observations:

1) Note that several of the Top 25 metro areas do not have any schools from the top three or even four clusters in them. Indeed, a few do not even have any schools from the Near Elite Frontier cluster in close proximity.

2) While California is often seen as having two "economic capitals", they are hardly equals, at least in terms of personal income. Note that the total personal income of the San Francisco metroplex is less than two thirds that of the Los Angeles metroplex. As stated above, I am not arguing that personal income is a complete measure of the regional economy in any sense but it is worth mentioning. Further, for those concerned about competition from higher cluster schools, LA/OC has only one elite cluster school while SF/SJ/OAK has one ultra elite and one elite cluster.

Has anyone found these additions helpful? I am thinking of adding more but want to make sure there is demand for it.

Hjort

Hjort

I would personally love to see this. I have moved this to the B-School Application forum so that this gets more attention.

You have been such a great help.

Hjort - absolutely loving this. Please continue to post more! I'm in the situation of locating where exactly me and my spouse should reside/study in the next 2 years, so this thread is absolutely useful for us!

I was wondering the same thing. Maybe we could come up with what it means!

not even familiar?