For more than a decade, the Chicago Booth School of Business and the Wharton School of Business have been amongst the top five in the U.S. Both are highly ranked and offer some of the most competitive MBA programs in the world. Is one better than the other? And which one’s right for you? Here’s a BrainGain comparison.

Location
Based in the third largest city in the U.S., Booth’s location is advantageous for students wishing to study in one of the most diverse economies in the country, with contributions from sectors like finance, manufacturing, IT and healthcare. Chicago is the hub of economic activity in Illinois and is home to the headquarters of nearly 13 Fortune 500 companies^[1].

Wharton, on the other hand, is located in Philadelphia, the second largest city in the US East Coast. Philadelphia is the centre of economic activity in Pennsylvania. Almost similar to Chicago, Philly hosts the headquarters of 12 Fortune 500 companies^[2] including financial services, advisory services, media, manufacturing, tourism, healthcare and biotechnology.

Expenses
The tuition for the full-time MBA students at Chicago Booth is $72,000.The total estimated cost of attending the school for three quarters (9 months) including tuition and fees, books, rent, food, personal expenses, transportation, and a computer allowance—is $108,683^[3]. Booth offers financial aid in the form of scholarships, loans, fellowships and more. For more information on that, visit here.

The tuition for the full-time MBA students at Wharton is $78,948. The total estimated cost of attending the school for one year (12 months) including tuition and fees, healthcare insurance, room, board, books and supplies, transportation, personal expenses—is $111,900^[4].Wharton also offers financial aid in the form of scholarships, loans, fellowships and more. For more information, visit here.

Class Statistics
For the class of 2019, Chicago Booth had an acceptance rate of 23.5 percent.^[5] 36 percent of the students were international and originated from 59 countries. In a class size of 582 students, the GMAT range was between 620-790 with average work experience of about five years^[6]. Booth offers its graduates a network of approximately 47,000 alumni in 116 countries^[7].

For the class of 2019, Wharton had an acceptance rate of 19.2 per cent with nearly 32 per cent being international students from 65 countries. In a class size of 851 students, the GMAT range was between 570-780 with average work experience of about five years^[8]. Wharton offers its graduates a network of nearly 95,000 alumni in 153 countries^[9].

Curriculum
Chicago Booth offers a degree in MBA in four program formats: Full-Time MBA, Evening MBA, Weekend MBA, and Executive MBA. There is only one required course in MBA at Booth, on leadership. The rest of the program consists of foundation courses and electives. The duration of the full-time MBA program is 21 months with choice of electives from 13 concentrations including Finance, Human Resource Management, International Business and more.

Wharton offers a degree in MBA in three program formats: Full-Time MBA, Executive MBA and dual MBA programs. Students take six required courses in subjects such as leadership and statistics. They choose from one of 19 majors, ranging from business analytics to multinational management. The duration of the full-time program is 20 months with a choice of at least nine electives from nearly 200 courses^[10] across 10 academic departments including Innovation, Change, and Entrepreneurship, International Development Strategy and more^[11].

Careers
Both Booth and Wharton offer excellent career outcomes. According to each school’s MBA career report, they have offered jobs to nearly 97 per cent of the students after graduation. For Wharton, the average salary of alumni and graduates is around $142,000 per year whereas for Booth it is nearly $154,000^[12].

Majority of the placements from both schools has been high in finance with students landing jobs in Citigroup, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and JPMorgan Chase, among
other financial services firms. Both the schools have diversified their portfolio and are now focussing on building innovation and entrepreneurship. For example, Booth has the New Venture Challenge, a year-long program that carries MBA students through every step of creating a successful startup and Wharton provides the opportunity of a full semester in San Francisco, which is a startup hotspot.

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