How MBA Acceptances Vary By Round

Some business schools have roughly the same acceptance rate during all rounds while others see a significant drop off in later rounds. With applications for round 2 due in the next month and your final chance to apply for fall admission will be here before you know it, this analysis may help you decide which schools to focus on and which to avoid. Here is a list of the top 20 schools’ MBA acceptance rates by application round.

As usual, the data for this analysis came from GMAT Club, which may be a biased sample. Posters on the site tend to have higher GMAT scores than the general applicant pool, so the acceptance rate can be significantly higher for some schools. The acceptance rates are meant to give you an idea of the relationship between rounds, not the absolute acceptance rates for the schools. These numbers are raw and not adjusted for other variables such as GMAT and GPA.

MBA Acceptance Rate by Round

The first table is MBA acceptance rates by round ordered by school ranking. The acceptance rates that have a star next to them means that the sample size is very small and might not be very accurate.

US RANK	SCHOOL	ROUND 1	ROUND 2	ROUND 3	ROUND 4
1	Stanford	8%	5%	2%	–
1	Wharton	19%	16%	0%*	–
1	Harvard	12%	6%	4%	–
4	Booth	29%	25%	15%	–
5	MIT	16%	11%	–	–
6	Kellogg	26%	23%	20%*	–
7	Haas	17%	17%	6%
8	Columbia	23%	20%	–	–
9	Tuck	28%	29%	22%	9%
10	NYU	29%	27%	21%
11	Ross	41%	42%	38%*	–
11	Darden	32%	33%	16%	–
13	Yale	24%	27%	9%	–
14	Duke	31%	33%	21%	–
15	McCombs	38%	36%	28%	–
16	Anderson	26%	34%	9%	–
17	Johnson	39%	36%	37%	–
18	Tepper	24%	38%	43%	–
19	Kenan-Flagler	36%	40%	60%	–
20	Emory	26%	40%	37%	–

Schools With Lower R3 Acceptance Rates

Many of the top 20 MBA programs have significantly lower acceptance rates in round 3 to the point where it is better to wait until next year to apply. Harvard, Stanford and Wharton, the number one ranked schools, have a large decrease in acceptance rate for round 3. Only 2% to 3% of applications for these schools are in round 3 because everyone knows that acceptance rates are so low. Haas, Yale, Duke, UVA and UCLA also see a significant drops in round 3 admissions compared to earlier rounds. Dartmouth has a respectable round 3 acceptance rate of 22%, but a very low 9% chance of admission for round 4.

Schools with Similar Or Higher Round 3 Acceptance Rate

While many schools have a lower acceptance rate for round 3, there are several schools that don’t have a drop off in response. Ross, Cornell, and Emory all have similar admission odds for the third round, while Tepper and UNC actually have a higher acceptance rate for round 3.