Diversity factor or lack of love?
[#permalink]
28 Sep 2006, 23:07
I was going through the websites of some schools attempting to cull some of them from my list. I ran across some statistics that have me perplexed, so I wanted to see what you guys thought.
Here are the undergrad majors represented at Berkeley:
"Selected Undergraduate Majors"
Engineering 27%
Economics 20%
Business 16%
Social Sciences 11%
Natural Sciences 7%
Computer Sciences 7%
Humanities 5%
5% humanities! What's an English major like myself to think? Do they really hate humanities/liberal arts majors? Or is it just a representation of the demographics of their applicant pool (a lot of engineers from the bay area I imagine). Most other schools have humanities/liberal arts at about 20-30%. To be honest, no other school that I have looked at had distributions that caught my eye in any way. Do they really value the other majors so much more, or would they favor adding some diversity?
How about this GMAT breakdown for Darden:
GMAT DISTRIBUTION
Under 600 5%
600-650 26%
660-690 29%
700-750 38%
Above 750 2%
Median 680
Mean 677
This is a trend that showed up in the recent US News rankings, but Darden's average GMAT and GPA were much lower than any of its peer schools, almost to the point where you start to wonder if they are having trouble getting people to go there. I guess there are two possible explanations. 1) Darden actually means it when they say that they care about lots of things other than GPA and GMAT or 2) Darden is losing touch and on the way down. Coupled with the 49% admit rate reported in US News, this makes you stop and think doesn't it?
I can't really imagine that they would let the trend continue if they hope to stay among the "elite" schools. Personally, I have a really positive opinion of Darden and I'm pretty sure I will be submitting an application. I just wonder how they are looking at scores these days. Are they desparate to add some high scores, or do they just not give a rat's ass.