Cited: CNN

The executive MBA program at the prestigious Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania retained its status as the best of the best programs of any business school worldwide in a new 2012 survey by PoetsandQuants. A degree from the Wharton program does come with a somewhat hefty price tag however with an EMBA from the home campus in Philly costing about $167,160, while the same credentials from their campus in San Francisco will run you about $173,940.

Wharton has been the top corporate doggie traing ground for quite a while and for good reason; the program is the most competitive and hardest to get into in the first place; more so than almost any other graduate business school. It accepts only four out of every ten applicants and while others don’t even require that their prospective students take the Graduate Management Admissions Test, Wharton students have the highest average scores for the GMAT of any school, 700 out of a possible 800.

Following behind Wharton at number 2 is Chicago Booth, with Northwestern Kellogg, Columbia Business School, and New York University Stern filling out the top spots. The rankings from  PoestsandQuants are based on the overall reputation of these schools taking into account the latest ratings from BusinessWeek, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, and U.S. News and World Report. The rankings from these journals are blended together to come up with a list that reflects a more standardized measure without anomalies found in some other school reviews.

The executive MBA programs at these schools usually attract a more seasoned, older group with most applicants already having up to twelve years experience in the work force. And while the price of the EMBA is quite high in all of these programs, the average salary for a graduate with a Wharton EMBA exceeds the cost of the education so for most it is well worth the investment.

My take:

Wharton must be doing something right because they are constantly at the top of the business school rankings. And while the price seems a little high, it really isn’t anything if you can make more than the price of admission after just one year in the workplace.