MBA Class Of 2026: At Harvard, A Massive Rebound In MBA Applications

It’s officially a rebound. The MBA is back — and at Harvard Business School, by one key metric, nearly as strong as ever.

The HBS MBA program drew 20.9% more applications in 2023-2024 than it did in the previous cycle, up more than 1,700 apps from a historic low of 8,149.

The bounce-back erased back-to-back years of declines that saw HBS lose 16.6% of its app volume, and drew the school back into the same ballpark as its all-time record of 10,351 apps set in 2017.

HARVARD NOT ALONE IN THE MBA RENAISSANCE

Harvard is among a handful of top business schools in the United States to report significant increases in MBA applications in 2023-2024. Among the others is Duke Fuqua School of Business, which received more than 15% more apps this cycle — and used the flood of talented applicants to set a new record for women's enrollment.

Yale School of Management and Dartmouth Tuck School of Business — like Harvard, Ivy League schools that had struggled the past two cycles to draw interest to their program compared to the levels of past years — both experienced significant turnarounds as well, with Yale up 21.5% and Dartmouth up an incredible 36%.

And the rebound in interest is not restricted to U.S. B-schools: IESE, in Barcelona, Spain, has reported a 16% jump in apps that fueled the school's enrollment of the biggest-ever class in the school's 60-year history, as well as the most women in its history: 40% of the class.

HARVARD BY THE NUMBERS, MBA CLASSES OF 2020-2026

Category	Class of 2026	Class of 2025	Class of 2024	Class of 2023	Class of 2022	Class of 2021	Class of 2020
Applications	9856	8149	8264	9773	9304	9228	9886
Acceptance Rate	9.0%*	9.2%*	9.5%*	9.0%*	9.2%	12%	11%
Enrolled Students	930	938	1,015	1010	732	938	930
Yield	88%*	89%*	87%*	89%*	87%*	89%	90%
Women	45%	45%	46%	46%	44%	43%	41%
International	35%	39%	38%	37%	33%	37%	37%
U.S. Ethnic Minorities	50%	45%	48%	52%	45%	27%	26%
First Gen	11%	11%	13%	13%	NA	NA	NA
Average Age	NA	27	27	27	27	27	27
Countries Represented	NA	NA	NA	NA	70*	71	69
Median GMAT Score	740	740	730	730	730	730	730
GMAT Range	540-790	500-790	540-790	590-790	620-790	590-800	610-800
Undergraduate GPA	3.69	3.73	3.70	3.69	3.70	3.70	3.71
Median GRE	326	326	326	326	326	326	328
STEM Undergrads	40%	42%	42%	43%	41%	38%	37%
Econ/Biz Undergrads	43%	43%	43%	41%	41%	43%	46%
Humanities/Social Science Undergrads	17%	16%	15%	17%	18%	19%	17%

*Estimate

Source: Harvard Business School

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BLACK, HISPANIC, MULTIRACIAL STUDENT NUMBERS DROP SLIGHTLY

Harvard enrolled 930 students in the MBA Class of 2026, of whom 45% are women, same as last fall and just 1 percentage point shy of the school record set in fall 2021 and matched in fall 2022. HBS is slightly less international than last year, at 35% its smallest international cohort since the coronavirus pandemic drove down foreign students' numbers for all U.S. schools in the fall of 2020. Sixty-eight percent of the class hails from North America, up from 64% last year and the highest total since the 2020 intake, while 13% are from Asia (down 2 points) and 8% from Europe (also down two points; see table below). Eleven percent of the new class are first-generation college students, same as last fall.

In terms of the racial diversity of HBS's MBA Class of 2026, Harvard notably reports its overall percentage of U.S. ethnic minorities at 50% of the class, up from 45% last year. However, the more granular numbers reveal a more complex picture. HBS experienced slight declines in Black, Hispanic, and multiracial students and a slight increase in Asian students — possibly the effects of the ending of affirmative action, which was always expected to have a greater impact on undergraduate than graduate college enrollment. Of domestic students and permanent U.S. residents, when counted according to Federal guidelines, 25% of the new class are Asian American, up from 22% last year; 8% are Black or African American, down from 10%; 10% are Hispanic or Latino, down from 11%; and 4% identify as multiracial, down from 6%.

