UCLA Anderson MBA Class Of 2028: Apps Fall 21%, 300-Seat Enrollment Target Missed

UCLA Anderson School of Management enrolled a smaller, younger, and higher-scoring MBA class this fall, after a steep drop in applications and a summer of visa delays and last-minute enrollment losses.

Anderson received 2,422 applications for its full-time MBA Class of 2028 and enrolled 287 students, according to the class profile the school posted on its website. That is 642 fewer apps than the 3,064 the school reported for the Class of 2027, a decline of 21%. The class is 20 students smaller than the 307 who enrolled a year earlier.

It is also a class that is harder to win over. Gary Fraser, associate dean of the full-time MBA program, says Anderson is now recruiting a Gen Z cohort that grew up distrusting institutions, negotiates harder over offers and needs more one-on-one attention.

MILITARY DUTY & VISA DELAYS

The school’s goal has been a class of 300 for at least the past four years, down from about 360 in earlier years, Fraser tells Poets&Quants.

“Our target every year is 300,” he says. “And we didn’t make it.”

Visa problems, which Anderson largely avoided last year, accounted for part of the shortfall. So did an unusual circumstance. “This year was a little different,” Fraser says. “There were actually a handful of students that, for active military reasons – U.S. citizens – could not enroll.”

“We don’t typically offer deferrals, but we did with those individuals, as well as a handful of folks that weren’t able to secure their visa. I think if we didn’t have those factors, we would have hit our numbers at 300.”

Anderson starts earlier than many MBA programs, in late July, which leaves less room for late visa approvals. To give international students who arrived late a chance to catch up, the school changed its orientation this year so the academic portion began in the second week rather than the first.

“We actually restructured our orientation program so that we start the academic part in week two versus week one, to accommodate some people that were able to get here just basically under the wire,” Fraser says.

UCLA ANDERSON MBA: 3-YEAR SNAPSHOT

Metric	Class of 2028	Class of 2027	Class of 2026	Change vs. 2027
Applications	2,422	3,064	3,079	–642 (–21.0%)
Admits	n/a	~950*	946	–
Acceptance rate	n/a‡	31.0%	30.7%	–
Yield	~30–31%‡	32.3%	32.2%	–1 to –2 pts
Class size	287	307	305	–20 (–6.5%)
Apps per seat	8.4	10.0	10.1	–1.6
Mean GMAT (10th Ed.)	718	703	714	15
GMAT middle 80%	650–750	670–750	670–750	Floor –20
Mean GMAT Focus	660	n/a	n/a	–
GRE Verbal / Quant	162 / 164	162 / 163	162 / 165	Quant +1
Test-optional share of applicants	~30%‡	n/a	n/a	–
Mean GPA	3.5	3.5	3.5	Flat
GPA middle 80%	3.1–3.9	3.1–3.8	3.1–3.8	Ceiling +0.1
Avg. work experience	5.4 yrs	5.6 yrs	5.4 yrs	–0.2
Avg. age (range)	28 (22–39)	29 (23–43)	n/a	–1
Women	39%	46%	43%	–7 pts
International	36%	35%	41%	+1 pt
U.S. minority (federal)	~54%†	66%	57%	–12 pts
Black / African American	9%	16%	13%	–7 pts
Hispanic	15%	19%	11%	–4 pts
Asian American	29%	31%	32%	–2 pts
LGBTQ+	9%	9%	8%	Flat
Military	6%	4%	4%	+2 pts
Career switchers	90%	84%	87%	+6 pts
Pre-MBA tech	17%	20%	16%	–3 pts
Pre-MBA finance	16%	19%	21%	–3 pts
Pre-MBA consulting	9%	9%	12%	Flat
Engineering majors	19%	22%	22%	–3 pts

*Derived from P&Q’s acceptance rate and yield figures, not school-reported.
†Sum of the federal-guideline categories on Anderson’s class profile; confirmed as accurate by Fraser.
‡Fraser’s estimate; Anderson has not reported official figures. Fraser says the acceptance rate showed no dramatic shift from last year.

Sources: UCLA Anderson class profiles (Classes of 2028 and 2027); Clear Admit (Classes of 2026 and 2027); P&Q analyses of U.S. News data (April 2025 and August 2026); interview with Gary Fraser

---

A MARKET ‘OFF ON BOTH SIDES’

The application drop ended Anderson’s two-year run above 3,000 applications. The school drew 3,079 apps for the Class of 2026, up from 2,182 the year before, and 3,064 for the Class of 2027, according to U.S. News data analyzed by P&Q. This year’s total remains above the 2023 figure but below the 2,473 apps Anderson drew in 2022.

Fraser says demand is down among both domestic and international candidates.

“The market’s off on both sides,” he says. “I think there’s so many geopolitical factors, economic factors.”

Fraser did not have an acceptance rate for the Class of 2028 on hand, but he says the school saw no dramatic shift from the 31% it posted last year or the 30.7% the year before. Yield, he adds, came in a point or two below the roughly 32% of the past two classes.

WOMEN DOWN 7 POINTS

Women make up 39% of the new class, down from 46% for the Class of 2027 and 43% for the Class of 2026. Fraser says the drop did not start with applications.

“Our women applicants were down about the same as men,” he says. “My sense is that schools that were down across the board got ultra competitive for U.S. students and U.S. women. There were a lot of last-minute deals put on the table for students that we were thinking were going to come to Anderson.”

Last year’s 46% was a record for Anderson, Fraser notes, and the school’s goal is parity.

“Our goal is, ‘Let’s get to 50%,’” he says. “We want to match what the world is like. We want to match what the country’s like.”

