The latest episode of “Business Casual,” hosted by John Byrne, Maria Wich-Vila, and Caroline Diarte Edwards, delves into the intriguing details of new class profiles from top business schools. As these profiles are released, they offer a glimpse into the changing dynamics of MBA admissions. From application volumes to test score preferences and demographic compositions, the hosts eagerly unpack the data to reveal trends and insights relevant to prospective applicants.

One standout observation comes from Maria, who highlights the significant increase in the percentage of Harvard’s incoming class submitting GRE scores. This shift, with 44% of students choosing the GRE over the traditionally dominant GMAT, signals a growing trend across top schools like Chicago Booth as well. The implications are profound for applicants considering which standardized test to focus on, as the GRE’s rising acceptance marks a broader change in admissions preferences.

Caroline draws attention to a concerning drop in international student numbers at Wharton. While peer schools maintain steady international representation, Wharton’s decrease to 26% raises questions about its admissions strategies or external factors influencing international applications. This drop not only affects classroom diversity but may also signal broader trends regarding the international MBA applicant landscape, perhaps influenced by geopolitical factors and visa challenges. Such insights are invaluable for applicants seeking to understand the competitive landscape and the evolving demographic profiles of top MBA programs.

Episode Transcript

Note: This transcript was generated by AI and may contain minor inaccuracies.

[00:00:07] – John

Well, hello, everyone. This is John Byrne with Fauts & Fonts. Welcome to business Casual, our weekly podcast with my co-host, Caroline Diarte Edwards and Maria Wickvilla. This is the time of year when most business schools start producing their class profiles. They let us know who entered their latest MBA programs in the fall of this year. You get a look at everything from application volume to GMAT and GRE scores to the class profile breakdowns by gender, by race, and geography, and a slew of other facts, like what industries are being represented in new cohorts. And as always, they’re always fascinating things to look at because in a way, these are the tea leaves to tell you who’s getting in and who’s not. And even though this is data that’s not individualized, so you don’t see the individuals in the data, it gives you an overall good picture of what’s going on. Just in this past week, Harvard and Kellogg joined the fray. Wharton and Stanford have been out in Columbia as well. But we thought we would read the tea leaves for you and tell you what we’re seeing in these new class program else.

[00:01:32] – John

Maria, what stands out for you?

[00:01:35] – Maria

Well, there were a number of interesting things that jumped out at me, but I think one of the things that was most interesting was the percentage of Harvard’s class that submitted GRE scores as compared to the GMAT. I think back when I went to business school 20-ish years ago, I think GRE must have been 5% or less of the class. I think it was really a small amount. Now, 44% of the entering class submitted the GRE. I wish I could say it’s unexpected, but I do think that, unfortunately, the new GMAT, I do believe, may have scared people away from the GMAT even more than they had already been scared. Unfortunately, it does seem that the GRE is taking… Well, fortunately, if you’re them, but unfortunately for GMAC, it does seem that the is taking more market share, but it really is stunning. I mean, at 44%, you’re practically… Half and half is not far behind. And so I think that for me was something that was real eye opener.

[00:02:43] – John

That is remarkable. And at Chicago Booth, this time, it was 29%. And while that may not seem like much of anything, particularly compared to the Harvard number, 29% at Chicago Booth is a big number because even when Every school, including Booth, was accepting GREs for admission. Booth was actually in the market telling people they prefer to GMAT, and now they’re up to 29% on GREs. I’m looking forward to seeing the IRS form filed by the Graduate Management Council because the previous one is back in 2023 when that organization had a net loss of over $10 million. I can only imagine what the net loss is going to be when the 2024 numbers come out, given these trends. Caroline, what are you seeing in these in these profiles?

