Admission Trends at Top Bschools Over Last 5 Years!!

GMATClub's ISB Applicant Pool - YoY Comparison

• It seems the last year was most successful for GMAT Club members as acceptance rate of forum members who applied to ISB has reached all time high. I read somewhere on the blog that actual acceptance rate of ISB is usually stays around 22%, so it's glad to see that our acceptance rate is on par with overall acceptance rate of ISB

Acceptance Rate by GMAT Score

• As expected, chances of acceptance increase as you score higher on the GMAT.
  
• As you score 740 or above, competition gets lesser, which increases your chances of acceptance significantly. Ones you cross 760 (i.e. 99th persentile) you can be almost sure of getting interview invitation and have more than 50% chance of getting an admit.
  
• 710 Bump: This is a very interesting finding. As we can see volume of applicants is highest at this stage, yet these applicants have higher admission chances than applicants with GMAT scores 700, 720, and 730. This is not we have seen for the first time. In February when we were analysing data of round 1 applicants of all top schools for this post, we found similar bump at 710 score level. (See here https://screencast.com/t/ej8QUudL9ZHY) A possible answer for this situation could be that top B-Schools start looking at applicants a lot more seriously once they reach 92 percentile. It may be possible that a lot of applicants who have good profiles (excellent profiles), try to get up to 710 on GMAT and then focus more on other other parts of the application.

Acceptance rates of applicants from various industries

• If we ignore media and transportation sectors, because we do not have sufficient data to make any firm inference, we can say that applicants from Consulting, Energy, and Retail sectors have greater chances of acceptance.
• Job is obviously difficult for folks from IT sector due to sheer volume of applicants.

• Hope this chart will give a partial answer to the great debate - Round 1 vs Round 2

• ISB is good for you if you get 4-7 years of work experience. Unlike other Indian Bschools, ISB is less willing to accept freshers or applicants with negligible work experience.

Acceptance Rate by GMAT Score

• Acceptance chances increase with higher GMAT scores.
• As you score 730 or more on the GMAT, your probability of getting accepted increases to 1/3. Also you can be fairly sure of getting interview invite.

Acceptance Rate by Admission Round

• It’s surprising that chance of acceptance in R1 is almost same as that in R3
  
• R2 and R3 have highest probability of acceptance than other rounds.
  
• R1 is greatest round in terms of number of applicants.

Acceptance Rates of Different Age Groups

• Greatest portion of LBS's applicant pool is coming from 28-30 age group and this group also has highest chance of admission. This is not very surprising because average age of LBS's incoming class has always stayed around 28 - 29.

Acceptance rates by Countries

• For this analysis, we have considered only those countries that have relatively higher number of LBS applicants on forum. We have not chosen the countries with less than 8 applicants with the exception of Russia.
  
• We have also shown the difference between average GMAT of overall applicant pool of a specific country and average GMAT of admitted students of that country.

Acceptance rates of applicants from various industries

• The first chart - line chart - shows acceptance rates of applicants from various industries and the pie chart next to it shows industry-wise allocation of applicants.

Incoming Class of LBS

• Here we have done industry-wise classification of students admitted between 2012 and 2016 to see representation of various industries in an average LBS MBA class.

YOY Acceptance Rate and Avg GMAT of Applicants

• Acceptance rate is relatively stable over last 5 years with the exception of 2014 in which it dropped to 26%.

Acceptance Rate by GMAT Score

• We studied only 7 schools, with most applicants, for this analysis as we didn't have sufficient data in other schools.
  
• I can't seem to find the reason for why acceptance rate is dropping for applicants scoring 750 or above on the GMAT. Does anyone have explanation for this?

Acceptance Rate by Admission Round

• Acceptance chances are considerably higher in R2.

Acceptance Rates of Different Age Groups

Acceptance rates of applicants from various industries

• The first chart - line chart - shows acceptance rates of applicants from various industries and the pie chart next to it shows industry-wise allocation of applicants.

Consortium vs Overall Application Pool

YOY Acceptance Rate and Avg GMAT of Applicants

Acceptance Rate by GMAT Score

• Although it is quite common to see increase in acceptance chances as you score higher on GMAT, what struck me while analyzing Tuck's data is the huge gap between rate of interview invitation and rate of admission; Both have difference of average 40 percentage points. We have not seen difference of this magnitude in any other schools. (See: Columbia, LBS, Fuqua, and Consortium)
  
• This finding leads us to conclude that although Tuck applicants have higher chance of interview invitation than applicants at other top schools, real competition starts from interview and you have to perform really well on interview to increase your acceptance chances.

Acceptance Rate by Admission Round

Acceptance Rates of Applicants in Different Age Groups

Acceptance rates of applicants from various industries

• The first chart - line chart - shows acceptance rates of applicants from various industries and the pie chart next to it shows industry-wise allocation of applicants.

Acceptance Rates of Applicants from Various Regions

YOY Acceptance Rate and Avg GMAT of Applicants

Acceptance Rate by GMAT Score

• NUS is one of the most prestigious and competitive schools in South east Asia and the intensity of competition can be seen in the following chart. Even after attaining 710 on GMAT you have 8% chance of acceptance.
  
• We can see some rapid increase from 720 onwards, but even at highest point acceptance chance remains at 21%.

Acceptance Rates of Applicants in Different Age Groups

Acceptance rates of applicants from various industries

• The first chart - line chart - shows acceptance rates of applicants from various industries and the pie chart next to it shows industry-wise allocation of applicants.

GPA: Accepted Vs Overall Applicant Pool

January and September Intakes: Applicants and Acceptance Rates

• Both the acceptance rate and number of applicants are higher for Sept intake.
  
