Best MBA Programs For Round Three Applicants

Clock

ANOTHER ROUND THREE ANGLE? TOP SCHOOLS WITH SLIGHTLY LOWER YIELD RATES

At first glance, HBS may seem a bit of a surprise. But the school boasts one of the largest entering cohorts of any business school, with nearly 940 in the fall class. “A client of ours visited HBS this month and was given some hope for a third round application by an admissions officer,” says Tyler Cormney, of MBA Prep School. “The admissions officer described third round as ‘filling in the gaps’ and this client’s profile is distinctive.” In fact, it was a Round 3 admit who was chosen to deliver the student address at Class Day last year.

But there’s another angle to the Round 3 angle. Dan Bauer, founder and CEO of The MBA Exchange, a leading admissions firm, says that in the past he has found that a reliable indication of the chances for Round 3 admission comes from analyzing a school’s yield and acceptance rate. “In other words, if a relatively low number of admits actually enroll, that means more seats should be open in Round 3,” says Bauer.

“And if the acceptance rate is relatively low, that means the odds for a qualified applicant are better in every round. So, drawing from stats provided by Poets&Quants, the five top-tier business schools with the most attractive (from the perspective of a R3 applicant) combination of yield and acceptance rate are UVA Darden, Michigan Ross, Yale SOM, UCLA Anderson, and NYU Stern.”

FINAL ROUND CANDIDATES WILL TYPICAL FOREGO THE OPPORTUNITY FOR SCHOLARSHIP MONEY

It also goes to reason that outside the very best schools, your chances just get better and better. “In general,” says Accepted.com Founder Linda Abraham, “non-U.S.and U.S. schools outside the ‘greater top ten” will give applicants the best shot third round. I would agree about INSEAD and LBS, Kelley, UNC, CMU Tepper, and USC Marshall. The others all are significantly harder to get into Round 3 than earlier rounds.

The successful Round 3 candidates have to be competitive at their target schools, and also show that they are going to add something extra to the class. Expressing a strong need for scholarships and grants is not a good idea in Round 3 because frequently those funding sources are gone by now. Applicants who are on the margins or who really wants funding (and I don’t mean loans) should generally wait until Round 1.”

Poets&Quants’ online survey was completed by 24 consulting firms out of 75 for a response rate of 32%. It was fielded earlier this month.

TOP BUSINESS SCHOOLS WHOSE FINAL ROUNDS GIVE YOU THE BEST SHOT

The top school in our survey? Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business, where nearly one in four MBA admissions consultants said gives final round candidates the best chance of admission.

 

School % Recommended Final Round Deadline Notification
Dartmouth (Tuck) 24% 4/4/16 5/13/16
NYU (Stern) 19% 3/15/16 6/1/16
INSEAD 19% 7/27/16* 9/30/16
Northwestern (Kellogg) 14% 4/6/16 5/11/16
Indiana (Kelley) 14% 4/15/16 5/31/16
London Business School 14% 4/21/16 6/22/16
Harvard Business School 10% 4/4/16 5/11/16
Columbia Business School 10% 4/13/16 Rolling
Duke (Fuqua) 10% 3/22/16 5/6/16
Cornell (Johnson) 10% 3/17/16 4/15/16
Carnegie Mellon (Tepper) 10% 5/1/16 6/1/16
UNC (Kenan-Flagler) 10% 3/11/16 4/25/16
Texas- Austin (McCombs) 10% 3/31/16 5/12/16
USC (Marshall) 10% 3/8/16 5/27/16

Source: Poets&Quants’ survey of MBA admissions consultants  * For class entering January, 2017

DON’T MISS: 2015-2016 MBA APPLICATION DEADLINES FOR TOP BUSINESS SCHOOLS or THIRD ROUND: DO I OR DON’T I?

 

Questions about this article? Email us or leave a comment below.