[00:03:43] – Caroline

Well, something that jumped out to me was the drop in international students at Wharton. So looking at the statistics that you’ve published recently for Kellogg, Harvard, and Stanford, they all have a percentage of international students hovering We’re getting around 36, 37, 38 %, and that’s been fairly steady. But Wharton has dropped to 26 %, so a full 10 percentage points beneath peer schools, which is quite a dramatic difference. I think you start to feel that in the classroom and in the community, that it’s a significant drop in the class composition and the diversity, and of course, all the different perspectives and experience that those people can bring to the classroom. So it’s hard to know what’s driving that without having data on the applicant pool itself. I don’t know whether it’s a case of Wharton attracting fewer international candidates compared to peer schools, or whether there has been some change in how they evaluate international candidates and prioritize profiles for admissions, and how they’re looking to craft the class composition and diversity. So I’m not quite sure what’s going on there, but it’s a pretty dramatic drop and change compared to peer schools.

[00:05:12] – John

Yeah, that’s true. And I know that some deans have done that. In interviews for student visas by the Trump administration meant that some students were unable to get their visas in time for the fall start. So they may have passed as a result, unfortunately. And then just the unwelcoming messages may have convinced some internationals who were were in fact, admitted to say, Maybe this is not the right time to be coming to the US to get my MBA. I think next year we’re going to see a much more dramatic fall-off in international students because of the H-1B visa tax, because I think some of the messaging from the Trump administration has really been quite old, even more so, and have an impact. But I think that’s an early warning sign on some level for what’s to come on internationals. But generally, across seven, what the numbers do is that, man, it is still super competitive to get into one of these MBA programs. The admission rates are really tight. The standardized test scores are going up, at least the averages are. There are plenty of people who can’t get in and they’re turned down, even though they’re great quality candidates.

[00:06:54] – John

That’s just fascinating because I I would think that with the economy more uncertain today than it was for these applicants over a year ago, you’re going to see an increase in apps that will make it even more competitive into a full-time MBA program the following year, even though we would expect to see fewer international applicants in the pools. Any other things you saw? I think we also reported that North Northwestern Kellogg has withdrawn from the Forte Foundation. You’ll recall that we’ve talked about UVA Darden, having done that as well earlier on. The difference with UVA Darden, of course, it’s a public institution at the time and still is a conservative Republican governor with a lot of pressure on the school from the Trump administration, with a Department of Justice, conducting a couple of investigations at UVA and a group that had been affiliated with Stephen Miller in the Trump administration, singling out even the business school for so called violations of the ban on DEI. I can understand where a public institution, given that circumstance, would maybe walk from Forte and the consortium. But Kellogg is a private school in Illinois, and you would think that they really didn’t have to do that.

[00:08:38] – John

What do you make of that, Maria?

[00:08:41] – Maria

Yeah, it really seems like, at least of the schools that are not only announcing whether or not they’re staying in the consortium or forte or whatever. Kellogg also, in its latest class report, did not report minority percentage, did not report female percentage. It seems to me that Kellogg is very proactively getting in front of the avoidance of potential future criticism. Should things change? Should the zeitgeist change? Should they decide later on? They can always retroactively publish those numbers. But It seems to me that they’re maybe saying, Okay, it’s better to play it safe than sorry, let’s just not publish this information right now just in case it puts us in the crosshairs of some unwelcome political attention. That’s my take on it. So it seems like they’re playing safe because they left Forte and the consortium, and they’re not publishing some of these details of their class profile. So that, to me, says I think that they’re just trying to avoid what may be inevitable criticism facing a lot of these higher education institutions.

[00:09:49] – John

I think it’s crazy. I think it’s lawyers out of control. Here’s the deal with lawyers, people. Lawyers should advise you on how to minimize your risks. Lawyers should never be telling you what you should do. If you’re a leader out there of a Corporation or a business school, you make the decisions. The lawyers shouldn’t make the decisions. I guarantee you that Kellogg’s decision not to even publish gender data in their class profile is some heavy-handed lawyer getting way too involved in what should be a leadership position, a decision. That’s guaranteed. Guaranteed. Never mind how we feel about a private school withdrawing from forte in the support of female candidates, which I just find appalling. I can at least understand a public institution in a purple or red state, given all the pressures involved today. But I cannot understand a Northwestern Kellogg, a private institution in a state that is run by a very outspoken critic of Trump doing the same thing. It’s just mind boggling to me, frankly. Caroline, going through these tea leaves, do you see any other really interesting Are there interesting trends or ideas?

