BusinessPundit 2026 Rankings
#29 The Top 100 MBA Programs

Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management

Vanderbilt University · Nashville, Tennessee · Private

“Nashville's boom, with a health-care MBA at the center of it.”

Reviewed by David Krug · July 2026
Data anchored to the 2026 U.S. News table, Poets&Quants reporting, and school-published class profiles

Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management
82.5
Very goodBP Score
$138,000Tuition, total
705Avg. GMAT
40%Acceptance rate
86%Placed at 3 months
$145,000Median base salary

Our review

Nashville is the operational headquarters of American health care: HCA alone runs more than 180 hospitals from here. Owen built the MBA that industry actually orders: a health-care concentration with C-suite practitioners teaching and a placement pipeline into systems, payers, and health-tech.

Beyond the vertical, the school sells personal scale (175 students, professors who host students at home) and a city whose corporate recruiting grows every year — Amazon’s Operations hub, Oracle’s campus, a music-and-entertainment economy with real management jobs. Salaries near $145,000 track the top-20 pack at a friendlier cost of living.

What impressed us

  • Health-care capital. HCA and the systems economy hire the concentration directly.
  • Boomtown tailwind. Nashville's corporate base grows every cycle.

What gave us pause

  • Vertical concentration. The health-care strength dominates the identity.
  • Modest international reach. 30% international, mostly U.S.-focused recruiting.

The verdict

The default MBA for health-care management, and a rising general pick as Nashville's employer base compounds. Coastal prestige plays run through other cities.

82.5

Compare with similar programs

Full ranking →