レナード・N・スターン・スクール・オブ・ビジネス MBA Class of 2020

The Class of 2020 is decidedly smaller than its predecessors. 

• During the 2017-2018 cycle, the school lured 375 students, down from the 399 who comprise the 2019 Class. 
• There were 150 fewer applications, a number that’s coupled with a 2% uptick in acceptance rate to 23%.
• The average GMAT was  717 GMAT – up four points (the school’s best number since the 2016 Class). 
• The undergraduate GPA also remained relatively steady, slipping by a negligible .03 of a point. 
• The percentage of women slipped by three points
• There was a two-point gain with the percentage of international students. 
• The number of international students at Stern has jumped by eight percentage points over the past three classes, a tribute to the increasingly-cosmopolitan nature of the program.
• Last year, business majors accounted for 36% of the class. This year, that number was sliced to 29%. 
• The humanities and social sciences, which jumped a combined 4% (with humanities comprising 17% of the class and social sciences another 16%). Similarly, STEM majors climbed three points to 20%, with economics holding steady at 18%.
• Overall, Stern drew the largest percentage of students from the financial services sector. At 26%, finance professionals double their nearest bloc – consultants – which come in a 13%. 
• No profession makes up 10% of the class with the biggest blocs including technology (9%), entertainment and media (7%), military and government (7%), and consumer products (6%).

スタンフォード大学経営大学院 MBA Cohort 2020

ハース・スクール・オブ・ビジネス MBA Applications DOWN 7.5%

 BY: JOHN A. BYRNE ON SEPTEMBER 21, 2018 

UC-Berkeley Haas School of Business

UC-Berkeley’s Haas School of Business MBA applications for the Class of 2020 slipped by 7.5% to 3,821 from 4,132 a year earlier. The decline lifted the school’s ultra-low acceptance rate slightly from 12% last year.

• But the average class GMAT score increased one point to 726, up from 725 a year earlier.
• In the past five years, the school has increased its average GMAT by 12 points from
• The middle 80% range of GMAT scores for its newest class went from a low of 690 to a high of 750.
• The average GRE score for the Class of 2020 was 165 for the verbal, with an 80% middle range of 160 to 169 and a 164 for the quant with an 80% middle range of 160 to 170. 

This is the first time Haas published GRE data, largely because, also for the first time, more than 10% of the incoming class submitted a GRE in their applications.

Other schools also saw declines

• Chicago Booth saw an 8.2% decline
• Harvard Business School experienced a drop of 4.5%
• Wharton was down by 6.7%. 

INTERNATIONAL APPLICANTS DOWN AT MOST U.S. SCHOOLS

Most of the declines are in applications from non-U.S. candidates who are have been turned off by anti-immigration talk and concerns over getting student and work visas in the U.S. Some U.S. MBA programs have had double-digit drops in year-over-year applications.

• At Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, for example, this year’s international student percentage is 29% based solely on international citizenship. 
• Haas reports that its newest class is composed of 42% international passport holders from 39 countries.

LARGEST INCOMING CLASS EVER AT HAAS

• Haas enrolled a class of 291 students this year, its largest incoming class ever, up from last year’s record of 284, with 43% women, up from 39% last year. 
• 38% of the class is composed of U.S. minorities. 
• The average undergraduate GPA was 3.66, down from 3.71 last year, with a middle 80% range of 3.41 to 3.90. 
• Students have an average of 5.4 years of work experience, with the mid-80% range of 3.3 to 8.0.

The most popular undergraduate majors in this year’s Haas class? Economics tops the list, accounting for 21% of the class, followed by engineering at 16% and social sciences at 14%. Students who had majored in business or commerce total 11%, exactly the same percentage as those who majored in finance. Humanities majors make up 7% of the class, natural sciences 3% and math 3%.

CONSULTING INDUSTRY BACKGROUNDS ACCOUNT FOR 24% OF THE CLASS OF 2020

Consulting was the most common path to Haas this year, accounting for nearly one in four of the new students at 24% of the class. Banking and finance was next with 20%, while technology was third with 10% (see chart below). Nonprofit students represent 8% of the Class of 2020, while healthcare supplied 7%, energy 5%, and consumer packaged goods and retail 5%.

