Women in Leadership: Top 10 B-Schools by % of Females

There is no doubt that in 2014 that the percentage of women in leadership roles at big companies still remains troublingly low. As of January, the number of female CEOs at Fortune 500 companies stands at 23, with exactly the same number occupying equivalent positions in the rest of the Fortune 1000.

This despite the fact that 60% of graduates globally are women, and findings such as those of Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman in their study of 7,280 leaders in 2011, which showed that women in leadership were considered to be stronger performers at every level by their peers, direct reports and bosses – the gap widening the higher up the hierarchy you go.

However, the opposite is true in terms of representation. Indeed, the higher up the hierarchy you go, the lower the proportion of women in leadership positions – only 22% of top managers, 33% of the level below and 40% the level below that were women.

The challenges don’t end for female CEOs once they reach the top of the ladder – Mary Barra, CEO of GM, the highest placing Fortune 500 company (#7) with a female CEO, reportedly earns half of what her male predecessor did.

The same often holds true of business school cohorts. On average, the proportion of female candidates tends to hover around the 33% mark. However, there are notable efforts being made at top schools to address the imbalance, starting at the top with Harvard Business School’s well-publicized endeavors, which in time will hopefully address the lack of female CEOs and high-level managers. 

However, there are also top schools at which the proportion of female candidates is already impressively high. So, for International Women’s Day on March 8th, here are the top 10 schools featuring in QS Global 200 Business Schools report (the world’s top 200 business schools according to actively-hiring MBA employers) by the proportion of women in their MBA cohorts…

1. Hochschule Offenburg - University of Applied Sciences          

Proportion of female MBA candidates: 65%

Average GMAT score: 520  

2. The Business School, University of Exeter      

Proportion of female MBA candidates: 64%

Class size: 28

Average GMAT score: 600 

3. Solvay Business School, ULB (Universite Libre de Bruxelles) 

Proportion of female MBA candidates: 62%

Class size: 23

Average GMAT score: 600

4. Naveen Jindal School of Management, the University of Texas at Dallas      

Proportion of female MBA candidates: 60%

Class size: 63

Average GMAT score:  669

5. European University (Barcelona, Geneva, Munich) 

Proportion of female MBA candidates: 60%

Average GMAT score: 550 

6. Georgia State University, J. Mack Robinson College of Business         

Proportion of female MBA candidates: 57%

Class size: 26

Average GMAT score:  571

7. American University of Sharjah           

Proportion of female MBA candidates: 56%

Average GMAT score:  500

8. The Suliman S. Olayan School of Business, The American University of Beirut

Proportion of female MBA candidates: 55%

Class size: 78

Average GMAT score:  610

9. University of Victoria - Faculty of Business

Proportion of female MBA candidates: 51%

Class size: 53

Average GMAT score:  573

10. University of San Francisco, Masagung Graduate School of Management    

Proportion of female MBA candidates: 51%

Class size: 70

Average GMAT score:  570

Nb. Class size omitted where statistics not available