Hello Guys,
We analysed the application data of GMATClub users who applied to US Bschools from 2012 to 2017. There were 45K applicants from all over the world who applied to US schools; 15K of them - or 33% - were Indians, which is considered one of the most over-represented application pools. It's a two part analysis in which in first part we analysed acceptance rates of Indian applicants by GMAT, age, industry, educational background at top 20 US MBA programs and in second part we have taken top 50 US programs The analysis also presents comparative study of acceptances rates of Indian applicants and those of applicants of other nationalities.
We hope this analysis will help Indian applicants understand in which schools they have higher chance of acceptance. Just a word of caution: While shortlisting Bschools, apart from acceptance chances, one should also look for other important aspects such as Fit, employment opportunities, etc. Any suggestions are most welcome.
Top 20 US BSchools (US News Rankings)
Main Takeaways:
- 720 is the new 700. There appears to be no difference in chances between 680 and 700 GMAT.
- Top 20 is
futile very tough with GMAT score less than 720 (only 5% of applicants were admitted with sub-700 GMAT) - Interview and Admission chances have a very similar curves (Figure 1)
- For every 20 points of GMAT that you can get above 700, you will double your chances. E.g. going from 700 to 720 will boost you from 2% to 5% and getting another 20 points, will raise your chances to 11%. At 760 (99th percentile), chances are 16%, only a 50% boost and then it seems the graph drops down to 11% due to low volume of data for candidates with GMAT 780 and higher
- Best chances for admission are for applicants with backgrounds in Healthcare and CPG, followed by Consulting and Manufacturing
- The worst chances are admission are for applicants from IT and Non Profit areas (big surprise!). This most likely is due to over-represented IT group and lack of non-profit spots in the class mix). Non-profit background was the least represented group.
- Age is a crucial factor - and so work experience - in getting admit at US schools. Among all Indian applicants, those in the age range of 28-30 have highest acceptance rate of 7%. This implies that those who are applying to BSchools after spending 6-8 years in the industry after undergrad are preferred by business schools.
- Friendliest school for Indians is - UNC Kenan-Flagler, offering admission to 14% of Indian Applicants, and providing the lowest differential between Indian and all applicants (14% vs 28%)
- See the post below for Top 50 schools and trends there
Schools Considered for this survey:- Harvard
- Wharton
- Booth
- Stanford
- MIT Sloan
- Kellogg
- Haas
- Tuck
- Yale
- Columbia
- Ross
- Fuqua
- Stern
- Darden
- Anderson
- Johnson
- McCombs
- Kenan-Flagler
- Tepper
- Goizueta
Data Sample: 5022 Applicants
Data Sample: 5022 Applicants
Data Sample: 4354 Applicants
Data Sample: 6709 Applicants
Data Sample: 4808 Applicants
Data Sample: 45K Applicants