Source: UC-Berkeley Class Profile for Class of 2020

BY FUNCTION, 29% OF THE CLASS HAD A CONSULTING ROLE BEFORE COMING TO HAAS

Haas also published data in its class profile on the functions MBA students worked in before starting at Haas. Consulting also topped the list at 29%, more than twice as many students as finance which accounted for 12% of the class (see chart below).

Source: UC-Berkeley Class Profile for Class of 2020

MITスローン・スクール・オブ・マネジメント GMAT Reaches 728

 BY: JOHN A. BYRNE ON SEPTEMBER 14, 2018 

MIT Sloan students in class. Courtesy photo

MIT’s Sloan School of Management enrolled a class of MBAs this fall with the highest average GMAT scores in history, a six-point jump in the Class of 2020 average to 728 from 722 last year. On some level, the new average allows Sloan to catch up with some of its peer schools. At Columbia Business School, the latest entering class average GMAT soared eight points to 732 this year–the average at both Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.

MIT’s median GMAT score of 730, reflecting a ten-point rise from last year, now equals that of its cross-town rival Harvard Business School. MIT Sloan did not release the full range of GMAT scores for its 409 enrolled MBA students but did publish the middle 80% which is 700 to 760, scores that would likely discourage applicants with sub-700 numbers from applying to Sloan. At HBS this year, GMATs range from a low of 610 to a perfect score of 800, while at Kellogg they range from a bottom score of 590, topping out at 790.

Unlike an increasing number of schools–HBS, Stanford, Wharton, Yale–MIT Sloan chose not to publicize its average GRE numbers in releasing its newest class profile. Sloan does provide GRE ranges for the middle 80% of accepted students who took the GRE. Sloan reported that the 80% quant range was between 158 and 169, while the verbal fell between 154 and 169.

Ironically, international enrollment went up to 38% from 36% at a time when many school are reporting a decline in non-U.S. applicants and students. Women make up 42% of the newest Sloanies, exactly the same percentage as last year. Sloan said the new class hails from 49 countries. Class of 2020 students arrived at Sloan with an average 4.9 years of work experience.

31% OF THE CLASS MAJORED IN ENGINEERING AS UNDERGRADS

The school did not report on its application volume in the class profile. A year ago, Sloan received 5,798 applications, a slight rise of 91 more applicants, an applicant pool that led to last year’s 404-member class.

As is typical of MIT Sloan, engineers make up the largest undergraduate major (31% of the entering class) Economics (21%) and business (20%) are in second and third place. Humanities and social science majors represent only 14% of the entering class. In contrast, they make up 44% of Stanford’s entering MBA students.

When it comes to pre-MBA work experience, some 21% of the class is composed of consultants, with 19% from financial services and 18% from technology, media, and telecom. Another 14% had racked up their work experience in either the government or public sector, while 8% bring a background in industrials and 7% in the energy industry. Students with resumes that show they worked in the healthcare and life sciences fields account for 6% of the class, consumer goods and services 5%, and professional services 2%.

CORE COURSES COMPLETE AFTER FIRST　SEMESTER

One of Sloan’s biggest advantages is its curriculum. To call it “flexible” would be an understatement. For one, the core courses last just one semester. In other words, students can spend the second semester pursuing their passions and doctoring their deficiencies through electives. Between Sloan’s exacting academics and hands-on opportunities, students can gain a subject level mastery and industry-based experience that provides a huge head start before they even start their internship. Such flexibility is complemented by the Sloan Innovation Period (SIP), a week-long break between the quarters where students can make global or industry treks or participate in intensive workshops on topics like strengthening leadership or delivering a TED Talk.

