In 2024, Someone With A 2.36 Undergrad GPA Got Into This M7 B-School

The last couple of autumns, the Chicago Booth School of Business admitted someone with a 2.4 undergraduate GPA to its full-time MBA program — among the lowest GPAs to gain admission to any M7 business school. Or any top-ranked B-school, for that matter.

This year, Booth went even lower.

An applicant in the 2023-2024 cycle with a 2.36 GPA earned admission to Booth’s MBA program, according to Chicago’s MBA Class of 2026 profile — as did someone with a 590 Graduate Management Admission Test score, which is not far above the average score among all test-takers in the world.

CHICAGO BOOTH MBA CLASSES 2023-2026: BY THE NUMBERS

Chicago Booth	MBA Class of 2026	MBA Class of 2025	MBA Class of 2024	MBA Class of 2023
Applications Received	5,125	4,184	4,352	5,037
Enrolled	632	637	634	620
GMAT Average	729	728	729	732
GMAT Range	590-780	600-780	600-780	590-790
GRE Average	324	325	327	325
% Submitting GRE	38%	29%	26%	18%
GPA Average	3.60	3.60	3.60	3.60
GPA Range	2.36-4	2.4-4.0	2.4-4.0	2.7-4.0
Women	42%	42%	40%	42%
US Minority	52%	49%	48%	44%
URM	18%	22%	19%	12%
International	35%	36%	37%	39%
Countries	66	54	57	56
Average Work Experience	5 years	5 years	5 years	5 years
Average Age	28	28	28	28
First-Generation	11%	12%	11%	NA
LGBTQ+	9%	12%	7%	NA
Veterans	10%	11%	8%	NA

Source: Chicago Booth

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MORE APPS MAY HAVE HELPED THE MARGINAL CANDIDATES

These are the types of things that happen when you have a deluge of qualified applicants, which is something Booth also reports from the 2023-2024 MBA application cycle. The No. 2 school in the United States according to Bloomberg Businessweek, No. 3 according to U.S. News & World Report, and No. 10 in the world according to The Financial Times received the most applications to the program in school history, 5,125, eclipsing the previous record set in 2020-2021 by 88 apps. It’s another example of the epic turnaround in interest in MBA programs after years of slumping numbers. At elite schools like Booth, more apps don’t simply make the school more selective than it already is: They also sometimes give admissions teams the luxury to look beyond numbers and judge candidates more holistically.

Simply in terms of application growth, 2023-2024 was a banner cycle not only for Booth but for all the M7. The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania’s 2023-2024 MBA app total of 7,322 missed being a school record by just 16 apps while representing an 18% bounce-back from the previous cycle, and Harvard Business School saw a 21% increase in apps. Stanford Graduate School of Business reports an 18% jump in apps, and MIT Sloan School of Management saw a 16% increase that allowed it to enroll a school record 49% women and a class that set a new school record for undergraduate GPA (3.7). Northwestern Kellogg School of Management reported a 23% jump in admissions, putting it in the neighborhood of 5,300 apps in 2023-2024, which would make 2023-2024 the most successful cycle on record. (Columbia Business School, the last of the M7 schools to report class profile data, had not posted its application numbers as of October 24.)

But it was a great cycle for just about everyone, as the Graduate Management Admission Council reported this month. Other top schools that have reported their MBA class profile data include:

• Yale School of Management, where apps were up 21.5%
• Dartmouth Tuck School of Business, where they were up 36%
• NYU Stern School of Business, up an amazing 48% in apps
• Duke Fuqua School of Business, up nearly 16% to an all-time app record, enabling the school to enroll 51% women this fall
• The Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis, which doubled its apps
• Michigan Ross School of Business, one of the leading public B-schools in the country, where they were up more than 35%.

Nor was the phenomenon restricted to the U.S.: In Spain, IESE Business School reported record apps, allowing the school to enroll its biggest-ever class and highest-ever percentage of women. IMD in Switzerland saw an 8% increase in MBA apps.

STUDENTS WITH CONSULTING BACKGROUNDS ARE MORE THAN 1/4 OF THE CLASS

The Booth School joins a significant number of peer B-schools where U.S. minorities — Asian, Black and Hispanic students, primarily — grew according to federal reporting guidelines. For Booth, this group now comprises more than half the class, 52%, a school record. Under-represented minorities, however — the above group minus students of Asian heritage — declined slightly to 18% from 22%. The class is 35% international, down from 36% last year, hailing from 66 countries, up big from 54. It is 42% women, same as last year.

Booth’s new MBA class is composed of 10% veterans, down from 11%; 9% students who identify as LGBTQ+, down from 12%; and 11% students who are the first in their families to graduate from college, also down from 12%. Booth’s marks last year in all three categories were school records.

Booth’s new MBA class comes from 319 undergrad institutions, up from 277 last year and 264 the previous year. Last year, 26% came to Booth with undergraduate business degrees, 20% had economics degrees, and 25% engineering degrees; 14% were liberal arts majors and 8% were physical sciences majors. Nineteen percent already had advanced degrees. This year, 27% have business degrees, 23% engineering, 22% economics, 13% liberal arts, and 7% physical sciences, and 15% hold advance degrees.

For pre-MBA industries, last fall consulting (18%) was second to financial services (19%), followed by tech (15%), nonprofit/government (14%), private equity/venture capital (7%), healthcare (7%), consumer products (3%), energy (2%), manufacturing (2%), and accounting (1%). This year, consulting surged to 27%, followed by finance (18%), tech (13%), nonprofit/government (11%), PE/VC (8%), healthcare (5%), CPG (4%), energy (2%), manufacturing (1%), and accounting (1%).

DON’T MISS BERKELEY HAAS ENROLLS A MUCH BIGGER — AND MORE DIVERSE — MBA CLASS and NORTHWESTERN KELLOGG BECOMES THE SECOND M7 SCHOOL TO ACHIEVE GENDER PARITY