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.
Aspiring executives who want to add an MBA degree to their resume but are nervous about their chances of getting into business school can find reassurance in the following fact: There are some full-time MBA programs that admit the vast majority of applicants.
At each of the 10 graduate business schools with the highest acceptance rates in fall 2017, more than 80 percent of full-time MBA applicants were accepted, according to statistics that 126 ranked programs submitted to U.S. News in an annual survey.
Six of the 10 institutions with the highest acceptance rates are labeled Rank Not Published, or RNP, in the 2019 Best Business Schools rankings, because they placed in the bottom one-fourth. U.S. News calculates ranks for these schools but has decided not to publish them.
[See: 10 Ways to Secure an MBA Acceptance Letter.]
The average acceptance rate among the 10 least selective full-time MBA programs was 87.7 percent. That is significantly higher than the average among all ranked MBA programs: 46.7 percent.
Northern Arizona University’s W.A. Franke College of Business, which had a 97.6 acceptance rate, tops the list of schools with the highest rates. In contrast, the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, ranked No. 4 in the Best Business Schools rankings, admitted only 5.7 percent of its full-time MBA applicants, making it the most selective.
[Read: 2 MBA Admissions Essays That Worked.]
Below is a list of the 10 business schools that admitted the highest percentage of applicants to their full-time MBA programs in fall 2017. Unranked schools, which did not meet certain criteria required by U.S. News to be numerically ranked, were not considered for this report.
| Business school (name) (state) | Full-time applicants (fall 2017) | Full-time acceptances (fall 2017) | Full-time acceptance rate | U.S. News business school rank |
| Northern Arizona University (Franke) | 41 | 40 | 97.6% | 95 (tie) |
| La Salle University (PA) | 54 | 51 | 94.4% | RNP |
| Babson College (Olin) (MA) | 620 | 554 | 89.4% | 83 (tie) |
| Jacksonville University (FL) | 66 | 59 | 89.4% | RNP |
| University of New Hampshire (Paul) | 57 | 49 | 86% | RNP |
| University of Kentucky (Gatton) | 106 | 91 | 85.8% | 89 (tie) |
| Clarkson University (NY) | 77 | 66 | 85.7% | RNP |
| Quinnipiac University (CT) | 171 | 143 | 83.6% | RNP |
| University of Alabama (Manderson) | 242 | 200 | 82.6% | 63 (tie) |
| Belmont University (Massey) (TN) | 51 | 42 | 82.4% | RNP |
Don’t see your school in the top 10? Access the U.S. News Business School Compass to find acceptance rates, complete rankings and much more. School officials can access historical data and rankings, including of peer institutions, via U.S. News Academic Insights.
U.S. News surveyed 480 schools for our 2017 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 come 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 admissions data above are correct as of Aug. 28, 2018.
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10 Business Schools With the Highest Acceptance Rates originally appeared on usnews.com