[00:11:17] – Caroline

Yeah, well, I think on Kellogg as well, I think maybe they stopped reporting some of that data because there had been some quite big drops last year. And perhaps those trends have continued and they don’t want draw attention to it. I suspect they got some bad PR last year from the stats that they published, and so have decided that it’s just easier not to have to discuss it, so let’s just not publish the data this year. Then people can’t use it to throw mud at you.

[00:11:52] – John

Yes, that’s true. Although I will say, the more you make it public, the more pressure you have to fix it, too. Anyway.

[00:12:02] – Caroline

Yeah, but I agree. It’s a terrible shame. Forte has done such amazing work over decades, and it’s had a huge impact, I think. And we have seen what a big difference Those efforts have made over the years to bring up a percentage of women in the classroom. And everybody benefits when business school and then businesses and corporations reflect society more accurately. So if this is the return of the dominance of white males, then it’s bad for business school, and it’s going to be bad for the recruiters that will be recruiting from those schools as well. So hopefully this is a temporary blip and not a long term friend.

[00:12:51] – John

Yes. And then, Stanford was an interesting one because they enrolled more US minorities in the latest class, 55 % versus 53. Internationals were roughly the same, only a one % decline of 38. Then women went up a one % to 45%. The high watermark at Stanford looks to be 47% back in the class of 2022. But that’s pretty good representation and pretty good diversity at the time when diversity seems to be attack. That’s, I think, pretty positive. The applications at Stanford, after a significant increase the previous year, pretty much held steady. They got 7,259 applicants for the 434 seats in the class. The year before, they had 7,295, so pretty much the same for 10 fewer seats in class. It is pretty interesting, though, how these stats pretty much hold. I mean, there’s some slight variation here and there, but pretty much year over year, They show you a picture of it’s really highly competitive and tough to get in these schools, which frankly is why people hire Caroline and they go to Maria’s applicant lab platform to get an edge because the competition is so severe. Any other thoughts on these on these profiles?

[00:14:36] – John

You know what I wish that the schools did that they don’t always do? They don’t always give you the admit rate. I wish that they did because sure, you can calculate it in some cases. But the truth is you have to wait for other releases of data, generally by US news, where this data is used in rankings to the actual admit rate. You can reengineer it with some of the stats that are in these class profiles, particularly when they give you app volume and you know the historical yield rates for these schools. But the actual admission rates, I think it’d be really helpful for us to see. Why do you think they don’t release that data on a normal basis in the class profile?

[00:15:28] – Caroline

Well, perhaps They feel that in some cases it doesn’t look, it doesn’t reflect very well on the school. As you’ve reported, Harvard and Stanford have incredible yield rates. But for some of the other schools, it’s going to be considerably lower. I guess they don’t want to be seen as a second choice to likes of Harvard and Stanford.

[00:15:55] – John

Never.

[00:15:58] – Caroline

Yield is It’s definitely something that the admissions office will be monitoring very carefully, and it’s an important metric internally, and something that they care very deeply about, because you want to be able to make sure that the best students from your pool actually come to your school, right? And the lower your yield is, the more people you have to admit, the less control you have over your class composition and a diversity and all of those good things. So they care a lot not about the yield, but it may be somewhat sensitive for some schools, and perhaps that’s why they don’t want to publish it.

