Some last year admission stats from admissions411

Ahh, the days of over-analyzing the data at admissions411 - a sure mark that people are getting really anxious. Very nice job aggregating the data - definitely a lot of hard work. Even though the data is self-reported, you can start to see some interesting trends.

Has Stanford really not admitted anyone (again, self-reported) over the age of 30? Of the 49 data points, 23 dinged and 26 unknown...WOW! And look at Harvard and Stanford. Substantially different average ages reporting admits compared with both their overall application pools and with other schools, and sharply lower admit rates with each older age group. Pretty staggering actually. If you're over 30 you're just about dead to them.

Lowest average GMAT for admits seems to be at NYU by a statistically relevant margin (as much as self-reported statistics can be relevant). Guess the opportunity to head to NY and getting access to all those Wall Street jobs has lost some allure; or perhaps New Yorkers joining the b-school fray want to get away from the despair there.

Admit rates are higher for women than men at every school except for UCLA - wonder what's going on there. Also, check out the differences at MIT & Wharton, approaching 3x higher admit rates for women.

Thanks pelihu,

Yes, the waiting is killing! Cannot sleep, cannot enjoy the weekend etc.

As for the data - I also made the same notes as you. H and S definitely are not an oldie-friendly. And as for UCLA f/m ratio - Kellog has almost the same issue. Btw, I think there is a plausible explanation - see below.

Here are some findings in more detail (sorry for the long post):

1. Toughest US Schools to Get Into
Admit rates are calculated according to the info on admissions411 and are NOT official.
1. Stanford (10.0%)
2. Harvard (12.9%)
3. Wharton (15.9%)
4-5. Berkeley Haas (17.2%)
4-5. MIT Sloan (18.0%)
6. Columbia (22.5%)
7-8. Yale (26.2%)
7-8. Dartmouth Tuck (26.3%)
9-10. UCLA Anderson (28.2%)
9-10. NW Kellogg (28.6%)
11. NYU Stern (30.5%)
12. Chicago GSB (33.6%)
13. Virginia Darden (36.2%)
14. Cornell (38.8%)
15. Duke Fuqua (45.3%)
16. Michigan Ross (51.1%)

2. Schools Which Do Not Like Oldies:
For some schools, the classification was rather subjective… But not for H and S. I agree with pelihu. If you are over 30, you are dead

Almost Impossible to Get Into:
Stanford
Harvard

Might Let You In:
Kellogg
NYU Stern
UCLA Anderson
Yale
Dartmouth Tuck (not as oldie-friendly as I used to believe)

Rather Decent Chance for Oldies:
Wharton
Chicago
MIT
Columbia
Berkeley Haas
Duke Fuqua
Michigan
Darden Virginia (though less than people tend to believe…)
Cornell

Overall, once you’ve turned 28, your chances begin to diminish. Those 30+ are at disadvantage even in comparatively oldies-friendly schools.

3. Assorted Theories verified:
‘Wharton sees no difference between 720 and 770’

Wharton GMAT stats:

GMAT N Admitted Admit %
Good (710-730) 16 13,1%
High (740-760) 24 18,3%
Very High (>760) 9 17,6%

Well, technically there is a mild difference, but it is indeed not as pronounced as for, say, Stanford:

Stanford GMAT stats:
GMAT N Admitted Admit %
Average (680-700) 3 5,9%
Good (710-730) 8 8,2%
High (740-760) 10 9,9%
Very High (>760) 9 18,8%

So the statement is true, I think. Although, it definitely matters who exactly has this GMAT in question… no surprise here.

Wharton Ethnicity stats:
N Admitted Admit %
Caucasian 27 15,9%
Indian+Ind.American 1 1,4%
Asian+As.American 15 20,3%
Others or Unknown 18 25,7%

Well, in fact there were 3 Indians admitted, not 1, but as I excluded no-GMAT entries, there is only 1 in the table.

4. Assorted Theories verified:
‘Kellogg is a girlie school’

More of an image thing, but it has interesting consequences. ‘Soft’ Kellogg image makes the school more appealing to females, so they apply there more – and that, as you can imagine, leads to the increasing competition between them. As a result, Kellogg’s admit rate for females is no better than that for males, while at the majority of other Top schools female applicants have better chances than male applicants:

Kellogg Gender stats:
_______________N Admitted___Admit %
Female_____________22________28,9%
Male_______________69________28,5%

Gender stats for all Top 15 (including Kellogg):
________________N Admitted___Admit %
Female____________263______32,6%
Male______________629______22,8%

The only other Top school that seems to have no preference for girls is UCLA:

UCLA Gender stats:
________________N Admitted___Admit %
Female___________8_____________21,1%
Male_____________32____________30,8%

However, there were fewer entries for UCLA, so these stats might be not that accurate.

wow thanks so much for putting this together! It's still good to see trends!!

