The 50 best business schools in America

New Delhi: Having an MBA can give you an edge in the competitive world of business provided you pick the right school.Attaching the MBA to your name can affect your hiring chances, your networking abilities, and your innovation skills. Experts say an employee with a MBA learn valuable leadership, collaboration skills and a proper understanding about how to work effectively with different cultures. It is still not a surprise that recruiters hold people with MBAs to a higher standard—at least in interviews.Recently, Forbes magazine came out with a list telling about America's best business schools. Unsurprisingly, Stanford topped this year's list. On average, Stanford grads entered the school making $80,000, but made an average $221,000 five years after graduating -- the biggest salaries of any school on the list. Stanford has moved up from second position last year. Stanford grads tied for the highest paychecks entering school at $80,000, but they scorched the competition with the biggest salaries five years out of school. Their median total compensation of $221,000 was up from $205,000 two years ago for five years out grads.Stanford acts a feeder program to coveted employment spots like consultancies Bain, Boston Consulting Group and McKinsey, as well as tech giants Apple and Google.The ranking on full-time M.B.A programs is done every two years based on return on investment.Here is the complete list:1. StanfordStanford, CA 2. Chicago (Booth)Chicago, Illinois 3. HarvardCambridge, MA4. Pennsylvania (Wharton)Philadelphia, PA5.Northwestern (Kellogg)Evanston, IL6. Dartmouth (Tuck)Hanover, NH7. ColumbiaNew York, NY8. Duke (Fuqua)Durham, NC 9. Cornell (Johnson) Ithaca, NY10. Michigan (Ross)Ann Arbor, MI11. UNC (Kenan-Flagler)Chapel Hill, NC12. MIT (Sloan) Cambridge, MA13. UCLA (Anderson)Los Angeles, CA 14. UC Berkeley (Haas)Berkeley, CA15. Virginia (Darden)Charlottesville, VA 16. Carnegie Mellon (Tepper)Pittsburgh, PA17. Brigham Young (Marriott) Provo, UT18. Yale New Haven, CT19. Indiana (Kelley)Bloomington, IN20. Iowa (Tippie)Iowa City, IA21. Texas-Austin (McCombs) Austin, TX22. Michigan State (Broad)East Lansing, MI23. NYU (Stern) New York, NY24. Emory (Goizueta) Atlanta, GA25. Minnesota (Carlson) Minneapolis, MN26. Penn State (Smeal) University Park, PA27. Washington (Foster) Seattle, WA28. Purdue (Krannert) West Lafayette, IN29. Notre Dame (Mendoza) St. Marys, IN30. Texas A&M (Mays) College Station, TX31. SMU (Cox)Dallas, TX 32. Wisconsin-MadisonMadison, WI33. Georgetown (McDonough)Washington, DC34. Washinghton U-St. Louis (Olin)St Louis, MO35. Georgia TEch (Scheller)Atlanta, GA36. Ohio State (Fisher)Columbus, OH37. USC (Marshall)Los Angeles, CA38. Rochester (Simon)Rochester, NY39. Vanderbilt (Owen)Nashville, TN40. BuffaloBuffalo, NY41. Rice (Jones)Houston, TX42. Maryland (Smith)College Park, MD43. Wake ForestWinston-Salem, NC44. Boston UBoston, MA45. Illinois-Urbana-ChampaignChampaign, IL46. ConnecticutMansfield, CT47. William & Mary (Mason)Williamsburg, VA48. Pittsburgh (Katz)Pittsburgh, PA49. Georgia (Terry)Athens, GA50. UC DavisDavis, CA