Multi-dimensional reporting, in which schools "share students' full racial and ethnic identities to more inclusively reflect the racial/ethnic groups with which they identify," indicates that 29% of students in Harvard's new MBA class identify as Asian American, up from 27%; 10% are Black or African American, down from 13%; and 10% identify as Hispanic or Latino, down from 11%. Additionally, according to multi-dimensional reporting, 62% identify themselves as white, down from 63% last year, compared to 49% under Federal reporting guidelines, which is down from 50%.

HBS CLASSES' ORIGINS THROUGH THE YEARS

Category	Class of 2026	Class of 2025	Class of 2024	Class of 2023	Class of 2022	Class of 2021	Class of 2020
North America	68%	64%	66%	66%	70%	67%	68%
U.S.	65%	61%	62%	63%	67%	63%	63%
Asia	13%	15%	14%	13%	11%	14%	14%
Europe	8%	10%	9%	8%	9%	9%	8%
Latin America	5%	5%	5%	6%	6%	5%	6%
Africa	2%	2%	3%	3%	3%	2%	2%
Middle East	3%	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA
Oceania	<1%	1%	1%	1%	1%	1%	1%

Source: HBS

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SOMEONE WITH A 540 GMAT GAINED ADMISSION TO HARVARD

Harvard is one of a handful of B-schools that publishes a full range of Graduate Management Admission Test scores, showing the low and high ends of the scores that won admission for their applicants. Last year HBS reported that someone (possibly, but not likely, multiple someones) gained admission with a score of 500, which was more than 80 points below the median score of all test takers that year — and 240 points below Harvard's median for the Class of 2025.

This year, the low score for the class was 540, which is still very low — the Graduate Management Admission Test, which administers the GMAT, reports that the overall median is around 550. But Harvard's median stayed at 740 this year, where it had climbed last year in the first increase for the school in 13 years. This despite the advent of the new GMAT Focus, which has lower scores (see an explainer here).

More important in the long run for GMAC and those considering applying to HBS: Once again in 2023-2024, more students got into Harvard with a Graduate Record Exam score than the year before. The GRE keeps chipping away at the GMAT, this year accounting for 41% of all admits' scores, up from 34%. The GRE's share of scores submitted to HBS was just 12% six years ago.

MOST MBA CLASS OF 2026 STUDENTS HAIL FROM CONSULTING

There were no significant shifts in the composition of the MBA Class of 2026 vis-a-vis undergraduate major or pre-MBA industry. For the former, the percentage of STEM (science, tech, engineering and math) grads declined from 42% to 40%, while the percentage of economics/business undergrads stayed steady at 43%. Seventeen percent of the class earned degrees in the humanities, down from 16% of last fall's cohort.

Consulting, which shared the distinction of top pre-MBA industry for the Class of 2025, ticked up 1 point to 18% and became the sole No. 1; venture capital and private equity, which had shared the top spot with consulting, slipped a point to 16%.

Tech dropped a point to 12%, and financial services was flat at 10%. Manufacturing/energy was flat at 9%. See table below for details.

HBS MBA CLASSES PRE-MBA INDUSTRIES THROUGH THE YEARS

Category	Class of 2026	Class of 2025	Class of 2024	Class of 2023	Class of 2022	Class of 2021	Class of 2020
Venture Capital & Private Equity	16%	17%	16%	15%	16%	16%	16%
Consulting	18%	17%	16%	17%	15%	15%	16%
High Tech/Communications	12%	13%	14%	11%	13%	12%	15%
Financial Services	10%	10%	10%	12%	11%	12%	11%
Consumer Products	9%	10%	9%	9%	9%	9%	6%
Manufacturing/Energy	9%	9%	9%	11%	11%	12%	11%
Healthcare/Biotech	8%	7%	8%	7%	7%	7%	7%
Government/Education/Non-Profit	6%	6%	6%	8%	6%	8%	7%
Military	5%	6%	4%	5%	5%	4%	5%
Media/Entertainment/Travel	4%	3%	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA
Other Services	2%	2%	NA	3%	2%	6%	7%

Source: HBS

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DON'T MISS MBA APPS AT YALE SOM JUMP 21.5% and IT WAS MUCH HARDER TO GET INTO DARTMOUTH TUCK'S MBA PROGRAM THIS YEAR. HERE'S WHY