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.
Between taking the GMAT or GRE, writing essays and filling out applications, applying to graduate business school can be time-consuming and challenging. And getting accepted at some MBA programs is much tougher than others.
[Learn how to determine if you should apply in round one of MBA admissions.]
Among the 130 graduate business schools that submitted these data to U.S. News in an annual survey, the average acceptance rate for full-time students entering in fall 2016 was 45.7 percent. That’s significantly higher than the average among the 10 ranked MBA programs with the lowest acceptance rates for fall 2016: 13.8 percent.
Topping the list is Stanford Graduate School of Business, where just 6 percent of applicants — 489 of 8,116 — were accepted.
The majority of the MBA programs with the lowest acceptance rates are among the top-ranked U.S. News 2018 Best Business Schools, including the Harvard Business School in Massachusetts, which tied for No. 1. Harvard received 9,759 applications for fall 2016 — more than any other school on the list — and admitted just 1,042: a 10.7 percent acceptance rate.
[Discover five signs you’re ready to apply to an MBA program.]
In comparison, the other No. 1-ranked business school in the 2018 rankings — the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School — had a 19.6 percent acceptance rate.
Those are drastic contrasts from graduate business schools on the other end of the spectrum. For fall 2016, Willamette University’s Atkinson Graduate School of Management admitted 94.5 percent of applicants and Northern Arizona University’s Franke College of Business accepted 91.5 percent.
Below are the 10 ranked business schools with the lowest acceptance rates for MBA students entering 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 (fall 2016) | Full-time acceptances (fall 2016) | Full-time acceptance rate (fall 2016) | U.S. News business school rank |
| Stanford University (CA) | 8,116 | 489 | 6% | 4 (tie) |
| Harvard University (MA) | 9,759 | 1,042 | 10.7% | 1 (tie) |
| Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Sloan) | 5,707 | 669 | 11.7% | 4 (tie) |
| University of California–Berkeley (Haas) | 3,957 | 475 | 12% | 7 |
| Columbia University (NY) | 5,534 | 783 | 14.1% | 9 (tie) |
| Arizona State University (Carey) | 1,159 | 166 | 14.3% | 25 (tie) |
| University of California–Davis | 336 | 53 | 15.8% | 42 |
| University of Florida (Hough) | 306 | 49 | 16% | 40 (tie) |
| Pennsylvania State University–University Park (Smeal) | 612 | 111 | 18.1% | 36 |
| Yale University (CT) | 3,649 | 692 | 19% | 9 (tie) |
Don’t see your school in the top 10? Access the U.S. News Business School Compass to find admissions 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 Dec. 26, 2017.
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10 Business Schools Where Getting Admitted Is Tough originally appeared on usnews.com