[00:16:37] – John

Yeah, right. And the yield at Harvard, just so people know, is in the high ’80s. I It goes up and down a point or two from year to year. You think it’s around 87, 88% currently. And Stanford is just slightly above it at like 90, 91. What that means is that 85% of those who were accepted to get into the MBA program at Harvard essentially went and got enrolled. The remaining people either went to a different school or for personal reasons, they decided not to go. Maybe they got a promotion at their job. Maybe there was something else that happened to them in their personal lives that prevented them from going and getting the MBA this year. A lot of times, it’s people who basically you get a full ride at another school and you decide, I don’t want to go into debt at Harvard or Stanford, or for whatever reason, a specialty, a connection with a faculty member, something else that goes on. You choose a school that… Some people may say, Well, you got on the Harvard? Why wouldn’t you go to Harvard or Stanford? But there are plenty of reasons why people make those decisions.

[00:17:57] – John

Maria, I’m sure over the years, you’ve seen People make these decisions all the time, particularly when there’s scholarship aid involved, and someone doesn’t have to go to a bank and borrow a lot of money to get an MBA.

[00:18:10] – Maria

Exactly. If you’re qualified enough to get accepted to a Harvard or a Stanford, you’re also probably very likely going to not only get accepted to other schools, but perhaps get significant scholarships at those other schools. So very frequently, some of the schools that have the full ride type of scholarships I frequently see people, if somebody gets one of those full rides, that tends to correlate pretty highly with later on getting good news from a Harvard or Stanford. So then at that point, you really need to think about… It’s one thing to say, well, it’s a delta of $20,000 or $30,000. But if you’re talking a full ride over two years, for some people that is significant. I think especially for folks who may be considering a pivot into social enterprise after business school, at that point, you start thinking about, Well, will this free me up to pursue the career I really want to and not keep me handcuffed to one of the higher paying jobs after graduation for a few years? I’ve also seen people, and you alluded to this a second ago, I know someone who got into HBS but ended up going to one of the schools in Chicago instead because of family reasons.

[00:19:16] – Maria

Like the whole family is based in Chicago, looking to settle there. So from a networking perspective, making that city the center of gravity for your life makes a lot of sense. So there’s a number reasons. But the fact is, if you get into a Stanford or a Harvard, they’re pretty sure you’re going to go.

[00:19:36] – John

The other thing in the Harvard class profile I found interesting is that 43% of the admits had stem undergraduate backgrounds. That’s up three percentage points from the previous year, and that looks to be an all-time high. Obviously, STEM grads are looking really good at Harvard Business School in terms of admissions. I think having that background sets you up to do really well on the quants side, both on your standardized test and in the school with whatever quants required in the core. Humanities, 16%, EconBiz undergrads at Harvard, 41%. You can see all these stats and more by just coming to the Posts and Quants website and asking in the search box for the latest class profile for whatever school you’re interested in. It’s fascinating reading, particularly when We look historically at how these numbers look across the board. For Harvard, we have them for, I think, 10 years, which is pretty incredible, frankly. The latest admit rate at Harvard, I should We’re going to point out, is 11. 3%. That is our estimate based on what we think the yield is and given the number of applications received by the school last year. Caroline, any last words on any of this stuff?

[00:21:15] – Caroline

I think that the data also shows the enduring appeal of a top business school and one of the top MBA programs. And every so often there are proclamations of the demise of the MBA. We saw some articles coming out about that earlier in the year because of concerns about some of the placement data and recruitment, claiming that business schools were in decline and declining interest and so on. But you just don’t see that in this incredible pipelines that these schools have, that generation after generation, they have continuing appeal. And I think that that Even though there are some small fluctuations from year to year, the fact that the fast statistics uphold, there’s not a big change year to year. Also, I think that is due to the quality of the pools that they have and the consistency of quality that they have, and that loyal following that is coming through and looking to gain entry to those elite institutions year after year. So I think it’s a really positive story for business schools overall, even if we’re not thrilled with some of the short term changes that we’ve seen because of the changes in policy from the current US government.