• R2 and R3 have highest probability of acceptance than other rounds.
  
• R1 is greatest round in terms of number of applicants.

Acceptance Rate by GMAT Score

• As expected, acceptance chances increase with higher GMAT scores; however, this holds true only upto 730 level, after which we can see some decrease in the acceptance chances of applicants with GMAT scores 740 and 750. We observed similar trend during the analysis of ISB applicants as well.

Acceptance Rates of Different Age Groups GMAT Score

• Greatest portion of INSEAD's applicant pool is coming from 28-30 age group and this group also has highest chance of admission. This is not very surprising because average age of INSEAD's incoming class has always stayed around 28 - 29.

Acceptance rates by Countries

• For this analysis, we have considered only those countries that have relatively higher number of INSEAD applicants on forum. We have not chosen the countries with less than 15 applicants.
  
• We have also shown the difference between average GMAT of overall applicant pool of a specific country and average GMAT of admitted students of that country.

Acceptance rates of applicants from various industries

• The first chart - line chart - shows acceptance rates of applicants from various industries and the pie chart next to it shows industri-wise allocation of applicants.

Incoming Class of INSEAD

• Here we have done industry-wise classification of students admitted between 2012 and 2016 to see representation of various industries in an average INSEAD MBA class.

YOY Acceptance Rate and Avg GMAT of Applicants

Acceptance Rate by GMAT Score

• Stanford GSB is arguably the best business school in the world. The intensity of competition at its flagship two year, full time, MBA program can be clearly seen in the following chart.
  
• Admission rate of Stanford is lowest compared to that of other top schools that we analysed so far; Even with 760 GMAT, your chance of acceptance is only 9%.
  
• Among the 1383 applicants that we considered for this chart, around 90% had GMAT score of 700 or above and 75% had GMAT score of 720 or above. This finding tells us that those with lower than 700 GMAT need to have strong profile and convincing story for applying to Stanford.
  
• Narrow gap between lines showing interview invites and acceptance indicate that Stanford is very careful in selecting candidates for interview' This leads us to infer that one can have better chance of acceptance after interview. This may seem obvious but we have seen certain schools who are very generous in inviting candidates for interview, but selective in making final decisions. (See Tuck, Columbia, Fuqua)
  
• When we dug deeper into the data, we found that 41% of interviewed candidates got acceptance from Stanford.

Acceptance Rate by Admission Round

• This is another interesting observation. Acceptance rate is roughly the same in all admission rounds.

Acceptance Rates of Applicants in Different Age Groups

Acceptance rates of applicants from various industries

• The first chart - line chart - shows acceptance rates of applicants from various industries and the pie chart next to it shows industry-wise allocation of applicants.

Acceptance Rates of Applicants from Various Regions

YOY Acceptance Rate and Avg GMAT of Applicants

Acceptance Rate by GMAT Score

• Among the 1677 applicants that we considered for this chart, around 90% had GMAT score of 700 or above and 72% had GMAT score of 720 or above. This finding tells us that those with lower than 700 GMAT need to have strong profile and convincing story for applying to Wharton.
  
• 42% of interviewed candidates got acceptance from Wharton.

Acceptance Rate by Admission Round

Acceptance Rates of Applicants in Different Age Groups

Acceptance rates of applicants from various industries

• The first chart - line chart - shows acceptance rates of applicants from various industries and the pie chart next to it shows industry-wise allocation of applicants.

Acceptance Rates of Applicants from Various Regions

YOY Acceptance Rate and Avg GMAT of Applicants

Acceptance Rate by GMAT Score

• Harvard is one of the most coveted MBA programs in the world and following chart clearly shows how fierce the competition at HBS is. Even with 760 GMAT score, your chance of acceptance is only 14%.
  
• Among the 1698 applicants that we considered for this chart, around 90% had GMAT score of 700 or above and 75% had GMAT score of 720 or above. This finding tells us that those with lower than 700 GMAT need to have strong profile and convincing story for applying to Harvard.
  
• Narrow gap between lines showing interview invites and acceptance indicate that Harvard is selective in sending interview invites, and one can have better chance of acceptance after interview. This trend is different from what we observed in Tuck, Columbia, and Fuqua.
  
• Acceptance rate of Harvard applicants after interview is close to 57%.

Acceptance Rate by Admission Round

Acceptance Rates of Applicants in Different Age Groups

Acceptance rates of applicants from various industries

• The first chart - line chart - shows acceptance rates of applicants from various industries and the pie chart next to it shows industry-wise allocation of applicants.

Acceptance Rates of Applicants from Various Regions

YOY Acceptance Rate and Avg GMAT of Applicants

Acceptance Rate by GMAT Score

• As anticipated, admission rate of Oxford is much higher than that of LBS, UK's top business school. If you score 720 or above on the GMAT, your acceptance chances reach up to 60%.
  
• Narrow gap between lines showing interview invites and acceptance indicate that Oxford is selective in sending interview invites, and one can have better chance of acceptance after interview. This may seem obvious but we have seen certain schools who are very generous in inviting candidates for interview, but selective in making final decisions. (See Tuck, Columbia, Fuqua)
  
• Acceptance rate of Oxford applicants after interview is close to 76%.

Acceptance Rate by Admission Round

Acceptance Rates of Applicants in Different Age Groups

Acceptance rates of applicants from various industries

• The first chart - line chart - shows acceptance rates of applicants from various industries and the pie chart next to it shows industry-wise allocation of applicants.

Acceptance Rates of Applicants from Various Regions