An MBA in general is expected to get you to places: the coolest internships, the best networks and the hottest jobs. Well it should, considering the income you'll lose in the years while you take up the full-time MBA program on top of how much actual attendance would cost.

Not to be pessimistic about it but the estimated cost of investing in an MBA degree could easily take you somewhere between $300,000-$400,000. So you better be prepared and pick the best school where you'd like to get your diploma from.

Bloomberg Businessweek ranked the schools using the following 2 main factors:

  • Employer Survey - measures recruiter opinion on how programs train and equip their graduates.

  • Student Survey - how well-prepared graduates feel about getting back into the workforce.

Other factors include surveys from both alumni and students, job placement rates and starting salaries.

Bloomberg's top 25 MBA schools include:

  1. Harvard University (Harvard Business School)

  2. Stanford University Graduate School of Business

  3. Duke University Fuqua School of Business

  4. University of Chicago Booth School of Business

  5. Dartmouth College Amos Tuck School of Business Administration

  6. University of Pennsylvania - The Wharton School

  7. Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management

  8. Rice University Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business

  9. Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management

  10. University of California Berkeley Haas School of Business

  11. Columbia University (Columbia Business School)

  12. University of Virginia Darden School of Business

  13. University of Michigan Ross School of Business

  14. Yale University (Yale School of Management)

  15. Carnegie Mellon University Tepper School of Business

  16. Cornell University Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management

  17. New York University Leonard N. Stern School of Business

  18. Texas A&M University Mays Business School

  19. University of Washington Michael G. Foster School of Business

  20. Emory University Goizueta Business School

  21. University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business

  22. University of California L.A. Anderson School of Management

  23. Brigham Young Marriott School of Management

  24. University North Carolina Kenan-Flagler Business School

  25. Notre Dame University Mendoza College of Business

Tags Mba, Bloomberg