The Leonard N. Stern School of Business and its location are inextricably linked. After all, New York is part of the parent university’s name, and the campus sits in the middle of one of New York City’s most well-known neighborhoods, Greenwich Village. The MBA program at Stern is designed to capitalize on opportunities afforded by its location in the heart of New York City while creating a close-knit community and a collaborative learning environment.
Stern perhaps not surprisingly has a strong reputation in finance, with several world-renowned financial experts on its all-star finance and economics faculty. Further, considering that 29.4% of Stern’s 2023 graduates entered the financial industry in some capacity, some people understandably associate the school with such other top-tier business programs as UPenn Wharton and Chicago Booth—institutions that are frequently labeled “finance” schools. Yet Stern offers an abundance of resources for students interested in industries other than finance, and the school is particularly strong in entertainment and media as well as in marketing and international business. Although Stern and Wall Street may share close ties, one should not underestimate the number of non-finance corporations that are also headquartered in New York City.
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The NYU Stern MBA program consistently ranks among the top 15 programs in the country and among the top 20 in the world. The most prominent rankings, which include Bloomberg Businessweek, Financial Times, and U.S. News and World Report, have included Stern in their top 15 domestic business schools each year since 2020. In the 2024 U.S. News ranking, Stern is in seventh place.
Comparatively, Stern often ranks near such prestigious programs as Michigan Ross, Berkeley Haas, and Duke Fuqua.
The NYU Stern MBA program is highly selective. During the 2022–2023 application season, Stern received 3,075 applications and admitted 966 individuals. This means that the admission rate at Stern in 2023 was 31.4%.
Stern is not as selective as some business schools—for example, Stanford GSB accepts less than 10% of its applicant pool each year. The Stern admissions committee evaluates all applications in a holistic manner, without using any part of the application as a make-or-break aspect.
