Like many of its peer schools, the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business rolled out the red carpet in recent weeks for all 335 members of its MBA Class of 2020. Dean Scott Beardsley pledged to the students assembled in the packed Abbott Auditorium that Darden “will work to ensure that you get exactly what you want out of this 21 months—which will fly by—so that you are prepared for a lifetime of meaningful work.”
Headline news regarding Darden’s Class of 2020 is its record-setting average GMAT score of 718, the highest in the school’s history and a five-point gain over last year’s average score. In other news, Darden joins the growing ranks of U.S. business schools who saw international application volume drop in the past application cycle. As a result, international students make up just 29 percent of the entering class, down from 34 percent a year earlier. Even so, the incoming class represents 36 different countries, on par with the Class of 2019.
U.S. minorities make up a slightly smaller percentage of the overall class—18 percent—down from 20 percent for last year’s incoming class. Women make up 38 percent of the class, off one point from last year’s 39 percent.
Students with military backgrounds comprise 6 percent of the Darden Class of 2020, including 17 students still serving on active duty. Dual-degree students account for another 27 students in the class. Of those, 14 are part of the dual MBA/MS in Data Science, which has doubled in size since its debut last year.
Darden also welcomed its EMBA Class of 2020, which grew from 129 students last year to 137 students this year. Some 29 percent of the EMBA class has military backgrounds. The average work experience among EMBA students is 11 years.
An article on the Darden site announcing the new class statistics noted that EMBA students in both the Classes of 2019 and 2020 “will pilot new curriculum enhancements, with specific courses focused on topics including health care, talent, artificial intelligence and public-private partnerships, among other topics.”
“Our goal is prepare you, the future leaders of this world, the Class of 2020, to lead in the complicated context we face in the world,” Beardsley said as welcome to the school’s newest students.
To view the complete Darden MBA Class of 2020 profile, click here.
