The Simon School was honored for its newly revamped MBA curriculum, which is the first in the country to offer a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) designation in every area of specialization, from banking and corporate finance to brand management and operations. A STEM designation makes the program especially attractive to international applicants, since federal government programs allow graduates of STEM-designated degrees to stay in the United States for three years of work experience, instead of the standard one year.

“Along with benefiting our students, these moves will give Simon a real competitive advantage, because we are the only true STEM business school,” says Simon Dean Andrew Ainslie.

Given that Simon has long used an analytical lens to research and teach finance, accounting, operations, marketing, and other facets of business education, the designation seemed a perfect fit, say the school’s leaders. As Gregory Bauer, dean of full-time programs at Simon and the Rajesh Wadhawan Professor, puts it: “We were analytical before analytical was cool.”

“The school leveraged its quant-heavy curriculum with a strong focus on analytics and economics to gain STEM designation,” wrote Poets & Quants in their review of the MBA program. “Simon was in a unique position to take advantage of the opportunity.”

The was also recently earned the STEM designation for both the bachelor of arts and bachelor of science programs for all five of the program’s tracks.

Along with this acknowledgement from Poets & Quants, in 2018 the Simon MBA program was also named one of the

“Simon has a long-standing commitment to diversity and inclusion in its classrooms,” says Andrew Ainslie, dean of the Simon Business School. “As we celebrate the social and economic achievements of women, we should acknowledge our progress yet understand there’s more work to be done.”

A total of 33 percent of Simon’s full-time MBA student body and more than half of the full-time MS student body is female.

“Attracting top female students to Simon has always been a priority,” says Rebekah Lewin, assistant dean of admissions at the Simon Business School. “Through the Forte Foundation and Simon Women in Business, we’ve developed crucial scholarships, symposiums and networking groups that help women flourish in business.”

The Financial Times ranking consisted of 11 different criteria, of which 70 percent was derived from alumnae responses and 30 percent from school-reported data. This ranking used similar methodology to the 2018 Global MBA Ranking. The 11 criteria include: salary today; salary increase; gender pay gap; number of female students; number of female faculty; women on the school’s advisory board; international mobility; value for the money; career progression; general satisfaction of students; and career services. A total of 58 schools met the minimum threshold of female responses to be ranked.