All-Time GRE High At Tuck As Apps Rise Slightly

Incoming MBA students in the Class of 2020 at Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business

Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business managed to buck the trend impacting most rivals who have seen MBA applications fall in the past year. Tuck says applicants to its full-time MBA program rose slightly, by 0.4%, in the 2017-2018 admissions cycle to 2,621, from 2,610 a year earlier. That compares with declines of 2.6% at Columbia Business School, 4.5% at Harvard Business School, 6.7% at Wharton, 7.6% at Yale SOM (see MBAs Apps Take A Shocking Plunge).

The modest uptick allowed Tuck to maintain last year’s all-time high average GMAT score for incoming students of 722 and increase its average GRE scores to a new record. Some 15% of the 287 students in the school’s Class of 2020 got into Tuck with a GRE, with the verbal average at 163, up from 161 last year, and the quant average at 161, up from 158 a year earlier.

In releasing its Class of 2020 profile, Tuck said students who entered with a GMAT scored an average on the verbal of 41, with a low of 31 to a high of 50, and an average of 48 on the quant, with a low of 37 and a high of 51. The full range of overall GMAT scores for enrolled students was 620 to 780. Tuck’s average GMAT of 722 is among the highest reported by a top school, behind the 732 reported by Columbia, Wharton and Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, which has yet to report its new class stats, topped all prestige schools last year with a 737 average.

RECORD NUMBER OF WOMEN IN NEW TUCK CLASS, UP JUST .5% FROM LAST YEAR

The average undergraduate grade point average for the class was 3.49, just a bit lower than last year’s 3.52 GPA. Tuck said the lowest GPA of an enrolled student this year was 2.61, while the high was a perfect 4.0.

Tuck also reported a sliver of an increase of women in this year’s entering class, a record 45%, from 44.5% last year. Along with Wharton, Tuck could boast the highest percentage of women in its MBA class of any U.S. school last year. So far this year, however, a couple of other schools have moved past Tuck: The University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business broke the gender parity mark by enrolling a Class of 2020 that is 52% female. Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management earlier announced that women will make up a record 46% in its Class of 2020 — an increase of four full percentage points from last year’s incoming class. Roughly 20% of Tuck’s class this year is composed of U.S. minorities, a percentage that also includes Asian Americans.

Some 36% of the Class of 2020 are international, a percentage that includes both dual citizens and permanent residents. Tuck said that 42 countries are represented in the new class by citzenship, a 10% increase from last year’s class, 34 nations by birth, and 33 by professional experience. Counting dual citizens in both countries, 71% of the new class are citizens of the U.S. and Canada, 16% are from Asia, 8% from Europe, 7% from Latin America, and 2% each from the Middle East and Africa as well as Oceania.

ONE IN FOUR NEW MBA STUDENTS AT TUCK HAVE FINANCIAL SERVICES ON THEIR RESUMES

When it came to the pre-MBA professional backgrounds of the Class of 2020, the largest single group racked up work experience in financial services, 26%. Consulting came next with 19%, followed by nonprofit and government students with 15% of the total. New MBA students who had worked in technology represent 12% of the class, while those who came from consumer goods and retail account for 6% of the newest students. Some 6% also came from energy, 5% from health care pharma and biotech, 5% from media and entertainment, and 4% from manufacturing.

Counting only their most recent jobs, the first-year students came to Tuck from 225 unique employers, and have on average 63 months of professional experience, a touch more than five years.

Students who had majored in the arts, humanities and social sciences during their undergradute studies make up slightly more than half the class at 51%. The STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) contingent represents 29% of the Class of 2020, while business majors compose 20% of the new students.

A good chunk of Tuck’s new class came to school with partners, some 32% of the class, while 4% have children in tow.

Class of 2020 orientation at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business

DON’T MISS: HBS APPS DOWN 4.5%, BUT FEW CHANGES TO 2020 CLASS PROFILE or KELLOGG ENROLLS RECORD NUMBER OF WOMEN

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