I was just curious if anyone knew what the acceptance rate was for Kelley direct admit for undergrad. I know the stats that you need to get in. However, I was always curious as to the acceptance rate. I know that Kelley is a top ranked business school but I could not find the acceptance rate stats for direct admit. Thanks
The 3.8 you need to get in has me confused because not all 3.8’s are created equal. I’m wondering if there is any flexibility on that.
@H0llyw00d If you have a standardized test score that exceeds the requirement but less than a 3.8, you can appeal
Yes, I did see the option to petition on the university website. I was just wondering if they take a hard line at 3.8 for a GPA since a student who has challenged him/herself with honors, AP and IB classes may just miss the mark where another student who has taken regular classes has met the requirement. I also understand the competitiveness of schools varies so again, it seems to me that not looking at a student and their school profile holistically may eliminate a good candidate for the program.
@H0llyw00d They do take your weighted GPA, but you definitely have to petition if your GPA is under 3.8
@H0llyw00d I could not agree with you more. Do not get me wrong I think very highly of Kelley. However, the whole direct admit process is totally numbers driven. I just feel that if there were 10,000 students who had a 3.8 gpa and 30 plus ACT score, they would all get admitted. Whereas if this were UMICH or UVA, UNC etc, that would not be the case. That is where the prestige factor comes in a bit. Those schools are more holistic. There are students with 34 act scores that do not get in if they are not well rounded.
Personally, I feel if Kelley wants to go up a notch or two in prestige, they have to be more like a UMICH and not admit everyone with a 3.8 gpa and 30 act. Not that those are not great stats but as I said before, I just feel that there is no real cutoff. If 10,000 students had the 3.8 and 30 act they would all be rubber stamped. Not a big deal, but that is where the prestige factor comes in.
@euve69 It is not possible for Kelley to be as selective as Ross considering Kelley has close 7,000 enrollment and Ross has less than 3,000. It’s not practical and Kelley has no issues with lack of prestige. For Kelley to more closely emulate Ross, it would have to eliminate 4,000 students and that’s not going to happen anytime soon.
I agree. However, Kelley can easily cut the enrollment if they wanted to so they can be more selective. Hey, my son got into Kelley and he is very happy as I am. All I am saying is that it is not hard to cut enrollment. You simply admit less students. NYU did that over the last 25 years. Now Stern has an 11% acceptance rate. Getting students to attend a school is the hard part, cutting enrollment is not nearly as hard. Especially with a school such as Kelly that has a great reputation.
Do not get me wrong, I am not saying Kelley should become that selective overnight. It gives students less access etc etc. What I am saying is that Kelley is very close to being in that TIPPY TOP tier like UMICH, DUKE, NORTHWESTERN ETC. The problem is, selectivity. It is not an issue for my son at all, but you have to admit, that if you want a front office IB job, MOST not all, but MOST of the students come from the top top schools like Duke, Stanford, NYU, COLUMBIA UCHICAGO ETC.
I feel that Kelley is close to getting into that tippy top tier. It may take some years but fair or not, perception is reality and if Kelley got more selective like a umich, I do not necessarily think that would be a bad thing.
Kelley is a top rated business school already. Cutting 4000 students for that “tippy top” rating you want is a ridiculous idea. It would be blatantly unfair to 4000 well qualified students. You do realize there are other “tippy top” schools your child can attend. If you’re more impressed with UMICH, DUKE, NORTHWESTERN ETC. then send your child to those schools. Your child just maybe would be one of those 4000 spots you want eliminated.
@euve69 Once you start cutting enrollment, you also start cutting resources and faculty. Seriously, what should Kelley’s objective be? I don’t get what you want to see accomplished here other than excluding about 4,000 students every year access to a great education. Seriously, if you think having your kid go to school with a bunch of other kids with 1400 SATs and 3.8 GPAs, then you really should look elsewhere.
Kelley has excellent ratings, overall and in several undergrad majors as well. And, it’s a large program-Kelley knows what it’s doing, and does it well. Kelley wants to be big. As for the admissions criteria, I’m sure admissions knows what it’s doing there, too-that 3.8 threshold does reflect differences in schools and a student’s course selections and rigor - remember Kelley considers the weighted gpa, which I’m sure gives many applicants a wide margin. Sure, it’s numbers-the direct admit formula obviously yields applicants with the right stuff as determined by the admissions department-and they do raise the bar regularly. For those outside the hash marks, the petition for direct admit allows the opportunity for holistic review of an application, so Kelley isn’t missing an opportunity for a potentially great student who didn’t fit the automatic criteria. Kelley also draws a significant number of OOS students, and strategy-wise, it has to offer direct admit to incoming freshman, otherwise for alot of students, they aren’t going to consider OOS unless assured a spot in the business school.
As for acceptance rate, that depends on how you look at it-if an applicant applies and has DA stats, he gets in, so that would be 100% acceptance; I don’t know if they release stats on petition outcomes, but the directions state that you need to be close in one area, and exceed in the other; I would guess that alot of petitioners do make the cut. During 2015-2016, we always heard that over half of a class would be direct admit, with the rest of the class coming in via regular admission after freshman year-I wouldn’t be surprised if that ratio has shifted towards more DAs.
