Haas School of Business – University of California, Berkeley

FAQ

What is the tuition for Haas’s MBA program?

The tuition for Haas’s MBA program is $64,652 per year. The total cost of the Haas MBA program is $101,534 per year; this includes budgeted living expenses.

How hard is it to get into Haas’s MBA program?

The acceptance rate for Haas is 13.2% It is important to consider the acceptance rate in the context of the student profile of those who are admitted. For example the average GMAT score is 726.

What is the average GMAT score for admission to Haas’s MBA program?

The average GMAT score for the incoming class at Haas is 726. The GMAT middle 80% range is 690 to 750.

Does the Haas MBA program accept the GRE?

Yes. The Haas MBA program has accepted the GRE for a few years now.

What is the average GRE score for admission to Haas’s MBA program?

The average GRE score for the incoming class at Haas is 165 Verbal, 164 Quant.

What is the minimum number of years of work experience required for admission to Haas’s MBA program?

Haas does not state a minimum requirement for years of work experience. However, it is important for candidates to be aware that they are being considered against other candidates with an average of 5.4 years of experience.

What is the average number of years of work experience for admission to Haas’s MBA program? (or, What is the average age of a Haas MBA student?)

The average number of years of work experience among students in Haas’s MBA program is 5.4.

What is the average starting salary for graduates of the Haas MBA program?

The average starting salary for Haas MBA graduates is $127,571 median base annual salary. The salary will vary by industry, with consulting and finance jobs generally commanding the higher salaries.

How long is Haas’s full-time MBA program?

Haas offers a traditional 2 year MBA program.

What are the application deadlines for Haas’s MBA program?

The Round 1 MBA application deadline is September 16, 2019. The Round 2 application deadline is January 9, 2020. The Round 3 deadline is April 2, 2020.

What percent of Haas MBA students are women?

The percentage of the class at Haas that are women is 43%.

What type of interview does Haas use for MBA admissions?

Haas offers interviews by invitation. The interviews are blind. This means the interviewer has not had access to the application materials.

Admissions

The Class Profile

Admission to Haas is competitive, with the school receiving over 4,000 applications and enrolling 291 students in 2018. First-year Haas students scored between 690 and 750 on the GMAT, and the average GMAT score for the class was 726. The average undergraduate GPA for the group was 3.66, with the middle 80% having no lower than a 3.41 GPA. 

While 48% of the Class of 2020 studied business, economics or engineering as undergraduates, just over a fifth of the class majored in the social sciences and humanities, and about 3% majored in the natural sciences. The group had an average of 5.4 years of work experience. Forty-two percent of first-year MBA candidates are international, with the group representing 39 countries, and women make up 43% of the Class of 2020. Finally, 38% of first-year students identify as members of a U.S. minority group, which comprises students of African American, Hispanic American, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, Asian American and East Indian/Pakistani heritage.

Application Procedures

Applicants can elect to apply to Haas during one of three admissions rounds, which usually occur in September, January and April. Haas requires applicants to submit their completed online application along with a résumé, essays, GMAT and TOEFL or IELTS scores from students who received degrees from countries whose official language is not English, transcripts from all collegiate and post-collegiate academic institutions attended, and two professional letters of recommendation. Interviews are conducted on an invitation-only basis and are required for admission to the MBA program.

Application Requirements

The following material are required to apply for the Berkeley-Haas MBA:

• Online application
• $200 application fee
• Current resume (submitted online)
• Admissions essays
• Two professional letters of recommendation
• University transcripts
• GMAT or GRE score report
• English language proficiency
• Interview

Interview Reports

UC Berkeley Haas MBA Interview Questions & Report / Round 1 / Alumnus / Off-campus

Type: blind interview (interviewer only sees resume) List of required interview questions: 1. Walk me through your resume 2. Why an MBA? 3. Why Haas? How will Haas help you achieve your short/long-term goals? 4. Tell me about a time when you were on a team where others didn’t agree with you at the start […]

UC Berkeley Haas MBA Interview Questions & Report: Round 2 / Second-Year Student / On Campus

