Welcome back to MBA Myth Busters: the series in which we review and disprove the popular myths surrounding graduate business education.
Myth: Only MBA applicants with a background in finance or consulting can secure a place at an M7 school.
True? False!
The M7 schools are an elite group of U.S.-based private business schools. The “M” stands for “magnificent”, or “magic.” The schools boast a stellar reputation, high employability and earnings, and a consistently high quality of education. Across the business world, M7 schools are considered as having some of the best MBA programs out there.
The M7 are as follows:
- Columbia Business School
- Harvard Business School
- MIT Sloan School of Management
- Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management
- Stanford University Graduate School of Business
- University of Chicago Booth School of Business
- University of Pennsylvania, The Wharton School
While class profiles of the M7 schools reveal finance and consultancy backgrounds to be common amongst MBA hopefuls, they are by no means the only industries represented. M7 schools, like other MBA programs, admit applicants from a diverse range of backgrounds and experiences.
Class Profiles and Industry Backgrounds
Take a look at Harvard’s Class of 2026 profile, for example, which shows the percentage of current MBA students hailing from various industry backgrounds:
- Consulting: 18%
- Consumer Products / Retail / E-Commerce: 9%
- Financial Services: 10%
- Health Care / Biotech: 8%
- Manufacturing / Industrial / Energy: 9%
- Media / Entertainment / Travel: 4%
- Military : 5%
- Nonprofit / Government / Education: 6%
- Services: 2%
- Technology: 12%
- Venture Capital / Private Equity: 16%
Or, at Wharton’s:
- Consulting: 28%
- PE/VC: 15%
- Nonprofit/Gov’t: 11%
- Technology: 10%
- Investment Banking: 9%
- Other: 7%
- Financial Services: 5%
- Health Care: 4%
- Investment Mgmt: 4%
- CPG: 2%
- Media/Entertainment: 2%
- Energy: 1%
- Real Estate: 1%
- Retail: 1%
Or, finally, at the class profile of Columbia Business School:
- Financial Services: 30%
- Consulting: 25%
- Technology: 13%
- Marketing/Media: 10%
- Other: 6%
- Healthcare: 5%
- Military/Government: 3%
- Real Estate: 3%
- Nonprofit: 3%
- Energy: 2%
- Manufacturing: 0.3%
The statistics show that, while finance and consulting certainly offer a strong pipeline into the M7 programs, plenty of students do not come from these industries—in Harvard’s case, over half the class do not. In fact, the diversity shown in these class profiles is a core tenet of the M7 schools, who wish to cultivate a learning environment populated by myriad perspectives and experiences, and who consider varying industry backgrounds as a crucial factor in doing so.
