Stanford's MBA Class Of 2025 Is (Once Again) Among The Most Diverse In The World

Stanford's MBA Class Of 2025 Is Among The Most Diverse In The World (Yet Again)

Stanford MBA students during orientation in 2024. The school has welcomed a new class of students this fall. GSB photo

Diversity and inclusion, Stanford Graduate School of Business Dean Jonathan Levin says, are the foundational blocks of a world-class education. It is hard to quantify, but impossible to deny, the benefits of exposure to different backgrounds, arguments, and perspectives.

“One of the things I say to students is that part of the value of the campus is that education is fundamentally about encountering different ideas, cultures and people,” Levin told Poets&Quants in 2022 on the occasion of his selection as Dean of the Year.

“We spend a lot of time talking about how to actually get the benefits of those who have had different experiences and have different perspectives,” Levin said. “That is the responsibility of the institution but that gets harder and harder in a country where that is not going on in general. It’s not the way people are engaged in social media and in politics. That makes it even more important in our neck of the woods. It is a fundamental challenge so we have to pay a lot of attention to that.”

STANFORD MBA CLASSES 2019-2025: BY THE NUMBERS

Class Profile	Class of 2025	2024	2023	2022	2021	2020	2019
Applications	6190	6152	7367	7324	7342	7797	8173
Class Size	431	424	426	436	417	419	418
Women	46%	44%	44%	47%	47%	41%	40%
Internationals	36%	37%	47%	35%	43%	42%	41%
U.S. Minority	50%	51%	48%	37%	27%	27%	29%
Work Experience	0-15 years	NA	0-11	0-12	0-14	0-11	0-14
Average Work Experience	5.0 years	4.9 years	4.8 years	4.7 years	4.6 years	4 years	4 years
Average GMAT	738	737	738	733	734	732	737
GMAT Score Range	630-790	630-790	610-790	600-790	600—790	600—790	610—790
GRE Verbal Average	164	164	165	165	165	165	165
Verbal Range	149-170	149-170	149-170	150-170	149—170	155—170	NA
GRE Quant Average	164	163	165	164	165	165	164
Quant Range	150-170	150-170	154-170	151-170	157—170	152—170	NA
GPA Average	3.77	3.76	3.78	3.8	3.7	3.73	3.73
TOEFL Average	113	NA	113	113	114	113	112
TOEFL Range	104-120	NA	104-120	107-118	105-120	101-120	104-119

MORE THAN 1/3 OF STANFORD’S 2025 CLASS HAILS FROM 55 COUNTRIES OUTSIDE THE U.S.

Stanford Graduate School of Business Dean Jonathan Levin: “Education is fundamentally about encountering different ideas, cultures and people”

Under Levin’s leadership, Stanford Graduate School of Business has met that challenge year after year, never more so than in the fall of 2022 when, for the first time, more than half of Stanford’s MBA class identified as people of color, and the numbers of Black (12%) and Hispanic (13%) students reached their highest levels in history under the program’s multi-identity reporting.

How did Stanford follow up that highly successful diversification of its MBA program in 2023? This year, U.S. minorities were again half the class at 50%, women in the class grew to 46%, just shy of the school record (see table above), and Black (11%) and Hispanic (12%) students were again in double-digit percentages. Under-represented minority students overall were flat at 27% of the class, but that is still above the 24% of two years ago.

The international flavor of Stanford’s Palo Alto campus has always been robust and that didn’t change this year, either, with 36% of the class hailing from 55 countries outside the United States.

STANFORD DODGES MBA APPLICATION DOWNTURN

Stanford had among the biggest drop-offs in MBA applications between 2020-2021 and 2021-2022, when it lost more than 16% of app volume in a single cycle. Several of the GSB’s peers suffered declines two years ago and as P&Q‘s coverage has detailed, many have reported a second year of slumps as the market corrects from a pandemic-fueled boom in applications. But Stanford dodged a second year of decline, with 6,190 apps to its MBA program after 6,152 last year.

It’s a modest gain but a gain nonetheless, and better than Stanford’s peers can boast. At the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, apps were down slightly this year, to 4,184 from 4,352 for the Class of 2024, a decline of nearly 4% and the lowest app total for Booth since 2016. In two years, apps to Booth’s full-time MBA have dropped about 17%.

At the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School, apps were down this fall for a second straight year, dropping 2%, or 125 apps, from the previous cycle. Wharton’s 2022-2023 application total of 6,194 is down 15.6% or 1,144 apps in two years, a precipitous decline from a school record of 7,338 for the class that enrolled in fall 2021. And at Harvard Business School, MBA applications in 2022-2023 were down by 115 or 1.4%, a year after dropping more than 15%, falling from 8,264 last year to 8,149. But the long-term trend is definitely down: MBA apps at HBS are down more than 21% since the school received a record 10,351 for entry to the Class of 2019.

Application numbers in 2022-2023 as revealed school by school this fall have been all over the place. Apps to UCLA Anderson School of Management fell off 11.8% and are down almost 30% in two years; they’ve dropped at Duke Fuqua School of Business by 7%; and they’re down about 5% at Yale School of Management. Virginia Darden School of Business reported a 4% decline. See below for links to more of Poets&Quants‘ coverage of the MBA Class of 2025.

