Yale MBA class profile

1. Yale MBA programs

There is no doubt that Yale is a premier university which is driven by both innovation and tradition. The school has acquired its reputation for being a top-tier liberal arts college as well as a research university. Its graduates consist of top-performing individuals from varying backgrounds, interests and nationalities. Other than its worldwide and national rankings, Yale has been consistently ranked very well by many other popular educational agencies. Forbes has ranked Yale University at #3 among the Top Colleges in 2019, #3 in Private Colleges in the country, and #3 among the Research Universities to study in the US. 

Consistently ranked #1 in nonprofit by U.S. News & World Report, Yale SOM is also right up there with Ross and Stanford in scoring on the social responsibility and corporate ethics scales. Yale SOM has shown its commitment to positive social impact through numerous initiatives, including a loan forgiveness program for students who enter the non-profit industry, and its 2019 decision to launch Master’s degrees for public school educators — free of tuition. That’s why besides finance and consulting, which are the two most famous things for post-MBA industries, Yale SOM MBA program remains a fantastic target school for those candidates who wish to enter the public sector, nonprofits, or social ventures. 

The table below shows you the Pre-MBA industries of students in the Yale MBA class 2020. It would give you an idea of the kinds of industrial experience your classmates, who’d work with you closely in the two-year program.

Pre-MBA Industry in Yale SOM class of 2021 

*Source: Yale SOM MBA Class Profile 2022

Undergraduate majors 

*Source: Yale SOM MBA Class Profile 2022

Professional Background 

2. Yale MBA class profile 

2.1. Yale MBA class profile in 2022

Student demographics and statistics

• Class size:

The Yale SOM is on the smaller side for a business school, admitting only 345 students in its Class of 2021 compared to the MBA class in Harvard (900-1000) or Wharton (800-900). At orientation, the incoming first-year class is divided into a handful of color-coded cohorts.­ Students would take core courses with their cohort throughout the first year and each student is assigned to a seven or eight-person learning team. Learning teams are designed to be diverse, both professionally and personally.

• Average age: 36
• The average length of work experience: 13 years
• The acceptance rate in a class of 2022 is 30% while the class of 2021 just had a 25% of acceptance rate.  
• Female Representation: 31%
• U.S. Students of Color (Includes U.S. Permanent Residents and Dual Citizens): 27%
• U.S. Underrepresented Students of Color (Includes U.S. Citizens and Permanent Residents who identify as Asian, Black, Hispanic/Latino, Native American/Islander, or Multiethnic): 12% 
• Students born outside the US: 45% 

*Source: Yale SOM official website

 Yale MBA program scores statistics

*Source:  Yale SOM official website

Even though the school credits the highest score you achieved, they still see and consider all the scores reported to Yale SOM as they review your application. If you have taken either exam more than once and have already reported your scores, you will need to report all subsequent scores to our institution code.

GRE to GMAT conversion

2.2. Academic Summary

Founded in 1974, with its first students entering in 1978, the Yale SOM is not only the youngest of Yale University’s ten professional schools but also the youngest business school among the Ivies. It was also the first business school in the United States to require an international component for graduation, and many first-year students travel abroad between Spring 1 and Spring 2 on an International Experience course to fulfill the school’s Global Studies Requirement. 

• Curriculum: 

First-year students at the Yale SOM take a series of core courses over four seven-week quarters, which are designed as Fall 1 and 2 and Spring 1 and 2. The first years gain a common framework and language for their MBA experience in the Orientation to Management series during the Fall 1 quarter. Among the seven total courses in this series are “Basics of Economics,” “Introduction to Negotiation,” and “Managing Groups and Teams.” Orientation to Management introduces concepts that will be broadly explored in subsequent courses. In addition, students begin to explore their career goals during this time.

In Fall 2, students reach what the SOM refers to in its published materials as “the heart of the first-year curriculum” with the Organization Perspectives series. This series of eleven multidisciplinary courses is designed to explore internal and external managerial roles as they interact rather than as discrete functions, such as finance or strategy.

Students begin taking electives in the spring of their first year and can either choose exclusively from SOM course offerings to look further afield to the university’s law, environmental studies, and other departments to expand their knowledge base.

• Teaching methods: 

Yale SOM uses a variety of teaching methods, including case studies, lectures, and experiential methods.

The school acclaim on the website its development of the “raw” case method—versus traditional “cooked” cases.

Cooked cases are “short documents that present a business problem in a neatly packaged, single point of view narrative with a sure answer,” explained a 2008 Yale Daily News article. In contrast, the SOM’s raw cases are delivered via the Internet, using such sources as media reports, 10-K filings, expert analysis, and faculty notes. 

The school further differentiates its raw case format from cooked cases by noting on its website that while the latter involves “boiling a complex situation down to a ten-page narrative and a single decision point, raw cases present you with extensive data about a real situation, often including video interviews with some of the key actors.” The school’s raw format culls from original documents to look at multiple points of view. Notes are available alongside—rather than separate from—the data. In addition, instead of the approximately six-month lag that is typically required to bring a cooked case from event to production, the Yale SOM’s cases are presented in real-time.

3. Employment Statistics of Yale MBA programs

3.1. Employment by Industry

In the past, the Yale SOM has perhaps been best known as “a finance school”, however in fact,in seven out of the last eight years, consulting has been the most popular industry. Overall, the median starting salary for Yale SOM graduates in 2019 was $135,000 domestically, $110,000 abroad. 

Employment by industry with a median base annual salary

*Source: Yale SOM Employment Report 2020

3.2 Employment by Function 

*Source: Yale SOM MBA Employment Report 2020

3.3. Employment by Region 

According to the data of the 2020 MBA class, 99.7% of the students accepted job offers. And 87.1% of full-time hires in the class were within the United States and the remaining 12.9% were international.

Hires by U.S.Regions 

*Source: Yale SOM MBA Employment Report 2020

Hires by International Regions