2025-2026 MBA Application Deadlines At Leading Business Schools

The forthcoming 2025-2026 admissions season is fraught with uncertainty.

Amid widespread concern that fewer international applicants will be willing to go to a U.S. school during the Trump era and economic uncertainty causing domestic applicants to hang onto their jobs, many admission experts are predicting a decline in application volume. The Trump Administration made that a near certainty in May by attempting to ban all international students at Harvard University and by pausing all interviews for student visas to explore an expansion of social media vetting.

That is good news to those willing to move forward because it will likely mean applicants will face less competition to get into highly selective MBA programs. Those who apply in this cycle, moreover, are likely to be ahead of the potential for a U.S. recession when application volume typically soars.

HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL MOVED UP ITS ROUND ONE DEADLINE BY A DAY THIS YEAR

The official opening of the 2025-2026 season begins on Sept. 3, the round one deadline at Harvard Business School. That’s a day earlier than last year’s round one cutoff. After that date, application deadlines fall like dominoes at one business school after another.

What to expect? While the deadlines typically remain more or less the same from year-to-year, essays do change. This year’s essay prompts, too, will be indirectly influenced by the Trump administration. At Columbia Business School, for example, one of last year’s required essays was clearly focused on diversity, equity and inclusion, a no-no in the Trump era. The prelude to that essay was a bit of a woke word salad with such phrases as “mitigating bias and prejudice, managing intercultural dialogue, addressing system inequity, understanding identity and perspective taking, and creating an inclusive environment.” Columbia then asked applicants for 250 words to describe a time or situation when they had to utilize one or more of these five skills.”

All that is gone. Now, the school simply asks candidates to answer this prompt in 250 words or less: “Please share a specific example of how you made a team more collaborative, more inclusive or fostered a greater sense of community within an organization.”

WHICH SCHOOLS ARE GRANTING GMAT AND GRE WAIVERS?

This year for the first time our tables list whether a school offers MBA candidates waivers from a standardized test with a link to the school’s details on what is required to obtain a waiver. Many of the top MBA programs, including Michigan Ross and UVA Darden, now grant waivers to both the GMAT and the GRE. In most cases, an applicant must submit proof that they can do the quantitative work in the MBA program to gain a waiver, though some programs have become test optional.

As the schools release their 2025-2026 MBA application deadlines and essay prompts, we will continuously update our tables to provide applicants with the latest guidance.

