The last several years have seen business schools taking strides towards achieving gender parity. This is evident from the fact that the number of female students in MBA programs has seen a steady rise over the years. Data from the Forté foundation’s member schools reveal that this figure was at 28% in 2002, 34% in 2014, 39% in 2020, 41% in 2022 and it went up to 42% in 2024.
According to the McKinsey 2023 report ‘Diversity Matters Even More’, companies in the top quartile for board-gender diversity are 27% more likely to outperform financially than those in the bottom quartile.
The report says, women have made substantial gains in the workplace and in leadership with the current global dataset showing that 1/5th of the executive team members are women, which is a third higher than that reported in 2020.
However, it’s also a fact that in spite of concerted efforts towards gender diversity and inclusion, women continue to be underrepresented across several MBA programs worldwide, which also reflects a broader imbalance in their numbers across senior leadership positions in corporate roles.
In this article we’ve shortlisted the world’s top full-time MBA programs for women that see the highest number of female MBA students. We have picked these schools from the Financial Times (FT) top 100 global business school rankings (2025).
We have also gone a decade back to compare those numbers with the present ones – in order to get a better perspective of how much business schools have progressed in this area.
Top global business schools with most women
| FT MBA rank | Business School Name | Country | % female students |
|---|---|---|---|
| 98 | Sungkyunkwan GSB | South Korea | 66% |
| 97 | Glasgow Adam Smith | UK | 64% |
| 30 | Fudan University School of Management | China | 62% |
| 77 | The Lisbon MBA | Portugal | 62% |
| 31 | Tongji University School of Economics & Management | China | 60% |
| 25 | Peking Guanghua | China | 58% |
| 41 | HKU | Hong Kong | 58% |
| 47 | ESSEC | France | 57% |
| 64 | EDHEC | France | 57% |
| 15 | Shanghai University of Finance and Economics | China | 56% |
Sungkyunkwan GSB in South Korea and Glasgow Adam Smith in the UK were among the top two worldwide with 66% and 64% female students respectively. This was followed by Fudan University School of Management which was at 62%. In fact, even a decade back, in 2015 FT global MBA rankings, Fudan MBA had recorded a very high women students’ enrolment at 59%.
Top 10 MBA programs in USA for women
| FT MBA Rank | Business School Name | % Female Students |
|---|---|---|
| 42 | Washington Olin | 53% |
| 54 | University of Texas at Dallas: Jindal | 53% |
| 11 | Duke Fuqua | 51% |
| 10 | Northwestern Kellogg | 50% |
| 6 | MIT Sloan | 49% |
| 31 | New York University Stern | 47% |
| 1 | Pennsylvania Wharton | 46% |
| 60 | Rochester Simon | 46% |
| 13 | Harvard | 45% |
| 2 | Columbia | 44% |
| 20 | Dartmouth Tuck | 44% |
| 59 | Arizona State University: WP Carey | 44% |
| 74 | Boston Questrom | 44% |
WashU Olin MBA which has achieved a record 53% female students, the highest among the US MBA programs, saw a huge jump from 28% a decade back in 2015. Duke Fuqua MBA also saw a significant rise in female enrolments during this 10-year period which went up from 34% to 51%. Kellogg too which had 35% female students back then in 2015, has now achieved a perfect gender parity at 50%.
Also read: MBA success stories of female applicants from India who dared to dream big
Top 10 MBA programs in Europe for women
| FT MBA Rank | Business School Name | Country | % Female Students |
|---|---|---|---|
| 97 | Glasgow Adam Smith | UK | 64% |
| 77 | The Lisbon MBA | Portugal | 62% |
| 47 | ESSEC | France | 57% |
| 64 | EDHEC | France | 57% |
| 91 | Edinburgh Business School | UK | 56% |
| 89 | Grenoble Ecole de Management | France | 52% |
| 28 | ESCP | France | 51% |
| 90 | Audencia | France | 50% |
| 26 | Oxford Saïd | UK | 48% |
| 35 | Cambridge Judge | UK | 47% |
| 56 | Rotterdam Erasmus | Netherlands | 47% |
The Lisbon MBA has made tremendous progress. The program which recorded only 21% female students back in 2015 FT MBA rankings has now reported 62% – that’s a 41% increase! At Oxford Saïd MBA, this figure went from 32% to 48% while at Cambridge Judge MBA, it increased from 30% to 47% during this 10-year period.
Top 10 MBA programs in Asia for women
| FT MBA Rank | Business School Name | Country | % Female Students |
|---|---|---|---|
| 98 | Sungkyunkwan GSB | South Korea | 66% |
| 30 | Fudan | China | 62% |
| 31 | Tongji University School of Economics & Management | China | 60% |
| 25 | Peking Guanghua | China | 58% |
| 41 | HKU | Hong Kong | 58% |
| 15 | Shanghai University of Finance & Economics | China | 56% |
| 12 | CEIBS | China | 51% |
| 65 | CUHK | Hong Kong | 51% |
| 27 | Indian School of Business | India | 47% |
| 37 | National University of Singapore | Singapore | 44% |
Among Asian MBA programs, a lot of business schools in China and Hong Kong recorded the highest percentage of female students.
Also read: How business schools are luring female applicants
Among Indian business schools, ISB currently reported the highest number of female enrolments at 47%, a 17% rise over the decade. Other Indian business schools still have a lot of catching up to do with the IIMs recording some of the lowest percentage of female student enrolments – the lowest being IIM Calcutta’s MBAEx at 13% and IIM Indore’s EPGP at 16%.
Percentage of women students at Indian business schools
| FT MBA Rank | Business School Name | % Female Students |
|---|---|---|
| 83 | XLRI — Xavier School of Management | 30% |
| 71 | Indian Institute of Management Lucknow | 29% |
| 57 | Indian Institute of Management Bangalore | 27% |
| 31 | Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad | 26% |
| 69 | Indian Institute of Management Indore | 16% |
| 61 | Indian Institute of Management Calcutta | 13% |
Data from Forté Foundation reveals that though women make up 47% of the workforce, in top management positions, their representation is still very low at 17% of board rooms and 4.8% of CEOs among the Fortune 500.
An advanced degree like an MBA from an internationally reputed business school can help accelerate their career trajectory helping them reach senior management positions. In fact, 85% of MBA grads attribute their MBA for their career advancement.
An MBA can also help boost compensation with women seeing pay gains of 35%-40% of their pre-MBA salary at graduation and 55-65% of their pre-MBA salary within five years of graduation.
Our experienced consultants at MBA Crystal Ball have helped thousands of candidates get into the top MBA programs. Drop us a line at info@mbacrystalball.com if you need help with your applications.
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