The Yale School of Management brings together 350 talented and diverse individuals for their MBA Class of 2022. The new members began orientation in late August, followed by classes in the school’s new pandemic-inspired hybrid instruction model. Bruce DelMonico, Assistant Dean for Admissions, admires the diversity of the class, despite the challenges. “It’s been a year!” he declares. “As the season unfolded, there was a lot of speculation about what the class would look like and how much it would change from previous years. It isn’t dramatically different from previous classes.”
Here are some key elements of the Yale MBA class profile:
| Average Undergraduate GPA | 3.63 |
| Percent majoring in arts, humanities, social sciences | 29% |
| Percent majoring in science, technology, engineering, and math | 29% |
| Percent majoring in business | 22% |
| Average GMAT Score | 720 |
| GRE Quant Average | 164 |
| GRE Verbal Average | 164 |
| Women | 39% |
| Countries Represented (by citizenship) | 46 |
| International Students | 40% |
| Average Work Experience | 4.5 years |
When first introducing the new class, DelMonico concluded, “What brings these incredibly diverse members of the Yale SOM Class of 2022 together is their aspiration to embody the school’s mission of educating leaders for business and society.”
Languages and Diversity
Including dual citizens, 40 percent of the class are international students representing 46 countries. Three-quarters of the class is bilingual, and more than a quarter are multilingual.
Thirty-nine percent of the incoming class are women. Thirty-two percent are identified as U.S. students of color, which includes U.S. citizens and permanent residents who identify as Asian, Black, Hispanic, Native America, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander, and multi-ethnic. Historically underrepresented students of color, which include U.S. citizens and permanent residents who identify as Black, Hispanic, Native American, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, or multiethnic, make up 11 percent of the class.
Balanced Academic Backgrounds & Professional Experience
The distribution of degrees is well balanced, with 29 percent coming from STEM, 29 percent from the humanities and social sciences, 22 percent with degrees in business, and 20 percent with a degree in economics. Twelve percent hold a previous graduate degree. Together, 172 schools are represented in the class. Ten percent are first-generation college graduates.
Twenty-three percent of the MBA candidates were working in financial services before matriculating at Yale SOM. Consulting was the next most popular industry, as 19 percent came from it. Eleven percent brought work experience from the non-profit industry, while 10 percent hailed from tech. Another eight percent spent their pre-MBA years in government. This year the MBA program also boasts the highest number of military members ever.
A Challenging Year
Although the number of women, minorities, and international students are off by a few percentage points, the work that Yale SOM has been undertaking to increase diversity in the MBA program, such as The Emerging Leaders Seminar, should allow that progress to be made up next year. Focused on historically underrepresented minority students, the seminar exposes participants who are not necessarily thinking about business school to the MBA curriculum and career path.
Yale SOM just announced an antiracism initiative that aims to address racial injustice and increase representation in students, faculty, and staff. “This is an opportunity to increase representation not just in Yale, but in business generally,” Delmonico says.
