WashU Olin

The Olin Business School MBA: What You Need To Know

Founded in 1917, WashU Olin Business School has a history of innovation in business education and research. Olin offers students an MBA program taught in a supportive, collaborative, and driven environment providing the foundation to lead in an ever-evolving and connected world. In fact, Olin ranks 10th in schools that produce Fortune 1,000 C-Suite leaders and 50 St. Louis CEOs went to Olin.

Olin is located centrally in St. Louis, Missouri – a city with a vibrant business community with a diverse range of industries yet is most popular for medical and biotech companies. The city is home to numerous Fortune 500 companies, such as Emerson Electric, Centene Corporation, and Ameren Corporation.

Throughout the program, students develop an entrepreneurial spirit as they learn how to formulate the right problem and ask the right questions when evaluating business decisions. Olin’s size is intentional, allowing students to be a part of a close-knit community. This year the Class of 2026 includes 103 students. The class is especially noteworthy for its diversity, achieving gender parity at 53% female, an all-time school record. Olin also maintained its percentage of underrepresented people of color at 34% and the class includes 44% international students.

Olin’s MBA curriculum includes a distinctive approach to individualized business education that is highly tailored to each student’s purpose and connected to an engaged business community. The curriculum emphasizes flexibility, allowing students to chart their own educational path with 60 percent of the coursework comprised of electives. Students have the flexibility to customize electives aligned to their unique path, starting in their second semester of their first year. Additionally, Olin offers 12 specialization offerings in a wide range of options to specialize based on individual career aspirations and goals. While not required, students can choose to pursue one, two, or more specializations including consulting, corporate finance, entrepreneurship, marketing analytics, operations & supply chain management, brand & product management, business analytics, financial technology, healthcare management, leadership & human capital management, private capital & strategic ownership, and wealth & asset management. Students are also able to pursue a STEM track with courses for Olin’s portfolio of STEM-designated electives.

“At Olin, the opportunity to live, learn, and engage in conversations with a cohort composed of diverse nationalities and backgrounds is vital to me. My classmates have been an undeniably strong influence on my understanding of global businesses and challenges,” says past MBA Nitish Yadav.

Outside of courses, many Olin MBAs take part in case competitions, conferences, and student-led clubs. The Center for Experiential Learning facilitates hands-on learning through student-led consulting projects, giving students the chance to broaden their perspective and build confidence to operate beyond their comfort zone. The Center for Career Engagement also provides professional development opportunities for students through engagement opportunities such as networking and recruiting events.

“Before business school, my engineering education guided me with facts and numbers and trained me to be hypothesis driven. Olin has pleasantly surprised me with how much there is to know about businesses in the globalized world—how numbers by themselves paint an incomplete picture,” says Yadav.

MBA Program Consideration Set:

Stretch Schools: Indiana, USC, Georgetown

Match Schools: Minnesota, Notre Dame, Rice, Vanderbilt, Texas A&M, Wisconsin, Michigan State, University of Washington, Brigham Young

Safe Schools: Southern Methodist, Rochester, Maryland, Boston University, Purdue

Notes: MBA Program Consideration Set: If you believe you’re a close match to this school–based on your GMAT and GPA scores,  your age and work experience, you should look at these other competitive full-time MBA programs as well. We list them by stretch, match, and safety. These options are presented on the basis of brand image and ranking status.

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