The visit was pretty fun, Haas and Berkeley in general are pretty nice considering the absurdly dense population of the San Francisco Bay area. The interview experience was really quite standard – my interviewer grabbed me from the MBA office and we went to a small study room to chat. He introduced himself and was […]

UC Berkeley Haas MBA Interview Questions & Report: Round 2 / First-year student / Campus

I interviewed with a first year student, on UC Berkeley Haas’ campus. All in all, it was a pretty relaxed, conversational and even fun experience. She started off by introducing herself and her background and explain how the interview was going to go. Then we jumped in the questions: Tell me about yourself Follow-up question: […]

UC Berkeley Haas MBA Interview Questions & Report: Round 2 / Alumnus / Off-campus

The interviewer started by introducing himself and walking me through how the interview goes and the time frame for the interview (45 min with the last 10-15 min for me to ask questions). He highlighted that he only saw my resume and has not seen my application, and told me to feel free to talk […]

UC Berkeley Haas MBA Interview Questions & Report: Round 2 / Alum / Off-campus

UC Berkeley Haas MBA interview questions were submitted to Clear Admit by a Round 2 candidate who interviewed off-campus: The interviewer was very friendly, and the interview went like a casual conversation. He first introduced himself, at a length of his past career and current job, and started asking me the following questions, which he […]

UC Berkeley Haas MBA Interview Questions & Report: Round 1 / Alumnus / Off-Campus

UC Berkeley Haas MBA Interview Questions & Report The interview was in-person with an alumnus locally at his workplace. It was a blind interview for which he was only given my resume. Interview Questions: 1. Tell me about yourself 2. Trends in your current or planned industry 3. Why Haas/MBA/now? 4. Time you drove change […]

UC Berkeley Haas MBA Interview Questions & Report: Round 1 / Alumnus / Off-Campus

UC Berkeley Haas MBA Interview Questions & Report by a Round 1 applicant off-campus Interviewed with a Haas alumnus in my area about 2 weeks prior to R1 decision date. Laid-back, relaxed interview atmosphere. Blind (only resume available) interview. Interview lasted 45 minutes. Pretty standard interview questions and nothing too difficult or out of the […]

UC Berkeley Haas Interview Questions & Report: Round 1 / Alumnus / Video Call

The following Berkeley / Haas MBA interview questions & report were submitted to Clear Admit by a Round 1 applicant. Good luck to them! I received the interview invite just a week before the decision date and schedule the invite 4 days right before the decision date. Due to limited location and my tight schedule, I chose […]

Receive a $10 Amazon Gift Card – When you Submit a Chicago / Booth, Berkeley / Haas, Michigan / Ross, or UPenn / Wharton Interview Report

If you’re interested in sharing your MBA interview experience, we are awarding a $10 Amazon gift certificate to each applicant who submits an MBA interview report for Chicago / Booth, Berkeley / Haas, Michigan / Ross, or UPenn / Wharton by midnight EST on Sunday, April 1, 2018. To be eligible for the $10 gift card and the contest, please include the […]

UC Berkeley Haas Interview Questions & Report: Round 1 / Alumnus / Off-Campus

The following Berkeley / Haas MBA admissions interview questions & report were submitted to Clear Admit by a Round 1 applicant. Good luck to them! Received interview invite very late in the Round – two weeks before decision date. I signed up via the portal in my area and an alum reached out to me via email […]

Haas Q&As

Admissions Director Q&A: Berkeley Haas’s Morgan Bernstein

In this edition of our ongoing series, Admissions Director Q&A, we stop by the Bay Area of California.  Morgan Bernstein is the executive director of full-time MBA admissions at Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, and a 2009 alumna of the program. Bernstein is deeply passionate about helping prospective students navigate the business school landscape, and […]

Admissions Director Q&A: Morgan Bernstein of UC Berkeley / Haas

Clear Admit is delighted to share admissions insights from Morgan Bernstein, the Executive Director of Full-time MBA Admissions at UC Berkeley / Haas.  Bernstein was part of the admissions team for five years before stepping into her current role, and she knows things from the other side as well. A successful applicant herself, she graduated […]