Earliest 2025-2026 MBA Application Deadlines At North American Schools

School	Deadline	Interview Notification	Decision	Essay Release	Test Waiver
Columbia	June 17, 2025 (R1-Jan. intake)	Rolling invitations	No later than Aug. 15	Yes	No
Western (Ivey)	July 7, 2025 (R3-March intake)	Rolling invitations	Rolling	Yes	Yes
Southern Methodist (Cox)	Aug. 5, 2025 (R1)	Rolling invitations	Sept. 26, 2025	Yes	Yes
Columbia	Aug. 13, 2025 (R2-Jan. intake)	Rolling invitations	Rolling	Yes	No
Brigham Young (Marriott)	Sept. 1, 2025 (Early/Priority Scholarship Oct. 15)	Rolling	Rolling	Yes	Yes
British Columbia (Sauder)	Sept. 1, 2025 (Early Bird/Automatic $1,500 Scholarship)	Rolling	Oct. 10, 2025	Yes	Yes
Harvard Business School	Sept. 3, 2025 (R1)	TBD	Dec. 10, 2025	Yes	No
Pennsylvania (Wharton)	Sept. 3, 2025 (R1)	Oct. 22, 2025	Dec. 10, 2025	Yes	No
Columbia	Sept. 3, 2025 (R1-Aug. intake)	Rolling invitations	Rolling	Yes	No
Virginia (Darden)	Sept. 4, 2025 (Early Action)	Limited Open Invites	Oct. 22, 2025	Yes	Yes
Duke (Fuqua)	Sept. 4, 2025 (Early Action)	By Sept. 25, 2025	Oct. 16, 2025	Yes	No
Notre Dame (Mendoza)	Sept. 4, 2025 (Early Action)	Rollling Invites	Oct. 17, 2025	Yes	Yes
Michigan (Ross)	Sept. 8, 2025 (R1)	Rolling invitations	Dec. 5, 2025	Yes	Yes
Georgetown (McDonough)	Sept. 8, 2025 (Early Action)	Rolling invitations	Oct. 29, 2025	Yes	Yes
Ohio State (Fisher)	Sept. 8, 2025 (Early Round-Jan. 12, 2026 start)	Rolling invitations	Oct. 3, 2025	Yes	Yes
Stanford	Sept. 9, 2025 (R1)	Rolling invitations	Dec. 10, 2025	Yes	No
Northwestern (Kellogg)	Sept. 10, 2025 (R1)	Rolling invitations	Dec. 10, 2025	Yes	No
Yale SOM	Sept. 10, 2025 (R1)	Rolling invitations	Dec. 4, 2025	Yes	No
Johns Hopkins (Carey)	Sept. 10, 2025 (Early Action)	Rolling invitations	Oct. 22, 2025	Yes	Yes
UC-Berkeley (Haas)	Sept. 11, 2025 (R1)	Rolling invitations	Dec. 11, 2025	Yes	No
NYU (Stern)	Sept. 15, 2025 (R1)	Rolling	Dec. 1, 2025	Yes	No
North Carolina State (Jenkins)	Sept. 15, 2025 (Early: One Day To MBA)	Rolling	Oct. 10, 2025	Yes	Yes
Chicago (Booth)	Sept. 16, 2025 (R1)	Rolling	Dec. 4, 2025	Yes	No
Cornell (Johnson)	Sept. 17, 2025 (R1)	Oct. 31, 2025	Dec. 5, 2025	Yes	Yes
Western (Ivey)	Sept. 22, 2025 (R4 & Final International Round-March intake)	Rolling invitations	Rolling	Yes	Yes
Dartmouth (Tuck)	Sept. 25, 2025 (R1)	Rolling invitations	Dec. 11, 2025	Yes	Yes
Wisconsin	Sept. 25, 2025 (Early Decision)	Rolling invitations	Rolling	Yes	Yes
MIT (Sloan)	Sept. 29, 2025 (RI)	Rolling invitations	December, 2025	Yes	Yes
Duke (Fuqua)	Sept. 30, 2025 (RI)	By Nov. 12, 2025	Dec. 11, 2025	Yes	No
Carnegie Mellon (Tepper)	Sept. 30, 2025 (RI–Full Time & Online Hybrid)	Rolling	Dec. 3, 2025	Yes	Yes
Virginia (Darden)	Oct. 1, 2025 (R1)	Rolling Invitations	Dec. 10, 2025	Yes	Yes
UCLA (Anderson)	Oct. 1, 2025 (R1)	Rolling Invitations	Dec. 12, 2025	Yes	Yes
Emory (Goizueta)	Oct. 1, 2025 (R1)	Rolling invitations	Dec. 3, 2025	Yes	Yes
Washington (Foster)	Oct. 1, 2025 (R1)	Rolling invitations	Dec. 19, 2025	Yes	Yes
Georgetown (McDonough)	Oct. 1, 2025 (R1)	Rolling invitations	Dec. 10, 2025	Yes	Yes
Georgia Tech (Scheller)	Oct. 1, 2025 (R1)	Rolling invitations	Nov. 21, 2025	Yes	Yes
Vanderbilt (Owen)	Oct. 1, 2025 (R1)	Rolling invitations	Dec. 12, 2025	Yes	Yes
Minnesota (Carlson)	Oct. 1, 2025 (R1)	Rolling invitations	Nov. 15, 2025	Yes	No
Miami (Herbert)	Oct. 1, 2025 (R1)	Rolling Invitations	By Nov. 15, 2025	Yes	Yes
Maryland (Smith)	Oct. 1, 2025 (R1)	Rolling invitations	3 to 6 weeks after app submission	Yes	Yes
Washington (Olin)	Oct. 5, 2025 (R1)	Rolling invitations	Nov. 7, 2025	Yes	No
Michigan State (Broad)	Oct. 6, 2025 (R1)	Rolling invitations	Nov. 14, 2025	Yes	Yes
Ohio State (Fisher)	Oct. 6, 2025 (R1-Jan. 12, 2026 start)	Rolling invitations	Nov. 7, 2025	Yes/td>	Yes
North Carolina (Kenan-Flagler)	Oct. 7, 2025 (R1)	Rolling invitations	Dec. 17, 2025	Yes	Yes
Cornell Tech MBA	Oct. 8, 2025 (Priority)	Rolling	Rolling	Yes	Yes
Georgia (Terry)	Oct. 10, 2025 (R1)	Rolling	Dec. 5, 2025	Yes	Yes
Notre Dame (Mendoza)	Oct. 14, 2025 (R1)	Rollling Invites	Dec. 12, 2025	Yes	Yes
British Columbia (Sauder)	Oct. 14, 2025 (R1)	Rolling	Dec. 9, 2025	Yes	Yes
Indiana (Kelley)	Oct. 15, 2025 (R1)	Rolling invitations	Dec. 20, 2025	Yes	Yes
Texas-Austin (McCombs)	Oct. 15, 2025 (R1)	Rolling invitations	Dec. 16, 2025	Yes	Yes
Southern California (Marshall)	Oct. 15, 2025 (R1)	Rolling invitations	Dec. 15, 2025	Yes	Yes
Arizona State (Carey)	Oct. 15, 2025 (R1)	Rolling invitations	Dec. 12, 2025	Yes	Yes
Texas A&M (Mays)	Oct. 15, 2025 (R1)	Rolling invitations	Rolling	Yes	Yes
Johns Hopkins (Carey)	Oct. 22, 2025 (R1)	Rolling invitations	Dec. 10, 2025	Yes	Yes
North Carolina State (Jenkins)	Nov. 1, 2025 (R1)	Rolling	Week of Dec. 15, 2025	Yes	Yes
Northeastern (D’Amore-McKim)	Nov. 1, 2025 (R1)	Rolling	Rolling	Yes	Yes
Wisconsin	Nov. 4, 2025 (R1)	Rolling invitations	Rolling	Yes	Yes
Rutgers	Nov. 15, 2025 (R1)	Rolling invitations	Dec. 15, 2025	Yes	Yes
Brigham Young (Marriott)	Dec. 1, 2025 (R1)	Rolling	Rolling	Yes	Yes
Ohio State (Fisher)	March 16, 2026 (R1-Aug. 25, 2026 start)	Rolling invitations	April 17, 2026	Yes	Yes

