MBA Acceptance Rate by Country

Most elite American business schools brag about how internationally diverse they are. Although American business schools try to make sure they have students from all over the world, the reality is that there are winners and losers. Applicants from some countries have an easier time than others. In this analysis I calculated the MBA acceptance rate by country and region for American MBA programs.

MBA Acceptance Rate by Region

MBA Acceptance Rate by Region International Business SchoolSince there is limited data for many of the countries, first I grouped the countries to look at MBA acceptance rates at a high level. Not all regions apply to the schools in the same proportion. In fact European applicants tend to apply to the higher ranked schools with lower acceptance rates. On the other hand applicants from India are more likely to apply to lower ranked school with higher acceptance rates. I calculated the expected acceptance rate for each region based on the school application distribution.

The regions that have the highest acceptance rates are the Middle East, Europe and Latin America. If you limit Europe to the large western countries such as England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain, then the acceptance rate for Europe jumps to 31%. The USA has a slightly higher acceptance rate than average. On the other hand, Asia, Australia and India are all at a significant disadvantage when applying to business school in the United States.

GMAT and GPA by Region MBANext I looked to see if the difference in acceptance rates could be explained by GMAT. GPA isn’t a good indicator because different regions have different average GPAs based on how much grade inflation there is in the area. Most regions are clustered around the average GMAT of 722 with two exceptions. Latin America has an average GMAT 16 points lower than average and still has an acceptance rate 6% higher than expected. Africa has an average GMAT that is 34 points lower than average but it only hurts them a small amount. Asian applicants have the highest average GMAT, however Asian MBA acceptance rate is 6% lower than average.

MBA Acceptance Rate by Country

MBA Acceptance Rate by Country International Business SchoolNext I looked at MBA acceptance rate by country for those countries with high enough application volume. I excluded all countries with lower than 20 applications. It is not surprising to see United Arab Emirates and Israel at the top given that the Middle East has a high acceptance rate. Chile, Mexico and Brazil all helped to pull up Latin America’s acceptance rate. The United Kingdom and Russia are the European countries with the highest acceptance rates.

Viet Nam, China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Korea all have acceptance rates that are below average. The only Asian country with a high acceptance rate is Japan. Given that Asian acceptance rates are so low, I would recommend using the help of an admissions consultant if you are applying from one of these countries.

The data for this analysis came from the GMAT Club forum. If you are looking to increase your GMAT, check it out.

5 thoughts on “MBA Acceptance Rate by Country

  1. iVoRy

    No stat for Thailand?
    I guess, it’d be around Vietnam/Singapore (South East Asia group).
    What do you think about Thailand application chance.
    Or the sample size is just too small?

    Reply
  2. sahil

    Hi, Thank you for your analysis.

    I am an Indian candidate, currently working in UAE. Will I be considered as an applicant from India or UAE?

    Reply
  3. Harsh Patel

    Hi. It’s worrying as an Indian to see the acceptance rates fall so low for Indian applicants as opposed to other international applicants. The data on your site shows that most schools have an acceptance rate for Indian applicants that is a third or a fourth of those for American or European students. Which schools would you say are better for Indian applicants to apply to?

    Reply

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