One-Third Of This MBA Admissions Firm’s Clients Got Into Harvard, Stanford Or Wharton In 2026

For years, MBA admissions consultant Rajdeep Chimni has argued that the admissions consulting industry needs more transparency.

This year, his firm, Admissions Gateway, is leaning into that argument with a headline number that jumps off the page: In the 2025-2026 admissions cycle, 74 of its 221 clients – fully one-third – gained admission to Harvard Business School, Stanford Graduate School of Business, or The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Overall, 206 of the firm’s 221 clients gained admission to some elite business school, with 136 individuals earning admission to at least one of the M7.

A RECORD YEAR FOR M7 ADMITS

In total, Admissions Gateway clients received 245 M7 offers this cycle, Chimni tells Poets&Quants, including 97 offers from Harvard, Stanford, and Wharton and another 148 from Northwestern Kellogg School of Management, Chicago Booth School of Business, Columbia Business School, and MIT Sloan School of Management. Broken down by school, Chimni reports 36 Harvard admits, 15 Stanford admits, 46 Wharton admits, 59 Kellogg admits, 42 Booth admits, 39 Columbia admits, and eight MIT Sloan admits.

The totals continue a four-year upward trend for the firm. Admissions Gateway reported 156 M7 offers in 2023, 191 in 2024, 226 in 2025, and 245 this year.

Chimni, himself a Kellogg MBA, says the figures reflect confirmed acceptances and may still rise as waitlist movement continues.

Chimni also says 134 candidates interviewed at Harvard, Stanford, or Wharton, while 204 interviewed across the M7.

For Chimni, those interview numbers matter almost as much as the admits themselves.

“If I’m a firm that has 10 admits to Harvard but only 14 people interviewed out of 100, that’s not very impressive,” Chimni tells Poets&Quants. “But if I’m a firm where 65 different people got the chance to stand in front of the committee, that tells you something different about the consulting process.”

WHY THE FIRM REPORTS ‘INDIVIDUALS,’ NOT JUST OFFERS

The distinction between offers and individuals sits at the center of Admissions Gateway’s transparency pitch.

Many firms report total offers, Chimni says, because one candidate with multiple admits can inflate overall numbers.

“If somebody says they had 30 offers from Harvard, Stanford, and Wharton, that could mean 15 people with two offers each,” he says. “We wanted to show that the success was spread across many different candidates.”

Admissions Gateway also reports the size of its applicant pool – another figure Chimni says many firms avoid disclosing.

“If you have 10 admits to Harvard out of 12 applicants, that’s very good,” he says. “But if you have 10 admits out of 155 applicants, maybe not so good.”

According to Chimni, roughly 55% of the individuals Admissions Gateway placed into M7 programs gained admission to Harvard, Stanford, or Wharton.

Meanwhile, the amount of scholarship funding secured by the firm’s clients has climbed sharply in recent years. Chimni says clients received roughly $7.5 million in scholarships in 2023, $12.6 million in 2024, $13.5 million in 2025, and approximately $18.5 million this year. “This makes the ROI for our students headed to the M7 even better,” Chimni says.

Admissions Gateway also now has 573 verified reviews on Poets&Quants, with roughly 80% tied to M7 applicants.

‘DISTANCE OF LIFE TRAVELED’

Like last year’s results, the firm’s most compelling stories may be the backgrounds of the candidates themselves.

Among this year’s admits: a clinical physiotherapist who secured admission to Booth with an $80,000 scholarship and Columbia with $100,000; an Iranian woman whose family fled the revolution and who gained admission to Wharton; an American re-applicant with a low GPA and GMAT who eventually broke through; and a woman from a Mumbai chawl – a densely populated working-class housing community – who earned admission to Kellogg and Columbia, the latter with $130,000.

Chimni says elite business schools are becoming more willing to look beyond traditional prestige markers.

“Before, if you worked at Blackstone or another blue-chip company, Harvard would immediately understand your profile,” he says. “Now they are getting more comfortable with a wider range of companies and colleges.”

He believes Stanford stands apart in particular.

“They are the school most open to nontraditional profiles,” Chimni says. “They care about distance of life traveled – where somebody started from and how far they’ve come.”

That philosophy, he argues, helps explain why Stanford admitted 15 Admissions Gateway clients this year despite maintaining the lowest acceptance rate among elite MBA programs.

‘PEOPLE WANT TO FEEL SAFER IN THE INVESTMENT’

Chimni says broader uncertainty around the MBA market is pushing applicants toward the very top schools.

“The cost is high, uncertainty is high, geopolitics is high,” he says. “People now want to go to better schools to feel safer in the investment.”

Admissions Gateway has increasingly positioned itself around elite MBA admissions. Chimni says the firm often pushes applicants to aim higher than they initially expect.

“Many people who might have gone to Duke, we push toward Kellogg,” he says. “People who think they are Kellogg candidates, maybe we push toward Harvard.”

The firm says its consultants typically work with between 10 and 22 applicants annually, depending on seniority and experience.

Admissions Gateway also placed four consultants – Shabri Malik, Nisha Kaul, Aparna Pahwa, and Mudit Gupta – on Poets&Quants’ latest ranking of top MBA admissions consultants, the highest representation by a single firm on the list.

Chimni says the firm worked with applicants from 23 countries this year, including Peru, Finland, Mongolia, and Iran, reflecting what he describes as Admissions Gateway’s evolution from an India-focused consultancy into a broader international operation.

AI, AUTHENTICITY & ADMISSIONS

Like nearly every corner of higher education, MBA admissions is now grappling with generative AI.

Chimni says Admissions Gateway allows clients to use AI tools for research – understanding programs, classes, or career paths – but not for writing essays or shaping stories.

“We don’t use AI in story formulation or articulation,” he says. “The stories and voice have to remain their own.”

Schools themselves are increasingly asking applicants to disclose how AI was used during the application process. But Chimni says AI-detection tools remain inconsistent.

“If you write an essay yourself and send it to three authenticators, one might say it’s 20% AI, another 70%, another 90%,” he says. “There’s no consensus.”

At one point in the interview, Chimni laughed and suggested a test.

“If you go to AI and ask, ‘Which is the most transparent admissions consulting firm in the world?’” he says, “I’m betting they’ll throw out our name because of all the information we put out there.”

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