Such wrinkles appeal to a different type of student – one who is heavily in demand by employers. According to U.S. News’ 2017 survey of business school administrators, Sloan ranks as the top program in bread-and-butter specializations of information systems and operations according to business school administrators. At the same time, it places among the top schools for logistics, entrepreneurship, and finance. Not surprisingly, Sloan grads earn some of the heftiest paychecks starting out, including a $145,826 average for the Class of 2016.

Such outputs are the result of high satisfaction results among employers. In fact, Sloan earned the second-highest marks in Bloomberg Businessweek’s annual recruiter survey in 2016, which Dean Schmittlein attributes to their graduates’ penchant for impact and selflessness. “’Your graduates simply go farther, faster, in our firm than the graduates of other schools.’  That is what I hear most – from the firms that track such things.  Our graduates do more to move the whole organization forward (not just moving themselves forward), and that keeps them coming back.”

ダーデン・スクール・オブ・ビジネス Class of 2020

Like many of its peer schools, the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business MBA Class of 2020. 

• 335 
• Record average GMAT score of 718
• International students  29 percent of the entering class, down from 34 percent a year earlier. 
• The incoming class represents 36 different countries, on par with the Class of 2019.

マクドノー・スクール・オブ・ビジネス Applications Fall 16.2 Percent

Georgetown McDonough’s full-time and evening MBA Class of 2020 ranks as one of the most “academically qualified and professionally experienced” in the school’s history.  

• At 693, the average GMAT score for the full-time MBA class set a new school record, while the median of 700 “holds steady from previous years.” 
• The average work experience is up 0.23 years from 5.36 to 5.59 years. 
• International students in the full-time MBA Class of 2020 come from 37 countries. 
• Total applications (1,459) represent a 16.2 percent drop year over yea

フュークア・スクール・オブ・ビジネス Class of 2020

As the MBA Class of 2020

• The top three industries pursued by graduates of the Class of 2017, the most recent class for which employment data has been published, were consulting (33 percent), finance (25 percent), and general management (20 percent).
• Of the 440 incoming students, 42 percent are women, an 8 percent increase over the Class of 2019. 
• Incoming students come from 19 different fields. Unlike the Class of 2019, consulting makes up the largest sector of incoming students, accounting for 24 percent of the Class of 2020. 
• Students with financial services work experience make up 22 percent of the class, a 2 percentage point decrease over last year, when they outnumbered all others.
• Other popular pre-MBA fields include hospital/healthcare/health services (7 percent), information technology (5 percent), nonprofit/education/special organization (5 percent), and energy/chemical/gas (5 percent).

Fuqua offers students the ability to tailor the curriculum to suit their individual professional needs. Students are only required to take 13 core courses, all but one of which are completed in the first year.

This allows students to get into their specialized work more quickly. When they get to this point, students at Fuqua can choose from 14 different concentrations and more than 100 electives. This is in addition to the various opportunities that students are provided to study abroad, gaining extra knowledge that can make them more marketable after graduation.

ゴイズエタ・ビジネス・スクール Class of 2020

Emory MBAs welcome you to campus with a Coca-Cola toast.

APPLICATIONS UP OVER 17%

• During the 2017-2018 cycle, the school received 202 more applications than the previous year – or a 17.6% jump. 
• At the same time, the class size rose by nine students, though the acceptance rate did rise from 32.2% to 37%. 
• Average GMATs climbed three points to 685, though undergraduate GPAs did slip by .1 of a point.
• The Class of 2020 Both classes attracted 30% women to its ranks
• International students account for 28% of the incoming class. 
• Overall, the class boasts students from 21 countries, not to mention 11 U.S. military veterans.

タック・スクール・オブ・ビジネス Class Profile

Incoming MBA students in the Class of 2020 at Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business

Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business says applicants to its full-time MBA program rose slightly, by 0.4%, in the 2017-2018 admissions cycle to 2,621, from 2,610 a year earlier. That compares with declines of 2.6% at Columbia Business School, 4.5% at Harvard Business School, 6.7% at Wharton, 7.6% at Yale SOM.

The modest uptick allowed Tuck to maintain last year’s all-time high average GMAT score for incoming students of 722 and increase its average GRE scores to a new record. 

