In recent weeks, Clear Admit’s MBA LiveWire has continued to be on fire with submissions from applicants making their way through the Round 1 application process at top schools. We’ve received reports regarding a great many schools—including Columbia Business School, Oxford’s Said Business School, NYU Stern and Cornell’s Johnson School.
For today, though, our data analysis will focus on MIT Sloan and Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB), whose interview invitations and rejections have given scores of LiveWire participants cause for elation or despair.
LiveWire action began to intensify for MIT Sloan late last month, so let’s take a look first at those results.
For those who were invited to interview, reported GPA ranged from an outlying 2.76 to 4.0, with an average of 3.55. The GMAT score range was from 650 to 780, with an average score of 728. Notably, the ranges and averages were much the same for those who got a ding. (The GPA range was also similar, 2.97 to 4.0, with an average of 3.53, and the GMAT score range was 680 to 770, with an average of 727). Roughly 40 percent of those who reported their MIT Sloan fates via LiveWire got a ding, with the other 60 percent happily sharing that they’d been invited to interview.
As with our analysis of HBS and Chicago Booth LiveWire data a few weeks back, conclusions to be drawn here are basically that almost everyone has great stats, so it is more than simply a stellar GPA or GMAT score that gets someone an interview invitation. Notably, MIT Sloan did seem willing to interview a few candidates whose GPA or GMAT fell outside of the top cluster, presumably because other components of their application were particularly compelling.
Here again, we need to note that our sample size is relatively small and likely subject to some response bias, which is to say that applicants who scored well on the GMAT or had strong GPAs may be more inclined to share their numbers publicly (albeit anonymously).
Moving on to Stanford reveals similar patterns. Here, reported GPAs for applicants who have received an invitation to interview ranged from 3.21 to 3.95, with an average of 3.64. GMAT scores, meanwhile, fell between 700 and 770, with an average score of 732. For those who got dinged, GPAs ranged from 2.98 to 3.94, averaging 3.53, and GMAT scores ranged from 610 to 770, with an average of 731.
With Stanford GSB data, as with the data regarding MIT Sloan applicants, the sample size was small and selection bias may also be at play. Interestingly, though, with Stanford, reports of rejections made to LiveWire dwarfed reports of interview invites. Four out of five applicants who reported their fates via LiveWire got a ding from Stanford.
As you make your way through your interviews—for those of you who fell into that desirable camp—be sure to keep us posted on how it goes. If you’re still prepping, don’t forget Clear Admit’s Interviews Guides for MIT Sloan and Stanford, which can help you prepare. Thanks for sharing your results via Clear Admit’s LiveWire. Keep ‘em coming!