[00:22:45] – John

Yeah, true. I mean, in fact, when you look over a long period of time, okay, let’s say the 10 years that we have in the table on the Harvard Business School cohorts, you can’t help but walk away from this saying, My God, there must be quotas because the percentage of the class with venture capital and private equity experience is 16% this year. Last year was 16%, The year before it was 17, the year before that, 16, the year before that, 15, 16, 16, 16. That’s similar for everything from communications to tech, to financial services, where year after year after year, it’s pretty much the same deal. You got to know that there’s some quota going on here, even though admissions would deny it, where they, yes, they want to craft a diverse class It’s important to have diversity. But do these numbers really have to be the same over a 10-year period? Same number of people from pretty much every industry, with the exception of manufacturing. We know what’s happened manufacturing, however, where the high point in the past 10 years is 12%, now it’s eight. But other than that, boy, these numbers are incredibly consistent in a way that makes me think there are quotas on industry backgrounds.

[00:24:19] – John

Maria, what do you think of that? Do you think that’s true? You know they won’t admit it.

[00:24:25] – Maria

Yeah. I don’t know that there is a strict quota where they might say, We need exactly 37 people who worked in this background and 242 from this other background. But I do think that in the interest of shaping a diverse class, I refer to them as buckets. I do think that there’s a general interest in like, Okay, we’re going to need some people from the private equity venture capital bucket. Because I think it’s not only about… They’re thinking about a couple of things. They’re thinking about the classroom experience, but they’re also thinking about the graduate alumni paths. So if we want more of our graduates to go into venture capital and private equity, it sure does help if we let in a lot of the class from that field, for example. So I don’t know that they’re necessarily taking it down to the person, but I’m sure that there is an interest in having a diverse group of backgrounds, because if it were only McKinsey consultants in the room, it would be a pretty boring case discussion. Everyone would be approaching it from the exact same angle using the exact same two by two matrix, the exact same everything.

[00:25:33] – Maria

So you need that both in terms of making the classroom discussion interesting, but also in terms of thinking forward about, okay… And I’m not just speaking for HBS. I think every business school thinks this. If we want our graduates to go out through all corners of the globe and all different levels of industries, a variety of roles. You need to accept people who come from a variety of roles. So whether or not there’s an actual fixed number, I’m not sure, but I would guess that there’s a rough sense of how many from each bucket we want to take each year, which is why, by the way, on the admissions consulting side, I say this a lot, you’re not competing against the rest of the applicant pool. You’re competing against the other people in your bucket. Right. So just because you see somewhere on the range of GMAT scores, oh, they let someone in who had a 645 or whatever, some low number. Yeah, but were they from your It? Or did they over… The other day, I was doing a webinar, or someone was asking me, what does it mean when someone with a really low score skates in?

[00:26:39] – Maria

And I was like, whoa, I’d really watch how I phrase that. You have no idea if that person set up a new division of a company that… I had someone once who had a quote, unquote, lower score, but they helped swing a division from $6 million loss to $20 million of profit within a one or two year. They were running this division. And I’m like, If that person, would you call that person skating in? I got a little terse with this. I was like, Who would you rather have run your company? Someone who took someone from a $6 million loss to a $20 million profit, but as a lower GMAT score or an engineer with a 99% GMAT score who’s never run anything. So that’s why these schools take all sorts of different types. Basically, I’m saying I think you need that diversity in the- We definitely need diversity.

[00:27:26] – John

I’m just surprised. Okay, and financial services at Harvard business school. The last four years of classes, exactly 10%. But I think it’s that way.

[00:27:37] – Maria

I think all the schools tend to have fairly standard, fairly stable.