GMAT Scores

• The full range of overall GMAT scores for enrolled students was 620 to 780. Tuck’s average GMAT of 722 is among the highest reported by a top school, behind the 732 reported by Columbia, Wharton and Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. 

GRE Stats:

• Some 15% of the 287 students in the school’s Class of 2020 got into Tuck with a GRE,
• GRE verbal average at 163, up from 161 last year, and the quant average at 161, up from 158 a year earlier.
• Students who entered with a GMAT scored an average on the verbal of 41, with a low of 31 to a high of 50, and an average of 48 on the quant, with a low of 37 and a high of 51. 

GPA

• The average GPA   was 3.49, just a bit lower than last year’s 3.52 GPA. 
• The lowest GPA of an enrolled student this year was 2.61, while the high was 4.0.

WOMEN

• A record 45%, from 44.5% last year. Along with Wharton, Tuck could boast the highest percentage of women in its MBA class of any U.S. school last year. 
• The University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business broke the gender parity mark by enrolling a Class of 2020 that is 52% female. 
• Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management earlier announced that women will make up a record 46% in its Class of 2020 — an increase of four full percentage points from last year’s incoming class.

INTERNATIONAL

• 36% of the Class of 2020 are international, a percentage that includes both dual citizens and permanent residents. Tuck said that 42 countries are represented in the new class by citzenship, a 10% increase from last year’s class
• 34 nations by birth, and 33 by professional experience. 
• Counting dual citizens in both countries, 71% of the new class are citizens of the U.S. and Canada, 16% are from Asia, 8% from Europe, 7% from Latin America, and 2% each from the Middle East and Africa as well as Oceania.

ONE IN FOUR NEW MBA STUDENTS AT TUCK HAVE FINANCIAL SERVICES ON THEIR RESUMES

When it came to the pre-MBA professional backgrounds of the Class of 2020, the largest single group racked up work experience in financial services, 26%. Consulting came next with 19%, followed by nonprofit and government students with 15% of the total. New MBA students who had worked in technology represent 12% of the class, while those who came from consumer goods and retail account for 6% of the newest students. Some 6% also came from energy, 5% from healthcare pharma and biotech, 5% from media and entertainment, and 4% from manufacturing.

Counting only their most recent jobs, the first-year students came to Tuck from 225 unique employers, and have on average 63 months of professional experience, a touch more than five years.

Students who had majored in the arts, humanities and social sciences during their undergraduate studies make up slightly more than half the class at 51%. The STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) contingent represents 29% of the Class of 2020, while business majors compose 20% of the new students.

A good chunk of Tuck’s new class came to school with partners, some 32% of the class, while 4% have children in tow.

Class of 2020 orientation at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business

イェール大学経営大学院 Applications Drop 7.6%, But All-Time High For GRE Students

 BY: JOHN A. BYRNE ON SEPTEMBER 09, 2018 |  2 COMMENTS  2,071 VIEWS

Yale School of Management.

After a five-year span during which MBA applications soared by 60.5%, Yale University’s School of Management saw a 7.6% drop in candidates for its latest incoming class. 

The decline—the first since 2014—is in line with all of SOM’s peer schools which have seen application downfalls of between 6.7% at Wharton to 16.7% at UVA’s Darden School of Business.

• Yale SOM said applications fell to 3,785 for the 347 seats in its Class of 2020, down from 4,098 last year—the first time the school crossed the 4,000-mark in application volume. 
• The acceptance rate for this year’s class was 20%, up from its record low of 17% last year, and the yield—the percentage of admits who enroll as students—was 45%, down four points from 49% a year earlier.
• The dropoff in apps resulted in a lower average GMAT score as well: 724 vs. last year’s record 727. The school said the 80% middle range was 690 to 760. 
• The median GMAT score of 730—exactly the same score as Harvard Business School—remained the same. 
• The average undergraduate grade point average for this year’s class remained the same as last year, a 3.67, with a middle 80% range of 3.36 to 3.92.

