Harvard MBA Class of 2020 Admits By Undergraduate School

The MBA program at Harvard is recognized as the leading MBA program in the world. Newly minted MBAs from Harvard Business School earn a median starting salary and signing bonus of over $172,000.

The Harvard Business School Class of 2020 admits by undergraduate institution:

  1. Harvard–46

  2. UPenn–39

  3. Stanford–35

  4. Yale–31

  5. Princeton–24

  6. Duke–23

  7. Dartmouth College–20

  8. Cornell–18

  9. Notre Dame–18

  10. Brown–15

  11. MIT–15

  12. Univ. of Texas–15

  13. Columbia–14

  14. Georgetown–14

  15. NYU–13

  16. Northwestern University–13

  17. Indian Institute of Technology–12

  18. U.S. Naval Academy–12

  19. Univ. of Virginia–12

  20. Univ. of Illinois–11

  21. WashUStL–11

  22. UCal-Berkeley–10

  23. Univ. of Michigan–10

  24. UNC-Chapel Hill–10

  25. USC–8

  26. Vanderbilt University–8

  27. Wellesley College–8

  28. Williams College–8

  29. Boston College–7

  30. BYU–7

  31. USMA at West Point–7

  32. Univ. of Cambridge (England)–7

  33. Georgia Tech–6

  34. Indiana–6

  35. McGill University (Canada)–6

  36. Northeastern (Boston)–6

  37. U.de Los Andes–6

  38. University of Chicago–6

  39. Imperial College London–5

  40. Purdue–5

  41. Univ. of British Columbia–5

  42. American University in Beirut–4

  43. Amherst College–4

  44. Emory University–4

  45. Peking University (China)–4

  46. Queen’s University (Canada)–4

  47. Rice University–4

  48. Tufts University–4

  49. Univ. de Sao Paulo (Brazil)–4

  50. University of Georgia–4

  51. Univ. of Kansas–4

  52. Univ. of Toronto–4

  53. Wisconsin–4

  54. Bates College–3

  55. Colgate University–3

  56. Howard University–3

  57. Michigan State–3

  58. Rutgers–3

  59. UCLA–3

  60. Univ. of Arizona–3

  61. Maryland–3

  62. Univ. of Pittsburgh–3

  63. Univ. of South Carolina–3

  64. Bowdoin College–2

  65. Davidson College–2

I omitted a two foreign schools with 3 admits each.

Dozens of undergraduate schools had one (1) admitted to HBS.

These are very interesting stats. This confirms my thinking that if one attends top undergraduate schools or top 25 schools, the chances are higher than from a non top school to get into HBS.

Off the topic, do you have similar stats for Harvard Law that you can post in the Law Site?

Seven (7) of the top ten undergraduate schools listed above are Ivy League members. Stanford, Duke, & Notre Dame comprise the rest of the top ten schools.

Somewhat of a surprise is that the University of Chicago was in the group #33 to #38 with 6 admits to HBS.

In the past year, The Economist ranked Chicago-Booth as the number one MBA program in the world. Harvard Business School was ranked number (2) two.

Northwestern University is ranked at #15 & #16 along with NYU with 13 admits each to HBS’ class of 2020.

Northwestern’s Kellogg School’s MBA program is, like Chicago–Booth & Harvard Business School, an M-7 MBA program. The Economist ranks Northwestern–Kellogg as the fourth (4th) best MBA program in the world.

There is another thread with the complete and most recent Economist ranking of the best MBA programs in the world.

“This confirms my thinking that if one attends top undergraduate schools or top 25 schools, the chances are higher than from a non top school to get into HBS.”

And that’s the problem. Young folks assume it’s the UG college, when it’s the individual and his/her drives, successes, and thinking.

It underscores kid thinking that, in life, the college name is what it takes.

Rice has fewer than 4,000 undergraduates and enrolled 4. University of Texas has more than 40,000 undergraduates and enrolled 15. It’s important to consider the size of the undergraduate population as well.

The best students tend to go to the top ranked colleges & universities.

The top employers seek the brightest, most hard working soon-to-be college graduates. It is most efficient to recruit at the top ranked colleges & universities for the smartest students who are accustomed to a high level of competition.

Most admits to Harvard Business School not only went to a top ranked university, most also worked for the top three consulting firms (MBB) or for a few other prominent companies.

With respect to those admitted to Harvard Law School, the most elite & highest ranked colleges & universities lead the way. And this should not be a surprise as the best students in terms of GPA, standardized test scores, and accomplishments typically attend a top ranked undergraduate school.

The brightest, most hard-working, and accomplished students also tend to do well on standardized tests like the LSAT, GMAT, GRE, ACT & SAT so, of course, they are also admitted to the best law schools.

Often College Confidential members assert that one can get an excellent education at lesser known and/or lower ranked schools. I agree.

But a very significant distinction is in the opportunities given to graduates of the most selective, highest ranked schools versus those offered to graduates of the lesser known & lower ranked schools.

But again, is that assuming it’s the college name? In fact, an admit to a top MBA program is more than the college rank.

