The U.S. News Short List, separate from our overall rankings, is a regular series that magnifies individual data points in hopes of providing students and parents a way to find which undergraduate or graduate programs excel or have room to grow in specific areas. Be sure to explore The Short List: College, The Short List: Grad School and The Short List: Online Programs to find data that matter to you in your college or grad school search.
Applying to graduate business programs can be stressful, especially for MBA applicants who are applying to a reach school.
MBA hopefuls worrying about getting into business school may find it reassuring to know there are full-time MBA programs that accept most applicants.
At the 10 full-time MBA programs that accepted the highest percentage of applicants in fall 2016, more than three-quarters of applicants were admitted, according to data that 130 ranked business schools submitted to U.S. News in an annual survey.
[Learn to look beyond top business schools for your MBA.]
Full-time acceptance rates at these MBA programs were more than 30 percentage points higher than the overall average acceptance rate among all ranked programs, which was 45.7 percent.
Nine of the 10 b-schools with the highest full-time acceptance rates were labeled as Rank Not Published, because they placed in the bottom quarter of their ranking category.
The Atkinson Graduate School of Management at Willamette University, where 94.5 percent of applicants for the fall 2016 entering class were admitted, had the highest full-time MBA program acceptance rate.
[Understand what matters most in MBA admissions.]
In contrast, the most selective full-time MBA program was at Stanford University, where only 6 percent of fall 2016 applicants were admitted.
Below is a list of the 10 business schools where applicants had the best odds of admission in fall 2016. Unranked schools, which did not meet certain criteria required by U.S. News to be numerically ranked, were not considered for this report.
| School (name) (state) | Full-time applicants | Full-time acceptances | Full-time acceptance rate | U.S. News rank |
| Willamette University (Atkinson) (OR) | 164 | 155 | 94.5% | RNP |
| Northern Arizona University (Franke) | 47 | 43 | 91.5% | RNP |
| St. Bonaventure University (NY) | 92 | 84 | 91.3% | RNP |
| La Salle University (PA) | 61 | 55 | 90.2% | RNP |
| University of Kentucky (Gatton) | 102 | 91 | 89.2% | 86 (tie) |
| SUNY–Oswego | 49 | 43 | 87.8% | RNP |
| Appalachian State University (Walker) (NC) | 36 | 31 | 86.1% | RNP |
| Clarkson University (NY) | 105 | 87 | 82.9% | RNP |
| Belmont University (Massey) (TN) | 59 | 48 | 81.4% | RNP |
| Oklahoma State University (Spears) | 53 | 42 | 79.2% | RNP |
Don’t see your school in the top 10? Access the U.S. News Business School Compass to find acceptance rate data, complete rankings and much more.
U.S. News surveyed 471 schools for our 2016 survey of business programs. Schools self-reported myriad data regarding their academic programs and the makeup of their student body, among other areas, making U.S. News’ data the most accurate and detailed collection of college facts and figures of its kind. While U.S. News uses much of this survey data to rank schools for our annual Best Business Schools rankings, the data can also be useful when examined on a smaller scale. U.S. News will now produce lists of data, separate from the overall rankings, meant to provide students and parents a means to find which schools excel, or have room to grow, in specific areas that are important to them. While the data comes from the schools themselves, these lists are not related to, and have no influence over, U.S. News’ rankings of Best Colleges, Best Graduate Schools or Best Online Programs. The acceptance rate data above are correct as of Aug. 29, 2017.
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10 Full-Time MBA Programs Where Applicants Usually Get In originally appeared on usnews.com
