Meet NYU’s Incoming Stern Class of 2017

By now, the 405 incoming full-time MBA students at New York University’s Stern School of Business have been through a scavenger hunt and a dinner on Ellis Island. They’ve witnesses a fireside chat between Dean Peter Henry and MasterCard CEO Ajay Banga, along with “9”–a TED-like series of nine ideas presented by nine different speakers who each have nine minutes to woo the group.

When LAUNCH orientation concludes on Wednesday, Aug. 26th, with a New York harbor cruise, the newbies will have confirmed for themselves the belief that New York City is a dynamic place to reinvent themselves, a hub for culture and commerce commerce and culture where anything is seemingly possible. That may be why Stern uses “An Education in possible” as its slogan. And if any word describes Stern’s Class of 2017, it would be “possibilities.”

STERN PUNCHES ABOVE ITS WEIGHT ACADEMICALLY 

On the surface, this year’s full-time MBA class matches up closely to the second years who entered Stern in 2014. Among the 3,696 students who applied for the Class of 2017, 405 will start classes in August. They will assemble in the East Village with a collective average GMAT of 720, a point lower than the previous class. And their average undergraduate GPA – 3.51 – is almost identical to what the Class of 2016 produced (3.52).

Compared to similarly-ranked programs, Stern fares quite well. The school’s average GMAT (720) is actually higher than incoming 2017 classes at Columbia, California-Berkeley (Haas), Michigan (Ross), and Cornell (Johnson). And Stern’s 3.51 average undergraduate GPA is just a shade higher than Columbia’s 3.5, too.

Stern also enrolled students from 62 countries, behind only Wharton and Harvard among the 12 Top 20 programs that had released class profile information. Overall, 38% of Stern’s incoming class comes from overseas, the same percentage as the previous class. At the same time, the school’s percentage of minority students rose by 2% (27% vs. 25%), while its percentage of women slipped by 1% (35% vs. 36%). Bottom line: Stern’s totals mirror averages for these 12 programs in the areas of minority students (27% vs. 27.3%) and international students (38% vs.36.1%), though its female enrollment lags behind the average (35% vs. 39.1%).

Go to next page to access student profiles of this year’s incoming class.