Real Humans of MBA Admissions: UC Berkeley Haas’s Morgan Bernstein

Morgan Bernstein is currently in her first year as executive director leading the full-time MBA admission team at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, having taken over last March for Stephanie Fujii, who held the role for four years before that. “I’m excited about growing my team, learning, figuring out what I know and what […]

Haas LiveWire and DecisionWire

Academics

Faculty

Haas employs 74 tenure-track faculty members. These scholars and practitioners help lead Haas’s more than 10 research institutes and centers, and participate in seven multidisciplinary programs, which cover topics ranging from business innovation to nonprofit and public leadership. The Garwood Center for Corporate Innovation, for example, enables faculty to publish articles, create teaching materials and lead research projects on “open innovation,” a more dispersed industry innovation model. 

Curriculum

Professors at Haas make use of a variety of teaching methods, including case studies, seminars, simulations, group projects and guest speakers. Haas places an emphasis on hands-on learning, with certain courses providing students the opportunity to gain consulting experience by working in Silicon Valley firms. 

Haas operates on a two-semester schedule, with MBA classes running from late August through early December and from mid-January through May; commencement takes place shortly thereafter. For first-year students, each semester is further divided into two quarters. Within the academic year, all students have short breaks for Thanksgiving and other holidays, as well as a one-month break between the fall and spring semesters. 

During the first year, Haas students are required to take 12 core courses which account for roughly half of the 51 semester units needed to graduate. The core covers foundational business principles in accounting, finance, economics, marketing, operations, strategy, leadership, decision-making and management. Each of the required courses places an emphasis on team learning, with students working in small groups on projects and assignments. A core course may be waived if a student passes a waiver examination, and these are available for seven of the 12 core courses. These examinations are akin to the course’s final examination and are given the week before the start of each semester. All students must also fulfill an experiential learning, or “applied innovation” requirement by completing at least one of over a dozen programs. These include working in small teams on projects for both nonprofit and for-profit organizations, as well as developing socially responsible strategies for large corporations.

MBA students may begin taking elective courses in the spring semester of their first year. Haas provides a broad range of elective courses from which to choose, and students may even design their own courses together with members of the faculty. The school emphasizes hands-on learning and offers over 20 courses to satisfy the Applied Innovation requirement, ranging from international consulting projects to people development to strategies surrounding sustainable business practices. Haas also provides students with 11 Areas of Emphasis, which are high-level recommendations of courses, extracurricular activities and summer internships that students can follow to prepare for entry into related careers.

Other MBA Degree Options

In addition to the 21-month full-time MBA program, Haas offers a four-year JD/MBA program with either UC Berkeley’s School of Law or UC Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco. Also available are an MBA/MPH program with the UC Berkeley School of Public Health and an MBA/MA program in Global Studies with various UC Berkeley Schools. Part-time options include an evening and weekend MBA program. 

Areas of Emphasis at Haas

• Finance
• Marketing
• Strategy/Consulting
• Corporate Social Responsibility
• Energy and Clean Technology
• Entrepreneurship
• Global Management
• Health Management
• Social Sector Leadership
• Real Estate
• Technology

Degree Options at Haas

Full-time MBA
http://mba.haas.berkeley.edu/

Concurrent Degrees
JD/MBA
http://haas.berkeley.edu/MBA/academics/concurrent-degrees.html

MBA/MPH
https://mba.haas.berkeley.edu/careers/healthcare

MBA/MA
http://haas.berkeley.edu/MBA/academics/concurrent-degrees.html#internationalandareastudies

MBA for Executives
http://mbaforexecs.haas.berkeley.edu/

Evening & Weekend MBA
http://ewmba.haas.berkeley.edu/

Applied Innovation  Courses

• [email protected]
• Social Sector Solutions
• International Business Development
• Cleantech to Market
• Strategic and Sustainable Business Solutions
• Design Sprint for Corporate Innovation
• Design, Evaluate and Scale Development Technologies
• People Development
• Real Estate Investment Analysis
• Hedge Fund Strategies
• The Haas Socially Responsible Investment Fund
• Design and Development of Web-Based Products and Services
• Lean Launchpad
• Social Lean Launchpad
• The Startup Lab
• Applied Data Analytics

Campus Life

Clubs, Conferences & Competitions

Haas offers its students many opportunities for extracurricular involvement, including over 50 student organizations to choose from, with a wide array of professional, athletic and cultural groups on hand. Many MBA students become involved in Challenge for Charity events such as competitions, shows and auctions geared at raising money for the Special Olympics and other charitable organizations. In addition, a large portion of MBA students volunteer their time to the [email protected] program, where they act as mentors for underprivileged high school students. 