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It is frustrating when parents are overly concerned about the prestige of college their kids go to, especially when it comes to schools like Kelley, which are so highly regarded. Of course, if Kelley raised its direct admit bar, it would decrease or eliminate the SAT gap with Ross (1450 to 1390), but it wouldn’t be Kelley anymore because it would be smaller with less faculty and resources. Also, take a look at the cost for OOS students. Michigan will charge close to $60K per year and IU is close to $40K. Is that difference in prestige really worth that much to @euve69 ? Some of the schools mentioned in that post don’t even have undergraduate business programs.
I agree with you. My son may easily be one of those out of luck but I have a few comments and a question for you since this always intrigued me.
I know Kelley is a prestigious school. My son loves it and wants to attend. It all comes down to dollars. My whole point was, why doesn’t Kelley want to be even more prestigious in the eyes of employers. Now, I am not talking about Marketing, Accounting, Management or many other programs. I know Kelley places folks just as well as anyone. I am talking about investment banking. We all know that those IB front office jobs go 95% to the IVY,or Ivy like schools like Stanford, Duke, UMICH, MIT ETC. It is not fair!! I know that, but that is life. I am not saying that nobody from Kelley is in a front office position, but the majority come from the UMICH’S of the world. Just as an aside, I never knew how UMICH turned into Yale over the past 20 years but what do I know? Again, very good school, but it is no IVY.
My son wants accounting so this does not affect him since Kelley would place him just as well as any school in the US including the ivies, but in the IB world, it is the top top ivy type universities that place those students.
My point is that since Kelley is a top ranked university, why not take it to the next level and become more selective? I understand all the points about less student access etc, and they are valid points and most likely Kelley does not want this, and that is fine, but my point is, maybe if this did happen, maybe years down the road, there would be more front office positions offered for Kelley Students. Again, it does not affect my son, but I was just inquiring.
That leads me to my question. Why do schools like UMICH ETC have smaller enrollment and accept less students? We all know they can EASILY have the same enrollment as Kelley with the tens of millions of dollars at UMICH’S disposal. Do you think it is just that they want to be more elitist? I mean, NYU as well can accept alot more students than the11% admittance rate but why not? Maybe they want to be in that class of upper crust universities?
Think about it. All of these top top universities can easily make more money if they increased enrollment. Even if they had to hire more professors at 200k per yr who cares? If they increased enrollment by even 500 more students at 70k per year that would bring in gross 35mm bucks less lets say 3 million for 15 more professors at 200k package each per year. They have the room!! I have visited these universities first hand so nobody can tell me that there is not class space, LOL It is obviously a concerted effort to say, hey we are NYU and we are elite!! We want less access to appear more desirable.
Again, please understand that I think the world of Kelley. I just feel that if they wanted to, they too, can be even more elite, which in turn, down the road, not tomorrow, but down the road would maybe help make the school more prestigious in the eyes of the IB firms for front office positions.
Congratulations on your son’s admission. Kelley is one of the stars of IU and you don’t make your stars smaller.
A couple of things. IU is the states flagship university so they do have a mission of educating indinians. Also, unlike michigan they don’t have an engineering program ( got to go to Purdon’t) so you’ll have a higher concentration of business students.
Is the top priority for most parents that their child go somewhere that has “the most prestigious reputation” in the eyes of employers? Maybe I’m being idealistic, but my priority is that my son goes somewhere with programs that work best for him, where he can best develop his intellect and skill, and carve his own path without relying on whether his school is “prestigious enough” for his employers. And I’m hoping that he is the employer.
He just got accepted to IU and is excited about the possibilities.
@Scubaski1 I wanted to comment on your question. When we have considered the rankings and “prestige in the eyes of the employers” it is because some employers only recruit at top ranked undergrad business schools (or at a handful of other top 20 schools). It depends on what area your kid wants to go into (or think they want to go into). If a student thinks they want to go into Investment Banking or Consulting…they HAVE to be at a school where those types of firms recruit. This is a consideration for my daughter (who has been accepted to Kelley). We have learned from experience as we have a son who is in his 4th year of college and is at a highly ranked undergrad B school. The recruitment opportunities there have been very different (in a good way) as compared to what he has seen his friends (who are also Business majors) go through at other schools. It is going to be a consideration for my daughter once she has all of her acceptances in hand. And I will add that the school that she chooses also needs to be a fit and we want her to develop her intellect and skill, etc…
I could not have said it better myself.This is what I have been saying all along. I do not mean it to be a slight against Kelley. Also, it is not fair, but if you want to go into investment banking, you have to go to a top 20 school. Now, this is a very distinct field, but investment banking and consulting is unfortunately reserved for the Ivies, or Ivy type schools like Duke, MIT STANFORD ETC.
All I was trying to say is that Kelley has a great opportunity to get into that category if they wanted to. It will take time, maybe 5-10 years believe it or not, but it can be done.
As the flagship institution of Indiana, IU and Kelley have obligations to the state, its businesses, and its residences not to restrict access to its business school. IU doesn’t want to be where you would hope it would go, at least not that way. Kelley definitely holds its own when it comes to investment banking. Kelley has IB and even internships in IB. The top investment banks certainly recruit at Kelley. Assuming what you say is true and that your kid will be competing with lesser students for these opportunities, than you are ahead of the game. Of course, other options include going to Ross and competing with the cut throats that go there (and pay $58K per year for that degree as well). For what it’s worth, only two Ivy League schools even have a business major. Duke doesn’t have one. Stanford doesn’t have one either. Those top schools do have Economics majors and those are kids getting those jobs. In the end, your kid may not even want to be in Investment Banking. How many 17-year olds really know they want that for a career?