RECORD NUMBER OF MBA STUDENTS WHO GOT IN WITH A GRE SCORE

No less noteworthy, one in four of this year’s incoming class got into the school with a GRE score. That is a new record, a more than 25% increase from the 18% of last year’s class. Harvard Business School also reported a 25% increase in MBA students who had submitted GRE results this year, with 15% of HBS’ class enrolled with GREs (see Harvard MBA Apps Down 4.5% But Few Changes in Class Profile). Two years ago, Yale peaked out at 22%.

“The Class of 2020 has the highest percentage of GRE scores to date, though the number isn’t a dramatic departure from prior years,” explains Laurel Grodman, director of admissions for analytics and evaluation. “That said, there has been a definite increase in the percentage of applicants submitting GRE scores over the past couple of years, with this year being the all-time high.”

Yale said the average GRE verbal score was 165, while the average quant score on the GRE was 163. The median numbers were 165 for the verbal, with an 80% middle range of  159 to 170, while the median quant was 163, with amid-80% range of 158 to 169. “SOM has accepted the GRE for more than a decade, so we’ve been quite comfortable considering both GMAT and GRE scores as part of our evaluation,” explains Grodman. “And the program attracts a high number of joint degree candidates, who are often more likely to submit GRE scores.”

CITIZENSHIP BY REGION FOR YALE SOM’S CLASS OF 2020

Citizenship by region for Yale SOM’s Class of 2020

In releasing the new class profile for its latest crop of incoming students, Yale also reported that the school equalled last year’s enrollment of women in the new MBA class at 43% and managed to keep its representation of international passport holders steady at 45%, down just a percent in a year when many schools have reported significant declines in international students. That metric includes permanent residents of the U.S. and U.S. dual-citizens, SOM said its new class is made up of citizens of 51 different countries, from Australia to Zimbabwe (see above map on citizenship by region of the Class of 2020). Underrepresented U.S. students of color make up 12% of the class, unchanged from a year earlier. The average work experience for the new Yalies came to 4.8 years.

Yale also said that the class of 347 students includes 16 Silver Scholars–SOM’s deferred admissions program– and 10 former U.S. military members. Some 12% of the MBA students come to SOM already having a graduate degree on their resumes. Roughly 11% are pursuing joint degrees with their MBAs, including 15 Master of Public Health candidates, five JDs and four MDs.

Some 29% of the incoming MBAs have undergraduate degrees in science, technology, engineering and math, the same percentage as those who have degrees in the humanities and social science fields. Some 21% were business majors, while another 21% had majored in economics while undergraduate students.

INCOMING STUDENTS GAINED THEIR UNDERGRAD DEGREES FROM 188 DIFFERENT SCHOOLS

And when it came to pre-MBA work experience, one in five came to SOM from two fields, consulting and financial services, each with 20% of the Class of 2020. Some 12% of the new students hail from the nonprofit sector, highest for any top business school, while 8% had worked in technology and another 8% for the government.

Students come from a range of academic institutions (188 different schools are represented) and backgrounds, from engineering to the arts, including one who double-majored in mathematics and studio art, and another who majored in finance and philosophy. They’ve received various academic awards and honors, from magna and summa cum laude to Phi Beta Kappa to Fulbright Fellowships and Gates Millennium Scholarships.

The professional credentials of the incoming class are equally diverse, covering all sectors and a range of industries, including positions at large financial firms such as Barclays, J.P. Morgan, and Goldman Sachs; major consulting firms like McKinsey, Bain, Booz Allen Hamilton, and Deloitte (the most common pre-MBA employer); and a host of other employers such as General Mills, Unilever, Lincoln Center, Hulu, ideas42, Google, PepsiCo, the Federal Reserve Board of New York, and many others. The class includes members of all branches of the United States military, investment officers from the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund, a public relations strategist for Industrial Light & Magic, and the COO of the largest chain of coffee shops in Nigeria.

