HBS Class Profile: A New Way of Looking at Harvard’s MBA Class of 2022

See the HBS MBA Class of 2023 profile here.

Harvard Business School released its profile of the Class of 2022, one which is noticeably smaller than previous years. The HBS class profile statistics represent the 732 students that were admitted and also chose to enter in the Fall of 2020 rather than take a deferral, which was offered in May.

The Managing Director of MBA Admissions and Financial Aid, Chad Losee, emphasized that the deferral option extended to this year’s candidates was exclusively to address COVID-19 related issues and applicants should apply for the year they wish to matriculate. Moreover, HBS does intend to expand the size of the MBA program from the current average of 930 over the next two years, although those plans have not been solidified.

New Reporting of Admissions Statistics

HBS also announced its adoption of new common standards for reporting admissions statistics, the GME Admissions Reporting Standards. Over the last year and a half, a group of business schools worked to develop a set of standards that are designed to make it easier for prospective students to compare statistics across school programs. These changes can be seen in the reporting for the Class of 2022.

HBS MBA Class of 2022 Profile Breakdown

Here are some key elements of the HBS class profile:

International Students

Thirty-three percent of the incoming HBS class are international students. The new reporting standards do not include permanent residents in that total. Many schools count permanent residents in the United States as international students in their class statistics. The new standards that HBS is using include only those without a U.S. passport or permanent residency.

Representation of Women and Minorities

In the HBS class profile, HBS is sharing 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.

In their statement about the class profile, the Losee said, “Over the summer, students, staff, faculty, and alumni have also been deeply engaged in the Dean’s Anti-Racism Taskforce to better acknowledge the continuing racism in our society—especially against African Americans—and to build an institutional plan to be more proactively anti-racist… With this work as a backdrop, we are excited to begin sharing the racial/ethnic identities of our domestic students, including U.S. citizens and permanent residents.”

Out of domestic students and permanent U.S. residents, 45 percent are identified as a minority. When counted according to Federal guidelines, 19 percent are Asian American, 11 percent are African American, 9 percent are Hispanic, and 6 percent identify as multiracial.

Multi-dimensional reporting indicates that 24 percent of students identify as Asian American, 13 percent are African American, and 9 percent identify as Hispanic. This method also reveals that 66 percent identify themselves as white as opposed to 53 percent under Federal reporting guidelines.

This year, 44 percent of the incoming class are women, which is just a tick higher than the 43% representation in the Class of 2021.

Professional and Academic Background

Students are coming into HBS with an average of 4.7 years of professional experience, with 16 percent coming from venture capital and an equal percent from consulting career backgrounds. Only 4 percent of students hold undergraduate degrees in the arts and humanities, while 26 percent hold engineering degrees and 22 percent hold business degrees.