MIT’s Sloan School vs. Berkeley’s Haas School

Admissions:

MIT and Berkeley are both highly selective business schools. Much of that has to do with the quality of these two institutions, but you also can’t exclude the highly desirable locations of both schools. In the past five years, even including an 11% fall for the latest year, applications to Berkeley’s Haas School have risen an average of 11% per year, from 2,170 in 2005 to 3,626 in 2010 for just 240 seats. During the five-year period, Haas went from accepting 23.1% of applicants in 2005 to accepting just 11.6% this year. In 2009, when 4,064 applications flowed into Haas, it was the second best year on record, beating the earlier peak seven years ago. It’s yield number, the percentage of applicants who agree to come to the school, rose four full percentage points in the past year. MIT, meantime, has seen its applications go up by 50% in the past three years. Sloan accepts 14.2% of its applicants, just a few percentage points higher than Berkeley. The average GMAT for entering students at Sloan is now up to 711, seven points below Berkeley. The GMAT range numbers below are for the middle 80% of accepted applicants.

Admission Stats MIT Berkeley
Average GMAT 711 718
GMAT Range* 650-760 680-760
Average GPA 3.57 3.59
Selectivity 14.2% 11.0%
Yield NA 54%

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Enrollment:

In the grand scheme of things, both MIT and Berkeley are on the small side of prestige business schools. With a class size of 240, Berkeley’s incoming full-time classes are among the smallest there are. MIT is not hard behind. Surprisingly, perhaps, as a percentage, MIT is getting more women than Berkeley and more international students. Typically, Berkeley’s international numbers are higher but the financial crisis in 2008-2009 made it harder for those students to get loans to finance their education. For the Class of 2012, Berkeley’s international contingent is back up to more typical levels–39%. The numbers below are for the Class of 2011.

Enrollment Stats MIT Berkeley
Total MBA Enrollment 792 494
Women 36% 29%
International 37% 31%
Minority 27% 18%

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Poets&Quants:

MIT seems to open its doors to more poets than Berkeley–and more quants. Students who did their undergraduate work in the humanities represent 21% of the Class of 2011 at MIT, versus only 14% at Haas. Those with engineering and math degrees account for 47% of MIT’s students, a full 11 percentage points higher than Berkeley. That’s a surprising difference given the many similarities between these two schools. On the other hand, Berkeley is much more open to enrolling business and economics undergrads than MIT. About 45% of Berkeley’s Class of 2011 have business or econ backgrounds, versus just 32% at MIT.

Undergrad Degrees MIT Berkeley
Humanities 21% 14%
Engineering/Math 47% 36%
Business/Economics 32% 45%

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