Yes, one can work harder at a demanding college. But it’s more than what’s offered you. It’s the driven and rightly experienced person you are.

I agree with the comments below. If one meets standards of a top undergraduate schools, work experience from prominent companies and have a high GMAT scores, the chances of getting into HBS or M7 business schools are better than someone without a top undergraduate school.

“This confirms my thinking that if one attends top undergraduate schools or top 25 schools, the chances are higher than from a non top school to get into HBS.”

"The best students tend to go to the top ranked colleges & universities.

The top employers seek the brightest, most hard working soon-to-be college graduates. It is most efficient to recruit at the top ranked colleges & universities for the smartest students who are accustomed to a high level of competition.

Most admits to Harvard Business School not only went to a top ranked university, most also worked for the top three consulting firms (MBB) or for a few other prominent companies."

“Rice has fewer than 4,000 undergraduates and enrolled 4. University of Texas has more than 40,000 undergraduates and enrolled 15. It’s important to consider the size of the undergraduate population as well.”

I agree. I wrote in a separate thread earlier today:

"Should an OP high school ‘chance me’ class rank listing herself as 25th in her class be taken at face value or do adults usually want to know the denominator before making an assessment i.e. OP please clarify if 25 is out of 50 in the graduating class (Top 50%) vs if 25 is out of 1,000 in the class (Top 2.5%)?

Identically, should an OP posting 11 admits to HBS be taken at face value or should adults want to know the denominator before making an assessment i.e. please, clarify if 11 admits to HBS is out of an undergrad enrollment of 2,000 or 40,000 students? Perhaps, the 20x larger size / additional 38,000 student pool doesn’t matter."

This is right up @Data10 's alley. Data10 usually has numbers like undergrad population at hand and sends out. If not, I might tabulate the #s divided by the undergrad population for others.

Reasonable. However, the original post which started this thread is the way HBS presents this information.

Interesting that Boston University is not on the list.

It depends what you are trying to show. I think the more relevant denominator is number of applicants, or even better number of applicants with particular qualifications, such as applicants with stats and/or work achievements in line with typical admits. There are ~3000 4-year colleges in the US, and ~7000 US applicants to Harvard MBA. If all 4-year colleges, had a similar number of applicants, that would be ~2 applicants per undergrad college. However, some colleges have 20+ members of the entering class, suggesting they have far more than 2 applicants.

I’d expect the colleges with the most applicants are generally not the publics with the largest student enrollment. For example, I’d expect Yale has far more Harvard MBA applicants than UConn, even though UConn has a far larger student enrollment than Yale.

This makes it very difficult to draw any kind of conclusions about whether Harvard MBA favors a particular undegrad college. Students attending highly selective private colleges for undergrad are no doubt far more likely to apply to highly selective private colleges for grad, and are also far more likely to be highly qualified applicants. So even if Harvard does not consider name of undergraduate in admissions, I’d still expect HYPSM… to be tremendously overrepresented among members of the entering class.

However, if you just want to list the number of MBA class members per 1000 students enrolled in the undergraduate college and/or per 1000 graduating students, then you can look up the denominator in a variety of sources. https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/ uses federal reporting, with consistent definitions. IPEDS (https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/ ) also uses federal reporting and offers a wider variety of ways to group/count students and colleges.

@TomSrOfBoston : BU had one admit to HBS’ MBA Class of 2020.

The list of admits by undergraduate school is bolstered by the list of employers for which admitted applicants worked prior to attending HBS.The leading employers also hire from the leading schools.

Employers:

McKinsey & Co., Bain & Co., & Boston Consulting Group were the three top employers by number of admitted applicants to HBS’ Class of 2020.

This is an example of why students desire to attend the most prestigious colleges & universities = leads to recruitment by the most prestigious employers which leads to outstanding opportunities professionally & with respect to graduate business schools.

@Data10 I totally agree, but doubted the number of applicants from each institution was released to anyone.

One would also expect a geographic bias with a higher percentage of college grads in New England and mid-Atlantic favoring and applying to Harvard than those graduates in the Midwest, Southeast and West.   Through no fault of their own, Harvard cannot accept other superior candidates if they apply elsewhere.

For instance, would the percentage of UCLA or Pomona grads applying to Harvard be the same as the percentage of Harvard, Tufts, Williams, Dartmouth, etc… grads?   Don’t think the answer is available, but there are certainly regional factors for MBA programs and it is spelled out generally in the size of classes from each region at each school.  Stanford GSB is always seeking more midwestern students.  Kellogg, not so much.

Without the data on the number of applicants from each college being released, probably best to make your own geographic assumptions.

30% of the HBS entering class came from Consulting/Venture Capital/Private Equity. Those industries tend to favor elite undergraduate colleges so it’s not too surprising elite undergraduate schools would show up on the list.

^^ And in those industries, it can be almost impossible to advance without an MBA, so you’ll also see a higher number of applicants coming out of those fields.

In a lot of this, there is much more correlation than causality.

Also, where’s Johns Hopkins? Is that not an elite school?

Johns Hopkins University had 2 admits among the HBS’ Class of 2020.