I'd be careful drawing too many conclusions from that data.

For example, only 61 reported accepts for Wharton. Considering the class is ~800 in size and the yield rate is ~70%, that's only a 5% sample and not a very random one.

RF

thanks for the effort +1

I completely agree with you, refurb, and I included the note about the data being non representative in my first post. So this info is just for general interest, but not for those seeking The Great Admission Truth

+1! Great job and interesting analysis!

I'm just a bit depressed to find out I'll be as good as dead within less than a year....

Good job collating all that data.

Obviously the data does support some of the stereotypes of various schools (Havard like 'em young).

RF

I've always been wary of the data on admissions411. For one thing the data points are so few that its really hard to draw conclusions about acceptance rates, etc.

Also, the data is a little acceptance-heavy, and its also indian-applicant-heavy. As someone of Indian decent, I know people who went to almost all of these B-schools, but admissions411 would have you believe that its nearly impossible for me to get in. I understand that many of the Indian applicants are IT/Software people so they're fighting over a handful of spots, but I also think that the data on this website is going to be focused around people who find it necessary to forecast their chances to get in, so it lends itself to the Indian IT crowd being over-represented on admissions411.

so from what i see, if you are a female, below the age of 25 and have an avg gmat score, you are more likely to get into an Ultra-Elite than a White Caucasian male over the age of 29 with a very high gmat score...and no wonder our economy is totally F--ed up..cause all these 25 years old who have no clue on how to run companies..get to hbs and become my boss..

not to be sexiest, just find it weird that we have compromised too much on merit for gender equality...maybe it has to do with that most of the adcom are women???

This is gonna be interesting!!

RF

you know what i am tired of being politically correct..what happened to saying it as it is..

From what I've heard, the rise in applications is attributable to more female and international applicants, so honestly, the admissions crunch is going to be felt most by those groups. The AdComs don't have to accept just anybody just to get the diversity they want. The bar is rising faster for them.

Yes, females seems to have advantage. But I wouldn't say that the admission systems is biased against males. Schools try to keep their m to f ratio somewhere between 3:1 and 2:1. So far, m to f ratio among applicants was in general higher than 3:1. But situation is slowly changing. In some schools females already don't have an advantage (see my post about Kellogg). And I can see the situation when the increased desire of females to apply will in fact put them in a less favourable position. I see Balki1867 has already commented on that.

As for H&S trend to prefer younger applicants - I guess this is what market demands. "Take them young, shape them as you need, use them as you want". This 2+2 program seems to be completely within this philosophy. Don't want to start a discussion here, but such a policy makes me wonder sometimes. I know, Harvard is all about leadership, but it seems they mainly aim at nurturing people who will most likely be at the top positions within the existed system, and not real innovators. This is just IMHO, of course.


Don't worry Virflo! I'm already dead and still posting here, as you see!
Also, European schools still tend to value mature applicants. Average age in Oxford is 29, in Cambridge 30 (I believe), in Cranfield even higher. IMD is also oldie-friendly. INSEAD seems to admit a decent number of 28+ as well. LBS trends younger, though.

I'm not usually one to gloat, but I already claimed this title, so you don't need to worry ...

Thank you very compiling this, greenoak! Kudos.







I don't know....do you also think that most of the adcom are 24 years old and hail from underrepresented minority groups?

I'm female (as evidenced by my forum name), and there's no use in arguing that females may have a lower burden to get into school, much like any other minority groups. However I do think that the top schools, particularly "super seven" or so, have more than enough candidates that they're able to choose people who are more than qualified to do the work. The rest of the effort goes into choosing a diverse class. And if these schools are going to ignore "gender equality"...well then maybe some of them are going to end up with a 90% male class (exaggerating a bit here I know)...how many males do you know the following year who are going to apply to that school? And find it an attractive place to spend 2 years of their lives?

I'm not saying your comment is right or wrong, but I'm just imaging the sh!t storm it will generate.

It does appear that women have a easier time getting into the b-school. However! If you noticed the percentage of women admitted each year does vary and my guess is that schools would love to have 50% of their students women, but they don't. Why?

Well, I think schools are willing to give a little to get the number of women up, but they aren't willing to let in unqualified students either.

I don't mind because I would hate to go to b-school and not have lots of women around.


RF