10 Best Business Schools For Professors

When you’re enrolling in an MBA or business master's degree, you’ll likely be expecting a world class education. From company CEOs to former politicians, US business schools generally attract the best faculty.

The Princeton Review recently listed the 10 US business schools with the best professors, according to students in the class of 2020. 

The ranking combines student ratings of their professors, integration of new business trends in the curriculum, their professors’ accessibility outside of the classroom, and an assessment of their classmates’ contributions in class discussions. 

Here are the 10 best business schools for professors and a breakdown of the top three:

10 Best Business Schools For Professors

Top 3

3. 

Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management

Cornell Johnson values outstanding teaching, enough to have set up in-house faculty awards for it. This year’s 'Best Teaching Award' went to Luo Zuo, associate professor of accounting, while professor of finance Ming Huang was named 'Star Professor'.

The school considers its “immersion learning” approach to be one of its strongest distinguishing factors, creating reality-based situations for students to engage with. 

2. 

University of Michigan Ross School of Business

Michigan Ross’s second-place ranking also demonstrates a strong marriage between great research and great teaching. 

The list of awards racked up by Michigan Ross profs is formidable. Most recently, in September 2020, the Academy of Management honoured no less than four of them at once: Sue Ashford, James Walsh, Lindy Greer and Jane Dutton. 

Ashford’s was a lifetime achievement award honouring a body of research work in the areas of individual proactivity, leadership, job insecurity, and the gig economy. For Dutton, a professor emeritus, this was only the latest honour in a distinguished career. 

Michigan Ross has a long history with experiential learning. They broke ground with their pioneering Multidisciplinary Action Projects (MAP) approach nearly 30 years ago, and the endeavor entered its latest phase in 2018 with the introduction of Ross Experiences in Action-Based Learning (REAL). 

1. 

University of Virginia Darden School of Business

To anyone familiar with Darden, the first-place ranking of its teaching comes as no surprise: the school was ranked the number one educational experience in the world for eight years up to 2018. 

MBA students from the class of 2020 had already been surveyed in June by Bloomberg Businessweek and had scored Darden a perfect 100 in the category of 'inspiring and supportive' professors. 

This achievement has been no accident: Darden reveres great teaching. Darden profs include luminaries such as Greg Fairchild, who teaches strategic management, entrepreneurship, and ethics. Fairchild has been named one of the 20 most influential business professors alive today, with his work cited in major publications including Fortune, The Economist and The New York Times. 

The school is also looking to the future by investing in up-and-coming young academics who are already making their mark. In 2020, BusinessBecause included Gaurav Chiplunkar in our selection of 20 professors to watch. 

Looking at how these three schools have distinguished themselves in terms of their teaching, certain factors keep coming up: an emphasis on teaching as an end in itself; professors who marry academic strength with the ability to communicate on their subject; and educational approaches that get students as engaged as their passionate faculty.