ONE INCOMING MBA STUDENT WON $100K FROM MARK CUBAN ON SHARK TANK

In a blog post on the new class, Assistant Dean for Admissions Bruce DelMonico says the students are among the most diverse and accomplished the school has ever welcomed to New Haven. “Among them are musicians who play instruments as varied as violin, piano, guitar, flute, clarinet, bassoon, trombone, and drums,” adds DelMonico. “They are into bluegrass music and Frank Sinatra. They dance—from ballet to belly to Bollywood. And they sing—a cappella, contemporary, and opera, among genres. They are varsity athletes and captains across a range of sports, as well as marathoners, triathletes, and Tough Mudders. No less enthusiastic are the devotees of Ultimate Frisbee, kickball, dodgeball, and roller derby.

“They speak innumerable languages, from Spanish to Russian to Arabic to Mandarin to Hindi to Vietnamese to Twi and beyond. One student won $100,000 from Mark Cuban on Shark Tank and is a Forbes 30 Under 30 recipient for social entrepreneurship. Another successfully navigated a motorcycle over the world’s highest drivable pass. Yet another is the Kit Kat brand manager for the Middle East. They are professional ski and sailing instructors, private pilots, Mensa members, black belts, Eagle Scouts, mixologists, patent holders, SCUBA divers, and certified phlebotomists.

Five Questions to Ask Yourself Before Submitting an Optional Essay

We realize that the questions of whether to answer an optional essay and, if so, what to say are ones that loom large for many MBA applicants at this time of year. While we’ve been offering a great deal of school-specific essay advice over the past few weeks, we wanted to take some time to suggest a few considerations that applicants might want to take into account when making this call.

Is it relevant?

Perhaps this goes without saying, but the only information worth sharing in an optional essay is that which will make a material difference in your candidacy. Whether you wish to comment on an exciting leadership role you’ve just taken on or explain that you were overextended extracurricularly during that one bad semester in college, make sure to think carefully about whether this information will enhance the reader’s perception of your potential to succeed in the classroom and contribute to the school’s MBA community.

Was it requested?

Most schools do request that applicants use an optional essay to address certain issues, such as a failing grade in a degree program or the absence of a recommendation from one’s current direct supervisor. In spite of the technically optional nature of the question, it’s very important to follow directions and provide this information if a school requests it.

Also along the lines of what information is requested, it’s wise to think carefully about a school’s other essay questions before deciding to provide “bonus material” in an optional essay. Each required essay response affords applicants a chance to introduce the information about their background and interests that they consider to be most important (within the confines of the prompt, of course). Your objective should be to provide as complete a picture of your candidacy as possible within the framework of a school’s required essays (as these are a good indication of what a given program is most interested in hearing about) and to only introduce information in an optional essay that you could not have covered elsewhere without sacrificing something more essential.

Is it welcome?

As many schools have reduced the number and length of their required essays over the past several admissions seasons (and thus reduced the opportunities applicants have to offer information about their backgrounds), it has become increasingly acceptable to use an optional essay to showcase one’s strengths and potential to contribute to the community. Most programs signal their openness to “bonus” content in the wording of their optional essay prompts. If a school invites applicants to use the space to share anything else they would like to convey to the adcom, then it’s appropriate to highlight material that supports your candidacy and might not have fit with the program’s required essay responses. Meanwhile, if a program specifies that the optional response be used only to address extenuating circumstances or explain potential liabilities, it’s generally not advisable to stray from those subjects.

Is it constructive?

Once you’ve decided that a detail is relevant to your candidacy and merits mentioning in an optional essay, the next step is to think carefully about the way this information might be perceived and make sure that the impact it makes on your chances of admission is a positive one. For instance, an essay that simply alerts the adcom to a serious medical condition might help its author stand out from other applicants, but it could also leave the reader wondering whether this person could handle the demands of a rigorous academic program. On the other hand, a few details about this applicant’s strategies for achieving success in spite of some kind of disability and commitment to supporting others with a chronic illness or impairment might make him or her seem like a very valuable addition to the business school community.

Is it concise?

