Acceptance Rates For MBA Admissions In Top US Schools Fall

Those intending to apply for MBA programs in top B-schools in the US will face a tough time with the increasing number of qualified applicants in the fray and limited seats resulting in rejection rates shooting up. However, all hope is not lost as there are Institutions that take in almost all the applicants.

The U.S. News Short List, after analysing admissions data in schools across the country, found that top ranked Harvard Business School (HBS) admitted just 10.7% of applicants while the second ranked  Stanford School of Business tightened the screws further, taking in only 6.1% for the fall of 2015.

In fact, acceptance rates at the top ten schools had just 15.6% of the applicants managing to get admission, the lowest level in the past four years. In 2014, 16.4% of their applicants were taken while in 2012, the figure was 17.0%.

The U.S. News Short List, after analysing admissions data in schools across the country, found that top ranked Harvard Business School (HBS) admitted just 10.7% of applicants while the second ranked  Stanford School of Business tightened the screws further, taking in only 6.1% for the fall of 2015.

The drop in the overall acceptance rate of the schools in the top 25 ranks to 20.3% last year, from 20.7% the previous year is attributed to a 2.5% increase, for the third year in a row, in the number of applications to 84,879. In the previous year, the number of applications was 82,794, up from 81,153 in 2013.

While MIT’s Sloan School of Management saw a hefty 35% increase in applications, UC-Berkeley’s Haas School recorded 12%, Yale’s School of Management 6% and Michigan’s Ross School of Business 5%.

At the other end of the spectrum are schools like the University of South Florida that took in all the 21 applicants in the fall of 2015.

The average acceptance rate among the 10 business schools with the highest acceptance rate was 85%. In comparison, the average acceptance rate for all 129 schools that reported the data to U.S. News was 44.7 %.  At least 72.9% of applicants to full-time programs were accepted at these schools.

Except for the Freeman School of Business at Tulane University and the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado Boulder, the other colleges are labelled Rank Not Published (RNP). Since they are ranked in the bottom one-fourth of the category, U.S. News decided not to publish the rank figures.

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Meanwhile, among the reasons for acceptance rates remaining low is that the number of institutions and seats was not going up keeping with the increasing demand. With the clamour for admission to top rated schools, applicants interest in second and third tier schools were decreasing.

Increase in the number of international applicants and women also brought additional pressure. Yet another factor was standardised tests like GMAT has become less of a hurdle with the facility to cancel unsatisfactory scores. Coupled with all these factors, the demand for MBA has been increasing both among the aspirants and industry with salaries going up every year and good prospects for return of investment. (Image Courtesy : pixbay)

(Source: P&Q analysis of publicly available data provided by schools to U.S. News)