Acceptance Rates For The Top 50 U.S. Business Schools

CORNELL, NORTHWESTERN & VANDERBILT SHOW APPLICATION YEAR-OVER-YEAR APPLICATION DECLINES

Prominent MBA programs showing the largest percentage declines in applicant volume last year were Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management, which suffered a rather dramatic 21.1% drop off in full-time applications. Vanderbilt University’s Owen School saw a 16.1% fall in apps. Wake Forest, which announced that it would exit the full-time MBA market, saw a 15.5% decline. Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management reported a 14.7% drop in applications, while rival Chicago Booth saw apps also decrease by a smaller 5.6% margin (see table below).

Applications to business schools often undergo ups-and-downs, especially on an annual basis. Schools that show significant increases in one year often report lower numbers the next. Those variations can be attributed to general economic trends, rankings, marketing campaigns, and scholarship grants. It’s obviously far more troubling when applications fall over consecutive years which may indicate poor management or a school’s slippage in status. One example among the Top 50: Boston College, where full-time MBA applications last year fell 10.7% after a drop of 8.6% the previous year.

LARGEST PERCENTAGE DECLINES IN FULL-TIME MBA APPLICATIONS AMONG TOP 50 U.S. PROGRAMS

School	YOY Decline	2014 Apps	2013 Apps
Cornell (Johnson)	21.1%	1,858	2,356
Vanderbilt (Owen)	16.1%	888	1,059
Wake Forest	15.5%	268	317
Northwestern (Kellogg)	14.7%	4,652	5,453
Boston College (Carroll)	10.7%	620	694
Southern Methodist (Cox)	10.3%	494	551

Source: Poets&Quants analysis from publicly available data

A ROLLER-COASTER RIDE FOR SOME SCHOOLS IN APP VOLUME

Generally, however, there were some very sizable increases in applications at a large number of the Top 50 business schools. The single biggest jump occurred at the University of Washington’s Foster School were application volume soared by 72.0%. An increase of that size is a harbinger of a decline the following year because it is generally unsustainable. Iowa’s Tippie School also had a huge increase with a year-over-year 60% rise in appellations to its smaller MBA program.

After Washington’s eye-popping rise, the most notable increases occurred at UCLA, North Carolina, Georgetown, Washington University in St. Louis, Indiana and Emory–all schools that get more than 1,000 applications a year for their MBA programs. UCLA reported a whopping 32.2% increase in apps off a base of more than 3,000 to 4,129 last year. In absolute numbers, it was the single biggest increase of any Top 50 business school, representing some 1,005 additional applicants in a single year.

For many of the schools that reported the largest percentage increases, last year was a turnaround of sorts. At Brigham Young University’s Marriott School of Management, for example, applications were up a tidy 24.3% last year. But that otherwise impressive gain followed a year-earlier decline of 23.2%. The University of Southern California’s Marshall School experienced a roller-coaster ride as well. Last year, apps for its full-time MBA program were up nearly 10% but only a year earlier they had fallen by 14.1%.

LARGEST PERCENTAGE INCREASES IN FULL-TIME MBA APPLICATIONS AMONG TOP 50 U.S. PROGRAMS

School	YOY Increase	2014 Apps	2013 Apps
Washington (Foster)	72.0%	1,025	596
Iowa (Tippie)	60.0%	384	240
Arizona State (Carey)	43.2%	477	333
Georgia (Terry)	37.3%	291	212
Maryland (Smith)	32.6%	830	626
UCLA (Anderson)	32.2%	4,129	3,124
North Carolina (Kenan-Flagler)	28.0%	1,912	1,494
Brigham Young (Marriott)	24.3%	394	317
Georgetown (McDonough)	22.1%	1,649	1,351
Georgia Tech (Scheller)	22.0%	427	350
Washington Univ. (Olin)	20.0%	1,685	1,404
Rice (Jones)	19.6%	763	638
Indiana (Kelley)	19.1%	1,232	1,034
Emory (Goizueta)	14.2%	1,334	1,168
Minnesota (Carlson)	12.4%	635	565
Southern California (Marshall)	9.8%	1,648	1,501
Duke (Fuqua)	9.6%	3,453	3,150