It’s always a good idea to be mindful that when you respond to an optional essay, you’re creating extra work for the person reading your file. While this should not dissuade you from addressing a topic that you have deemed important based on the considerations above, it’s very important that you demonstrate good judgment by limiting your comments to the most relevant information and keeping your response as direct and concise as possible.

ハーバード・ビジネス・スクール Applications Drop 4.5%

 BY: JOHN A. BYRNE ON SEPTEMBER 05, 2018 | 

Applications to Harvard Business School dropped 4.5% last year but the decline had no impact whatsoever on any of the key numbers in the class profile for its latest incoming crop of MBA students. The school’s admit rate of 11% remained unchanged as did the school’s median 730 GMAT score and undergraduate GPA of 3.71.

HBS released the new Class of 2020 profile today (Sept. 5), the day of its round one deadline for next fall’s class when Harvard expects a huge spike in new candidates. This is the first year that HBS has eliminated its round three deadline which suggests a much larger round two with a Jan. 4 deadline than would otherwise have occurred.

The school said it received 9,886 applications fo the class, down from 10,351 a year earlier. Last year, HBS apps rose 6% to top the 10,000-mark for the first time since 2002 when just 31 more people applied to the MBA program. The vast majority of highly ranked MBA programs in the U.S. have been reporting application declines this year (see MBA Apps Take A Shocking Plunge). HBS’ decline was on the low side, considering that many schools have reported double-digit drops.

‘IT’S HARD TO CAPTURE A CLASS IN THESE STATISTICS’

Chad Losee, managing director of MBA admissions and financial aid at Harvard Business School

“We are still slightly up from two years ago because last year we saw a big increase,” says Chad Losee, managing director of MBA admissions and financial aid. ”But we’re not trying to get more applications. We are trying to reach more solid candidates.”

While the publication of the school’s class profile gives would-be applicants the latest glimpse at what type of candidates get into an MBA program, Losee cautions reading too much into the metrics. “It’s so hard to capture a class in these statistics,” he tells Poets&Quants in an interview. “We don’t think about it in terms of statistics. We think about each person we are admitting and the voice that person brings to the class.”

In fact, the sparse statistics in a class profile could disguise more significant changes in the makeup of Harvard’s incoming class. “One thing we have focused on over the last 18 months is really making sure how socio-economically diversed HBS is,” explains Losee. “We launched the Forward Fellowship and our need based fellowships look at individual student income and assets (see HBS Adds Scholarship Support For Low Income Students). What we found is that there were students who came from low income backgrounds who were still supporting their families. We wanted to find a way to support them and students who get the Forward Fellowship receive an extra $30,000 in addition to need-based aid. It’s been meaningful to both students and prospective students.”

SOME 930 STUDENTS MAKE UP HARVARD’S MBA CLASS OF 2020

One stat you won’t find in the class profile, for example, is the number of first-generation college students. This year, however, 79 members, or 8.5%, of the HBS Class of 2020 are “first in family,” meaning that neither parent graduated from college.

All told, 930 students started Harvard’s MBA program last Thursday, two more than last year. Yield—the percentage of admitted students who enroll in the class—slipped to 90% from 91%. That number, the highest reported yield for any prestige business school in the world, has largely been in a tight range from 89% to 91% for many years.

Unlike several other peer schools, HBS did not experience a significant fall in international applicants. In fact, the school enrolled a slightly larger class of international students this year than last, 37% from 69 countries versus 35% from 70 nations for the Class of 2019.

GRE SCORES INCREASING IN THE APPLICANT POOL AND THE ADMITTED CLASS

Losee says the 4.5% decline came from both domestic and internationals. “It’s pretty hard to tease out the effects of a really strong economy and other effects happening in the world,” he added. “For us, the trend of being a little flat this year was true for both domestic and international. They were both up last year and they were both down last year.”

The percentage of women in the Class of 2020 slipped to 41% from 42% last year. “We have 383 women enrolled this year and it’s a reallly strong group with lots of different backgrounds from all kinds of industries and from all over the world,” says Losee.

