Some business schools are harder to get in as compared to others. To know which business schools application process is highly competitive, MBA acceptance rate and yield rate are important statistics. These numbers become more useful if you are researching potential MBA programs. To help you with your research, we have compiled the acceptance rate and yield rate of top business schools in this article. This data is for the full-time MBA class of 2019.
Here is the definition of acceptance rate and yield rate:
Acceptance rate – It is the ratio of the number of admission offers made by the business school and the total number of applications.
Yield rate – It is the ratio of the number of admission offers accepted (students who enroll in the MBA program) and total number admission offers made by the business school.
MBA acceptance rate and yield rate of top business schools
MBA acceptance rate and yield rate of top business schools |
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| Business School | Acceptance rate | Yield rate | Applicants | Admits | Enrolled |
| Harvard Business School | 9.90% | 90.90% | 10351 | 1021 | 928 |
| Wharton | 19.20% | 67.10% | 6692 | 1287 | 863 |
| Stanford GSB | 5.70% | 89.10% | 8173 | 469 | 418 |
| Booth School of Business | 23.50% | 52.90% | 4674 | 1100 | 582 |
| Kellogg School of Management | 20.20% | 51.60% | 4595 | 926 | 478 |
| MIT Sloan | 11.60% | 60.30% | 5798 | 670 | 404 |
| Dartmouth Tuck | 23.00% | 48.80% | 2610 | 601 | 293 |
| Columbia Business School | 16.50% | 73.90% | 6188 | 1019 | 753 |
| UC-Berkeley – Haas | 12.90% | 50.90% | 4007 | 515 | 262 |
| Yale SOM | 17.40% | 48.80% | 4098 | 713 | 348 |
| Michigan – Ross | 25.30% | 48.00% | 3484 | 880 | 422 |
| Duke – Fuqua | 22.40% | 50.90% | 3796 | 851 | 433 |
| Virginia – Darden | 24.50% | 48.60% | 2743 | 671 | 326 |
| Cornell – Johnson | 29.90% | 56.00% | 1653 | 495 | 277 |
| UCLA – Anderson | 22.30% | 49.10% | 3315 | 740 | 363 |
| NYU – Stern | 20.90% | 48.50% | 3927 | 822 | 399 |
| CMU – Tepper | 29.90% | 40.70% | 1804 | 540 | 220 |
| McCombs | 27.80% | 36.80% | 2586 | 720 | 265 |
| UNC – Kenan-Flagler | 37.20% | 36.40% | 2151 | 800 | 291 |
| Emory – Goizueta | 34.60% | 36.80% | 1350 | 467 | 172 |
| Indiana – Kelley | 34.90% | 47.10% | 1240 | 433 | 204 |
| Washington – Foster | 22.40% | 38.60% | 1038 | 233 | 90 |
| Georgetown – McDonough | 47.80% | 33.10% | 1742 | 833 | 276 |
| Notre Dame – Mendoza | 41.90% | 49.40% | 633 | 265 | 131 |
| Rice – Jones | 27.20% | 53.40% | 813 | 221 | 118 |
| USC – Marshall | 29.10% | 38.70% | 1998 | 581 | 225 |
| Georgia Tech – Scheller | 31.10% | 53.30% | 489 | 152 | 81 |
| Washington – Olin | 39.70% | 31.00% | 1175 | 467 | 145 |
| Michigan State – Broad | 33.40% | 53.20% | 416 | 139 | 74 |
| Arizona State – Carey | 24.00% | 71.70% | 634 | 152 | 109 |
| Minnesota – Carlson | 36.80% | 42.30% | 565 | 208 | 88 |
| Wisconsin School of Business | 30.40% | 61.50% | 556 | 169 | 104 |
| Vanderbilt – Owen | 43.20% | 42.50% | 937 | 405 | 172 |
| Ohio State – Fisher | 37.20% | 54.80% | 446 | 166 | 91 |
| BYU – Marriott | 46.70% | 77.80% | 377 | 176 | 137 |
| Penn State – Smeal | 17.10% | 62.80% | 550 | 94 | 59 |
| Rochester – Simon | 30.00% | 31.30% | 894 | 268 | 84 |
| Purdue – Krannert | 37.30% | 36.30% | 332 | 124 | 45 |
| UC-Irvine – Merage | 25.00% | 47.30% | 737 | 184 | 87 |
| Maryland – Smith | 36.20% | 43.40% | 630 | 228 | 99 |
| Boston – Questrom | 40.00% | 38.30% | 1069 | 428 | 164 |
| Pittsburgh – Katz | 33.20% | 41.40% | 509 | 169 | 70 |
| Texas-Dallas – Jindal | 23.80% | 59.60% | 374 | 89 | 53 |
| Texas A&M – Mays | 33.80% | 35.80% | 479 | 162 | 58 |
| Boston College – Carroll | 39.70% | 32.70% | 617 | 245 | 80 |
| SMU – Cox | 45.50% | 51.40% | 457 | 208 | 107 |
| Rutgers | 36.60% | 30.20% | 443 | 162 | 49 |
| Georgia – Terry | 37.00% | 56.70% | 262 | 97 | 55 |
Data Source – Poets&Quants
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Hi Rajat,
Thanks for sharing the stats. These are really helpful. Just curious to know reason behind low yield rate for Booth, MIT and Wharton despite being a top 5 b-school.
Thank you for your question Nihal. This is a very good question.
Business schools are also a brand and some brands are stronger than the others. However, yield rate of a business school is driven more by brand alignment than brand recognition. No business school likes to be a safety school for applicants. Therefore, every business school tries to send admission offers to those applicants who will join it and not leave it for another business school.
In fact, this is one of the reasons why yield rate of W. P. Carey School of Business -Arizona State University (72%), which is not among the top 25 business schools, is higher than that of Wharton (67%), Chicago Booth (53%), MIT (60%).
Every adcom carefully analyses applications to find the perfect ones for their program.
Among the top most business schools only Harvard and Stanford have higher yield rates. The reason is that HBS offers case-driven teaching methodology that fosters a learning community which is highly diverse and accomplished. Moreover, we also can’t deny the prestige associated with the Harvard brand.
As far as Stanford is concerned, it takes a more customized approach towards learning. It is considered a place where you discover what you can be. That is something which is very popular among millennials who value authenticity and individuality. Moreover, the class size of Stanford is lowest among the top business schools.
Therefore, Stanford and Harvard are considered as destinations rather than fallback options for many applicants.
As the top 7 business schools align their brand to a similar applicant pool, therefore most of them give preference to Harvard and Stanford than Booth, Wharton, Kellogg, or MIT. Moreover, the applicants in this pool prefer waiting for one year than settling for a lower ranked business school. One exception is Columbia because, well, an IVY league school in New York is not a hard sell.
Mansi, one of our students, scored a 770 on the GMAT and received admits from Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, Kellogg, and INSEAD. She accepted the admit from Harvard. You can read here debrief here: https://e-gmat.com/blogs/gmat-770-v27-v42-admits-from-hbs-stanford-wharton-kellogg-and-insead/
So, yield rate is just an indicator of how well the business school is aligning its brand to the right applicants. I hope I have answered your question.