The 422 students who make up the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business Class of 2019 are a record-setting bunch. For starters, their average GMAT score was 716, an eight-point jump over last year’s, which was itself a record. But they also set records for their diversity. Forty-three percent of the class is female—3 percent more than last year. And 23 percent are underrepresented minorities. This is a 14-year high for the school and a staggering 13 percent increase over last year, though we should note that this figure includes Asian Americans for the first time. International enrollment, too, was up slightly, with students from outside the United States comprising 34 percent of the incoming class and representing 45 different countries. Here again, the Ross Class of 2019 broke the prior record. Last year, international students drawn from 33 countries made up 31 percent of the class.
As for what they did before Ross, the Class of 2019 is split fairly evenly between economics/business majors, at 36 percent; science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), at 32 percent; and humanities, at 32 percent. In terms of pre-MBA industry, almost one in five (19 percent) came from finance, but the next largest industry group was “other,” at 15 percent. Consulting was 13 percent, military/government was 10 percent, and the remainder of the class brought experience in technology, healthcare, education/non-profit, engineering/manufacturing, consumer goods, retail, and energy, in that order.
As for the Ross they are coming into—it’s $50 million richer thanks to a recent gift from its namesake, real estate developer and alumnus Stephen M. Ross. This latest gift, announced last month, brings Ross’s lifetime giving to the university to $378 million. The newest funds have been earmarked to “support career development programs for students, innovative action-based learning experience such as student-run investment funds and new business ventures, and resources for attracting and developing junior faculty,” the school reports.
In other news, Ross this fall added six new professors, five of them women. Over the last five years, the school has made a point of hiring an equal number of men and women as part of an effort to retain a faculty that is at once centered on excellence and reflective of the school’s own diverse community. This most recent set of hires is the largest group of women to fill tenure and tenure-track positions in the past decade.
While all of this news provides a sense of the diversity and dynamism of the current Ross campus, nothing truly brings it to life better than getting to know the students themselves. So without further ado, let us introduce you to some of the Real Humans of the Ross MBA Class of 2019.