Earliest 2025-2026 MBA Application Deadlines At Top European Schools

School	Deadline	Interview Notification	Decision	Essay Release	Test Waiver
INSEAD	June 17, 2025 (R3-Jan. 2026 intake)	By July 16, 2025	By Aug. 22, 2025	Yes	No
HEC Paris	June 22, 2025 (R3-Sept. 2025 intake)	Rolling	July 18, 2025	Yes	No
HEC Paris	June 22, 2025 (R3-Jan. 2026 intake)	Rolling	July 18, 2025	Yes	No
HEC Paris	July 22, 2025 (R4-Sept. 2025 intake)	Rolling	Aug. 1, 2025	Yes	No
INSEAD	Aug. 5, 2025 (R4 & Final-Jan. 2026 intake)	By Sept. 5, 2025	By Oct. 10, 2025	Yes	No
HEC Paris	Aug. 17, 2025 (R4-Jan. 2026 intake)	Rolling	Sept. 19, 2025	Yes	No
Cambridge (Judge)	Aug. 26, 2025 (R1-Sept. 2026 intake)	Rolling	Rolling	Yes	No
London Business School	Sept. 5, 2025 (R1)	Oct. 9, 2025	Mid-Oct. to early Nov.	Yes	No
INSEAD	Sept. 16, 2025 (R1-Aug. 2026 intake)	By Oct. 17, 2025	By Nov. 21, 2025	Yes	No
HEC Paris	Sept. 21, 2025 (R5-Jan. 2026 intake)	Rolling	Oct. 17, 2025	Yes	No
HEC Paris	Oct. 19, 2025 (R6-Jan. 2026 intake)	Rolling	Nov. 21, 2025	Yes	No
HEC Paris	Nov. 23, 2025 (R7 & Final-Jan. 2026 intake)	Rolling	Dec. 19, 2025	Yes	No

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