We did a comparison (huge thanks to Dzyubam), of GMAT Club member acceptance rates to Top 10 Schools vs. general acceptance rates as published by schools and are for the lack of a better word - Shocked!

On average, for class of 2012, GMAT Club members had much greater chances of getting into a top 10 school: 24% vs 15% (that's a 60% greater chance) with some schools really standing out. For example, from the review of the HBS thread, out of 112 applied GMAT Club members, 33 were granted admission, which is a 29% acceptance rate, compared to 12% HBS average. Thus for HBS, statistically speaking, GMAT Club members, had a 145% greater chance of admission

Detailed results follow - comments welcome!

	Applied	Admitted	GMAT Club Admission %	Average Admission %	Difference	Scholarship	Waitlisted	Denied	Matriculated*	UNKNOWN
Harvard	112	33	29%	12%	145%	1	9	70	30	0
Stanford	176	22	12%	9%	38%	0	12	49	21	93
Wharton	252	43	17%	16%	6%	18	52	75	33	82
Booth	160	62	38%	22%	76%	14	32	66	60	0
Tuck	42	15	35%	16%	123%	3	5	18	13	4
MIT Sloan	150	18	12%	15%	-20%	2	23	32	16	77
Columbia	162	27	16%	15%	11%	0	10	44	23	81
Kellogg	233	78	33%	19%	76%	3	46	109	74	0
NYU Stern	111	27	24%	15%	62%	1	14	17	24	53
Haas	89	15	16%	12%	40%	2	5	25	13	44

I know there are many factors involved in the admissions process and a sheer registration with GMAT Club will not get anyone to Harvard, but still, the numbers are numbers.

I would argue that GMAT Club and information exchange do enhance one's application and its quality
I would also argue that the forum helps applicants estimate their chances better and thus if they know, the school is a stretch, they are not wasting their effort on unreasonable goals.
Finally, I think the results demonstrate that effort always pays off and that those who are determined will reach their goals and dreams (including the 3 people who chose not to matriculate at HBS - another shocker).
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This is pretty amazing, especially considering that you assumed that all of the unknown as denied.

Wow, just look at Haas, 89 applied, 15 accepted, good lord.

I mean so much of a difference, it might be because a lot of them just took Haas as a safety school.

bb: Perhaps you could evaluate forum participation as one of the criteria and do further analysis on that?

As you said, just registration isn't a big factor, but I think the difference arises because you benefit from the combined knowledge of fellow applicants and admits. And that is a huge deal in that, you get something out of their experience to enrich yours.

Perhaps, if you count like the average kudos or posts or registration period of these admits and publish those statistics it might be easier to say for sure that participation in the forum has contributed even further than what we think. Of course, there's always a large group of people who just read without replying, but just my two cents. Excellent initiative, though. +1.

This is very much an appreciated effort, but I would take it with a grain of salt especially being we have so many lurkers/first time posters who don't really use GMAT Club but will register just to report an acceptance, on the other hand, not that I blame them, there are alot of lurkers/members who don't reports dings.

I know last year the number of posters with 1-10 posts simply reporting an admit was a bit of an annoyance for those of us who had really worked to use and build this community. To that point, I'd think these numbers would be better if we discounted any admissions decisions from those with less than 10 posts.

Thank you all for comments.
I will try to dig in deeper to see the correlation between participation and admission.

The only comment I have about lurkers is that they are not necessarily out. A lurker may visit the site more often than others and learn more from it than a person with many posts - that's not an exception. I lurk on a few other travel-related forums. Does not mean I don't visit/engage. I just don't feel I can add any value - I am learning....
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That is great !!! Hard work is always paid off.
I agree with BB, there are many users who just surf GMATCLUB , gain strategies , and never come back. Having high number of posts/kudos signifies more contribution to the community than the person himself. ( Though we learn back a lot but still ratio is low)

Even if we assume that the participation of the lurkers who do not contribute and still admits to top the B school is comparable to those who just register and do not participate much , this statistics will be quite accurate.

The crux is - If you are a member of GmatClub, the probability of getting admission in top b school is more than of non members of GmatClub.


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The shocking things is how many people in a class have been on this board at one time or another. Other sites have faded quickly (does anyone still use admissions411???)

Though the matriculation numbers seem a bit off. There has to be much more overlap in admits but all those schools have like 90% of admits going there.
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Interesting stat, but the opposite could be true as well. People who are more likely to put in the effort and more likely to get admitted are more likely to join and be active on GMATC. Applicants less inclined to put in the effort required to get an admit might be less likely to join GMATC. This could be a classic Critical Reasoning question stem.

In other news, does this mean if I'm applying to MIT, I should get off this site pronto!

I am afraid so - I think they don't like the social type
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Its because Gmat Club members always have Harvard/Stanford/Wharton as their top priority and they spend lesser time for the application of their second tier choice - MIT
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Interesting results. I agree, the correlation that first comes to mind is that those who actually bother to put in a lot of time in their applications, including searching for tips and clues and help from GMATClub, will stand a better chance in getting admitted. This doesn't necessarily mean one must be active on the board - it could simply mean lurking around, absorbing ideas and information.

Actually, for MIT, average acceptance rate this year was 11%. Not sure where 15% comes from, but I could be wrong. There were 4782 applicants and little over 500 were admitted like last year (between 550-570), so math doesn't work to be 15%, so basically, I think GMAT people beat the average for MIT so I don't think that minus 20% discrepancy for GMAT club members vs. average applicants acceptance rate for MIT is accurate.

Thanks!!! The numbers are from last year's rankings as reported by BW and USNews
Which tells me other numbers will need to be adjusted for this year's rates
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My pleasure. You are probably right. Other school's numbers probably should also be updated, although I believe HBS is still at 11% when I checked their school website. I think the numbers have not all been finalized yet for most schools (waitlist/final enrollment for Fall), so it's hard to get definitive numbers yet.

You're not taking into account yield. Not all students admitted attend the school

I know. The 550-570 number I posted is acceptance rate (those who get in regardless of what they decide to do). The current class is roughly 410 students (up from 393 last year), so yield of ~70%. Either way, I think numbers we are reporting for all schools are just acceptance rate. Yield rate is not part of what we are discussing.

Ahh. My mistake then

Hey, that's ok. The numbers are sort of confusing right now because many schools have not published their admission statistics for the latest class and it seems like the consensus is that most school's acceptance rate has dipped from previous years. I just didn't want people to compare GMAT member's 2012 admission rate to 2011 average admission rates. If we compare to 2012 average admission rate, the GMAT people's numbers should align even more favorably, which is good for us!

I think this is really coming into play with the HBS numbers. Despite being the most highly desired program (arguably), and having the largest class size and total # of applicants, only 112 GC members applied, vs much higher #s for smaller programs. I conclude that GC members are better informed about HBS admissions than the general MBA applicant population and therefore focus their efforts elsewhere. I would say that the numbers are telling us that GC probably increases your odds of getting into a top program AND makes your application efforts more efficient.

I was also surprised by the matriculation numbers. I would have expected more overlap... the numbers seem to suggest that most admits only got into one top school, and that doesn't really make sense esp with the HSW admits.