[00:27:41] – John

True. A government education nonprofit. Last four years, exactly 6% at Harvard. Where there’s aberration, it’s usually a one-point aberration. It just suggests to me, yeah, in crafting a diverse class, admissions has determined that only a certain percentage of people in any given field or they really want in the classroom, it seems to me. I mean, Caroline, you did these numbers when you were head of admissions at NCI Whether, in fact, if not quote is, which is a stronger word for guideline, was like an aim that X percentage of class would be from finance versus consulting versus tech.

[00:28:33] – Caroline

Yeah. We wouldn’t manage it down to this brand of detail of having 15% from this industry and 10% from that and 9% from another industry. But you definitely, and I’m sure they do this at HBS, you will look at, as Maria said, you have a group of candidates who have a similar profile, possibly even from a similar geography, and you will look to take the best of that pool, and you don’t want to have a dominance of any particular demographic or industry in the classroom. And so therefore, it will be more competitive for certain parts of the pool, certain buckets than others. So I’m quite sure that what they’re doing is when we see this breakdown of industries, they’re looking at candidates alongside each other from those industries, and they’re taking the best from that group, and they’re keeping in mind that they don’t want to have, as Maria said, 40 % management consultants in the classroom. That wouldn’t be great for anybody. And they’re looking also to get diversity. So if there is a fairly small bucket of people from military or from industry and manufacturing, then they do want to have those voices in the classroom.

[00:29:53] – Caroline

And so candidates in that group might have a better chance of getting in. But of course, they still to be outstanding candidates. So definitely they’re looking to craft the class diversity proactively. One of the numbers that strikes me in the HBS profile here is percentage coming from high tech and communications. And when you think of the volume of candidates that probably applying from that industry, and especially people working in engineering, working for tech companies, I think that that’s pretty low. I suspect that they have a higher percentage in the app pool coming from that profile, possibly quite a bit higher. So I think that that is a particularly competitive bucket to be in.

[00:30:46] – Maria

But I think it’s a competitive bucket. At Stanford, I think it’s 15 %. If I’m reading this article right, it looks like tech was 8 % for Wharton, which, to your point, is shocking because I would assume that, I don’t know, 20 %, 25 % of the pool off the top of my head, pulling a number out of the air, maybe from tech. So that’s incredibly competitive. Another thing that stood out at me in terms of these percentages is that for Harvard and Stanford, it’s roughly 20%, if not sometimes floating a tiny bit below 20% of the class coming from consulting versus at like a Kellogg and a Wharton, it’s closer to the 30% of the class. So I think that that’s a pretty interesting thing as well. I wonder if the delta is probably made up from private equity venture capital. I’d have to dig more into the numbers, but that was one that jumped out at me as like, Oh, wow, that’s interesting.

[00:31:44] – John

Yeah, naturally thought that either. Although Kellogg is known as a consulting type school in a way, in the same way the NCI is known as a consulting school.

[00:31:58] – Maria

Yeah.

[00:31:59] – Caroline

And I think what we see as well with those profiles is that there are a lot of people who work in consulting, and then they switch into private equity or venture capital, and then they go to Harvard or Stanford. So if you looked at, and that came through very clearly in the analysis that my colleague Heidi did in the Stanford class, there’s a huge chunk of the classroom that have worked at a firm like McKinsey, Bain, or BCG, but they didn’t necessarily come directly from that firm when they went to business and they’ve often made a switch beforehand. And it’s often that switch that has really supercharged their profile and given them more to bring to the table, and that helps them to stand out in the applicant pool, whether it’s such an incredibly competitive school like Harvard or Stanford.

[00:32:49] – John

Yep, true enough. Well, there you have it. Check out the profiles. I think we have all the M7 schools up now, and of course, plenty more. And If you are going to be in the next year’s pool and are preparing that round 2 application, check out our last podcast on tips for your interviews and getting ready and good luck to you. You’ll probably be doing a bit of work on this over the Thanksgiving Day holidays, I bet, when things really start picking up for those January deadlines for round 2. This is John Burnwith, Poets & Quants. Thanks for listening.