A higher percentage of enrolled students won acceptance with GRE scores this year, 15% versus 12% last year. That is a 25% year-over-year increase and a new record of GRE students at HBS. Losee says more applicants are submitting GRE scores and more of them are being admitted. He believes the school’s consistent message that it does not prefer one test over another is finally getting traction. “It continues to increase,” he says. “I think people are starting to believe we really are agnostic about the two tests. We want to see how well they are prepared for the classroom and which test they take doesn’t matter.”

Harvard said that the median quant score for the GRE was 163, with a range of 151 to 170, while the median verbal score was 165, with a range of 147 to 170.

GMAT RANGE FOR CLASS WENT FROM A LOW OF 610 TO A PERFECT SCORE OF 800

This year’s GMAT range for the Class of 2020 is 610 to a perfect score of 800, compared to last year’s range of 580 to 790. The median quant score was 49, with a range of 35 to 51, while the median verbal score was 42, with a range of 28 to 51.

Changes in the educational backgrounds of Harvard’s newest students also were largely inconsequential. The largest single chunk of MBA candidates majored in economics or business: 46%, up a single percent from 45% last year. STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) majors make up 37% of the Class of 2020, up a percent from 36% a year ago. Students who majored in the humanities and social sciences total 17%, down from 19% last year.

Harvard also disclosed that its newest class has undergraduate degrees from 134 domestic universities and 154 non-U.S. universities, though the school relies heavily on undisclosed feeder schools (see Top Feeder Colleges To Harvard Business School).

SOME 27% OF THE CLASS OF 2020 COMES TO HARVARD WITH A WORK BACKGROUND IN FINANCE

The pre-MBA industry backgrounds of this year’s students also saw small year-over-year changes. The largest industry represented in the class remains finance, with 27% of the students, roughly the same as last year. Some 16% of the class had jobs in venture capital and private equity, up from 15% a year ago, and 11% from financial services.

Students from consulting represent 16% of the new class, exactly the same as last year, while those from high tech and communications also account for 16% of the students, up a single percent from 15% a year earlier. “In tech and communications,” says Losee, “we have seen a slow and steady increase in applicants and the number of people in the class from 13% to 16% over the last five years. That mirrors what people are choosing to do out of undergrad as well. We have also seen new interest in our joint-degree program and our increasing collaboration with our engineering school.”

In early August, the school enrolled its inaugural class of 29 students in the new joint degree program HBS now has with the Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. The program targets applicants with undergraduate degrees in engineering, computer science or a related field and a work background developing tech-intensive products are eligible for the MBA/MS in engineering sciences program. Losee noted that the first class drew students with backgrounds in life sciences, aerospace, e-commerce, software, hardware, robotics, medical devices, fin tech, cybersecurity, and the military.

Harvard remains the gold standard for business schools in many ways, not least of which is the huge number of living alumni, more than 84,000, and alumni clubs around the globe:

LOSEE UNSURE OF HOW THE LACK OF A ROUND THREE WILL IMPACT HBS APPLICATIONS THIS YEAR

Government, education and nonprofit students account for 8% of the Class of 2020, versus 7% last year; healthcare and biotech students represent 7% of the class, same as last year; 6% come from the consumer products industry, while 6% had been in the energy and extractive minerals field, both the exact percentage of the previous class.

MBA students from the military account for 5% of this year’s entering class, also the same as last year, and students from the industrial and heavy manufacturing sector represent 4% of the Class of 2020, down a percent from 5%. Students in the “other services” category represent 6% of the class, down from 7% last year.

Losee wasn’t sure how the change to two rounds from three will impact this year’s application volume (see HBS Kills An MBA Admissions Round). “When we made the decision to cut round three, we were trying to think of what was best for the applicant and not the application numbers,” he says. “It could be the people who would have applied in a round three might show up next fall in round one.”

This year’s class profile, moreover, was put in a jazzy new and more attractive web design with a slickly produced video to convey the diversity of students.

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