M7 SCHOOLS’ MBA CLASS OF 2025: BY THE NUMBERS

MBA Class of 2025	Stanford	Harvard	Wharton	Kellogg	Booth	Sloan
Applications Received	6,190	8,149	6,194	NA	4,184	NA
Enrolled	431	938	874	529	637	409
GMAT Average	738	740*	728	731	728	729*
GMAT Range	630-790	500-790	NA	620-780	600-780	700-760**
GRE Average	328	326*	324	326*	325	NA
% Submitting GRE	39%	34%	NA	NA	29%	NA
GPA Average	3.77	3.73	3.60	3.70	3.60	3.61*
GPA Range	NA	NA	NA	2.8-4.0	2.4-4.0	NA
Women	46%	45%	50%	48%	42%	46%
US Minority	50%	45%	37%	42%	49%	NA
URM	27%	25%	16%	19%	22%	28%
International	36%	39%	31%	39%	36%	40%
Countries	55	NA	70	NA	54	60
Average Work Experience	5 years	4.9 years	5 years	5.1 years	5 years	5 years
Average Age	NA	27	NA	NA	28	NA
LGBTQ+	NA	NA	11%	9%	12%	NA
First-Generation Students	11%	11%	11%	13%	12%	NA
Military	5%	6%	NA	3%	11%	NA

*Median

**Middle 80%

TEST SCORES: GMAT AVERAGE MATCHES ALL-TIME SCHOOL RECORD

Stanford reports that its class Graduate Management Admission Test average matched a school record 738 set two years ago, which outpaces all other M7 schools this year, though Harvard Business School and MIT Sloan of Management report only median scores and Columbia Business School has yet to publish its Class of 2025 profile. Stanford’s range of GMAT scores that earned applicants admission is the same as last year (630-790).

Those submitting Graduate Record Exam scores for admission grew to the highest in school history this fall, at 39%, up from 33% last year. Six years ago only 16% of Stanford admits submitted GRE scores. The new class’s cumulative score average grew to 328 from 327 last year, but is still below the 330 reported for the classes of 2020, 2021, and 2023.

In undergraduate grade point average, Stanford’s new MBA class exceeded its immediate predecessors with a class average of 3.77, up from 3.76, but still down from the 3.78 reported two years ago and the 3.8 from the Class of 2022.

DECLINES IN STUDENTS FROM THE TECH & CONSULTING SECTORS

As usual, there was little significant change in the pre-MBA industry or undergraduate major makeup of Stanford’s new MBA class. Class of 2025 members studied at 165 undergraduate institutions in the U.S. or abroad, up from 162 last year; 17% have advanced degrees, up from 13% but down from 19% two years ago; and 11% are the first in their family to graduate from a four-year university or college, down from 12% the last two years.

Before joining Stanford, 26% of the class studied engineering (up from 24%), 21% majored in economics (same as last year), 13% studied the social sciences (down big from 20%), 20% were business/commerce majors (up from 19%), and 15% studied math or science (up from 9%). Just 5% studied arts or humanities (down 6% last year and 8% in 2021).

Nearly one-fifth of students with previous professional experience worked in investment management, private equity, or venture capital roles, down 1 percentage point from the previous three years (see table below), and another 17% worked in consulting, down 3 points. Thirteen percent of the class worked in the technology sector, down from 15%; 10% of the class previously worked in government, education, or the nonprofit sector, up from 8%; 5% are veterans, and another 5% are from the financial services sector. On average, incoming MBA students in the Class of 2025 have five years of professional experience, up from the usual average that is just under 5 years; the range of work experience decreased from 0 to 18 years to 0 to 15 years.

STANFORD GSB STUDENT BACKGROUNDS & MAJORS OVER THE YEARS

Student Backgrounds	Class Of 2025	2024	2023	2022	2021	2020	2019	2018	2017
Investment Management/Private Equity/Venture Capital	19%	20	20	20	19	21	21	20	16
Consulting	17%	20	16	17	20	19	19	18	16
Technology	13%	15	14	14	14	17	15	16	15
Government/Education/Nonprofit	10%	8	8	8	10	10	8	9	13
Consumer Products & Services	9%	7	7	7	8	7	7	7	7
Healthcare	7%	5	7	7	5	4	4	5	NA
Financial Services	5%	4	5	5	7	6	7	7	8
Military	5%	4	4	4	3	2	3	3	3
Arts/Media/Entertainment	4%	5	7	7	5	4	4	6	6
Cleantech/energy/environmental consulting	4%	3	4	4	3	3	3	6	6
Manufacturing	3%	3	3	2	3	3	4	2	4
Business Undergrad Major	20%	19	15	18	17	18	19	15	13
Engineering, Math & Natural Science Majors	41%	33	39	37	33	34	37	37	39
Humanities/Social Science & Econ Majors	39%	47	45	44	50	48	44	48	48