Find out what it’s like to be a member of the Harvard Business School MBA student community in this edition of our Real Humans: MBA Students series. The Harvard MBA Class of 2024 is comprised of 1,010 students, a class size larger than usual due to deferrals related to Covid. Women make up 46 percent of the class and 38 percent are international. HBS shares the racial and ethnic identities of its domestic students in two ways. Federal reporting guidelines allow each individual student to be represented in a single race or ethnic group, whereas HBS also employs multidimensional reporting, allowing students to be counted in each group they identify with. Out of domestic students and permanent U.S. residents, when counted according to Federal guidelines, 24 percent are Asian American, 11 percent are Black or African American, 13 percent are Hispanic or Latino, and 4 percent identify as multiracial. Multi-dimensional reporting indicates that 28 percent of students identify as Asian American, 13 percent are Black or African American, and 13 percent identify as Hispanic or Latino. This method also reveals that 60 percent identify themselves as white as opposed to 48 percent under Federal reporting guidelines.
Twenty-eight percent of the new HBS class earned undergraduate degrees in engineering. Twenty-four percent hold degrees in business/commerce followed by 19 percent in economics. Fourteen percent had studied math/physical sciences during their undergraduate years. Ten percent majored in social studies and five percent in arts/humanities. Based on U.S. schools with a 4.0 scale, the students averaged a 3.70 GPA during undergrad.
Prior to matriculating, the HBS MBA Class of 2024 averaged five years of professional experience. Sixteen percent of the class comes from a consulting background. Another 16 percent had worked in private equity/venture capital. Fourteen percent came from the tech industry followed by 10 percent from financial services. Manufacturing/industrial/energy and consumer products/retail/e-commerce each cover nine percent of HBS students’ pre-MBA work experience.
When it came time to take the GMAT or GRE, 74 percent opted to take the GMAT. Their median score landed at 730. For those who submitted GRE scores, their median Verbal and Quant scores both came in at 163.
Get to know some new students in the HBS MBA Class of 2024, including their professional journeys and admissions advice, in the following pages.