‘THE REST OF THE WORLD KIND OF CHANGED ON US’

Among U.S. citizens and permanent residents, under federal guidelines, 29% of the new class identify as Asian American, 15% as Hispanic, 9% as Black/African American and 1% as American Indian/Pacific Islander. Combined, that puts U.S. minority representation at roughly 54%, down from 66% for the Class of 2027. The Black share of the domestic class dropped seven points, from 16%. Fraser says the figures are accurate.

California’s Proposition 209 has barred race-conscious admissions at University of California campuses since 1996. When the U.S. Supreme Court ended race-conscious admissions nationally in 2023, Anderson expected to benefit.

“We thought we were kind of ahead of the game because we had Prop 209 for years,” Fraser says. “So we thought this would actually help us.”

Instead, he says, Anderson saw roughly the same applicant pool it always had, while schools elsewhere, adjusting to the new rules, recruited more aggressively. He points to the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management, which a few schools left after the ruling. Anderson remains a member.

“I’ve met students that said, ‘Hey, I didn’t apply to these programs because they are not part of the Consortium anymore,’” Fraser says.

“We are operating the same way,” Fraser says. “But the rest of the world kind of changed on us.”

Anderson’s second-year student leaders want to talk with administrators about how to bring the numbers back up, according to Fraser.

INTERNATIONAL TICKS UP

International students account for 36% of the class, up a point from 35% a year ago but below the 41% of the Class of 2026. Fraser traces last year’s decline to turmoil over student visas and Optional Practical Training (OPT), including the federal government’s short-lived termination of F-1 visas for some enrolled students. This cycle, he says, more international candidates applied in the first round to get ahead of potential delays.

“Last year we saw a lot of folks apply round one in the international pool, and this year that actually increased,” says Fraser. “I think people said, ‘Listen, if this is going to be a challenge, I can apply round one.’”

He sees the current level as a return to historical norms.

“I’ve been in the space like 25 years, and that was kind of where it was 20 years ago,” he says. “A third of the students were international.

“I don’t know if it’s going to go lower than that. That’s obviously the concern, because we have so many talented applicants and students that come from all over the world, and that makes it such a valuable experience for everybody.”

HIGHER GMAT, MORE TEST-OPTIONAL APPLICANTS

The mean score on the GMAT 10th Edition rose 15 points to 718, up from 703 a year earlier and above the 714 of the Class of 2026. The middle-80% range widened to 650 to 750, from 670 to 750. GMAT Focus Edition takers averaged 660, with a middle-80% range of 635 to 695. GRE takers averaged 162 Verbal, unchanged, and 164 Quant, up a point.

Anderson’s faculty voted several years ago to make the program test-optional and to accept the Executive Assessment. Fraser credits the policy with contributing to the years Anderson topped 3,000 applications. Test-optional applicants typically make up 25% to 30% of the pool, he says, and this year they came in closer to 30%. His sense is that GRE submissions rose, though not dramatically.

Fraser says the GMAT’s rescaled scores may be pushing some candidates away from the exam.

“I think psychologically, if you get a 655 or a 675, you don’t feel as good about that score as the old score,” he says. “So I think people just said, ‘I’m going to take it once, and if I don’t get the score I want, it costs a lot of money, I’m just going to take the GRE.’ Or in our case, people might say, ‘I’m going to choose to be test-optional.’”

The mean undergraduate GPA held at 3.5, while the top of the middle-80% range rose to 3.9 from 3.8.

YOUNGER & HARDER TO WIN OVER

The class skews younger. The average age fell to 28, with a range of 22 to 39, from 29 a year earlier. Average work experience dipped to 5.4 years from 5.6, and 21% of the class has fewer than three years of experience, up from 17%. Ninety percent plan to switch careers, up from 84%.

Technology remains the top feeder industry at 17%, down from 20%, followed by finance at 16%, down from 19%. Media and entertainment supply 11%. Government, education, impact and the public sector account for 10%, as does a mix of energy, law, hospitality and other fields. Healthcare and consulting contribute 9% each, followed by manufacturing at 7%, marketing/CPG at 5%, and retail and real estate at 3% each. Business remains the most common undergraduate major at 31%, followed by humanities and social sciences at 21%, engineering at 19%, economics at 14% and biological and physical sciences at 9%.

Fraser, who worked in marketing before moving into higher education, sees a generational shift in the class.

“We’re kind of fully shifting into this Gen Z population now,” he says. “This Gen Z population is pretty much the sons and daughters of Gen Xers, who were the first generation to experience mass corporate layoffs.”

For Gen Z, he adds, the defining event before COVID-19 was the financial crisis, and the lasting effect is distrust of institutions, including government, financial services and universities. For millennials, by contrast, the defining event was 9/11, which shaped concerns about safety and security.

“We have to work harder to build trust in a relationship with these students,” he says. “A lot more negotiating about, is this the best deal for them in terms of coming to Anderson?”

He suspects other schools are seeing the same thing. In response, Anderson has put more one-on-one conversations in place rather than relying on classroom and small-group settings.

“This generation does struggle with more anxiety,” Fraser says. “We have to earn the trust.”

He also sees a reason this class chose an MBA now. “In some ways, because of everything that’s happening in the country and the world, this is a way to kind of step away, reskill, and then focus on what’s going to happen in the next two years,” he says.

DON’T MISS MEET UCLA ANDERSON’S MBA CLASS OF 2027

© Copyright 2026 Poets & Quants. All rights reserved. This article may not be republished, rewritten or otherwise distributed without written permission. To reprint or license this article or any content from Poets & Quants, please submit your request HERE.