Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business today became the latest in a string of business schools to share statistics for its incoming Class of 2020, but its headline news comes in contrast to reports from almost every other peer in the United States. At Tuck, application volume was up year over year with 2,621 applications received. It’s a mere 0.4 percent uptick, but it’s an uptick nonetheless in a year when numerous schools have seen double-digit declines.
The Class of 2020 is also more diverse internationally, again bucking the trend among U.S. schools, most of which struggled in particular with international application volume declines. The 287 students in Tuck’s incoming class represent 42 countries by citizenship, a 10 percent jump over the Class of 2019. Overall, the class is 36 percent international. That seems like a huge increase over last year’s 30 percent, but the school notes that it included dual citizens and permanent residents within that figure this year to align with how most peer schools report international representation. They used to report them separately.
Highest Percentage of Women in School’s History
Tuck also set a record for the percentage of women in the incoming class. At 45 percent, the incoming class has more women than any before in the school’s history. Only USC Marshall and Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, at 50 and 46 percent respectively, have bested Tuck in this regard among schools that have shared class profile details to date.
“It’s evident that Tuck’s mission to better the world of business, the aptitudes therein encompassed, and the values practiced in the Tuck community resonate with rising leaders around the world,” Luke Anthony Peña, executive director of admissions and financial aid, said in a release announcing the class profile details.
In one measure of diversity, though, Tuck slipped this year. The percentage of U.S. minority students dropped from 23 percent last year to 20 percent this year.
But academic excellence remained high. The average GMAT score for the incoming class, 722, matches last year’s all time high. The school also released more granular GMAT details than it has in the past, including verbal, quant, and IR averages broken out separately. GRE averages (163 verbal, 161 quant) are also record highs for the school. Average GPA lost a bit of ground, slipping from 3.51 last year to 3.49 this year.
In terms of educational backgrounds, the incoming Tuck class tracks fairly closely to prior classes. Students who majored in humanities and social sciences make up 51 percent of the class, a return to prior levels after a spike to 55 percent last year. STEM majors made up the difference, accounting for 29 percent of the class, up from 25 percent last year. Business majors continue to comprise the smallest portion of the class, remaining steady year over year at 20 percent.
In terms of prior professional experience, Tuck also updated its industry categories this year to match how its Career Development Office reports industry. Financial services and investing were broken out separately last year. Together this year they account for 26 percent of the incoming class, a 4 percent uptick. Consulting makes up the second largest slice of the professional experience pie, with 19 percent former consultants in the incoming class, down slightly from last year’s 21 percent. Students who bring experience in the nonprofit/government sector account for the third-largest portion of the class at 15 percent, up one percentage point over last year. Technology is in fourth place at 12 percent, up from 9 percent last year.