Approximately ten conferences are regularly hosted by Haas faculty and students. These comprise both industry- and affiliation-related events, such as the Berkeley Energy Symposium and Women in Leadership Conference. Haas also sponsors the Haas Healthcare Conference, the UC Berkeley Startup Competition and the Global Social Venture Competition. Furthermore, MBA students have the opportunity to create their own competitions; recently, students organized the Education Leadership Case Competition and the Berkeley MBA Latin Business Challenge. 

Campus Spaces

Designed by architect Charles Moore, Haas’s campus is comprised of three buildings—one each for classrooms, student services and faculty—linked together that face a main courtyard. Among the school’s facilities are a career center, a high-tech computer lab, a café and an economics and business library.

While most Haas students choose to live off campus, a fair number of students take advantage of Haas’s on-campus housing options. These include university residence halls as well as several apartment complexes devoted to housing UC Berkeley graduate students. The university also provides a housing service called Cal Rentals, through which students can receive counseling about their housing options. Students who wish to live off campus can refer to Cal Rentals for a listing of off-campus rental opportunities. 

MBA Careers

Career Services

The Haas Career Management Group provides extensive support for MBA students by hosting on-campus interviews, corporate presentations and electronic job postings through CareerNet. The Career Management Group also offers students informal ways to meet employers year-round through career panels, alumni mixers, industry firm nights, job fairs and corporate visits. In addition, individual career advisors are available to aid students in developing their job search skills and tackling the recruiting process. Full-time recruiting for second-year students takes place in the fall and spring semesters, and internship recruiting for first-year students occurs in the spring.

Career Statistics

The mean base annual salary of 2018 Haas graduates was $127,571, with an average signing bonus of about $29,212. Nearly 25% of the Class of 2018 went on to work in consulting positions, with marketing as the second most popular function at nearly 24%. Meanwhile, 16% of Haas’s 2018 graduates accepted positions in finance, nearly 11% opted for business development/strategy roles, and nearly 7% of students entered operations. 

Almost thirty-two percent of students in the Class of 2018 found jobs in the technology industry after graduating. This is not surprising given that the top recruiters in 2018 included technology firms such as Google, Tesla, and Microsoft. The next most chosen industry was consulting, at 24% of the class, and about 14% of students accepted positions in financial services. Nearly 8% of students entered the retail industry and another 4% went into pharma/biotech/healthcare. The remainder of the class secured employment in nonprofits and real estate.

Financing

The tuition and fees for the 2019-2020 academic year is $62,446 for California residents and $64,652 for non-residents. However, Haas estimates that with additional expenses such as living expenses and textbooks, students will pay up to $99,328 as residents or $101,534 as non-residents in that time. Haas offers both merit- and need-based scholarships to help students with the program’s cost. While some merit-based scholarships are awarded to applicants at the time of admission, others require the completion of separate applications. Both two-year and one-year scholarships are available, and Haas requires that the recipients of two-year grants maintain at least a 3.0 GPA throughout business school. Students also have an array of loan options at their disposal, including federal loan offerings for U.S. citizens and permanent residents. In addition, Haas publishes a compiled list of preferred lenders with different loan options for students to consider. For international students, a risk-share loan is available that does not require a U.S. co-signer.

Cost of Attendance

Tuition & Fees
CA Resident $62,446
Non-Resident $64,652
Health Insurance $5,240
Housing & Food $25,234
Books & Supplies $620
Transportation $3,110
Personal Expenses $2,678

Totals 
CA Resident $99,328
Non-Resident $101,534

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