U.S. News Business School Rankings for 2012

What can I say? As a graduate of Stanford I can’t be more proud of the university as a whole.

Statistically speaking, Stanford is the most difficult to get into. The class size is the smallest–only space for roughly 380 per year or 760 total. Meanwhile, Harvard’s class size is 800 each year or roughly 1600 spots. So there’s a lot more spots available there than at Stanford.

Here are the rankings. In parenthesis are the school’s ranking last year.

What About GMAT Scores?

So what do we know about GMAT scores? Well, the trend is that they’re rising. It used to be that only the top 10 schools would have average GMAT scores in the 710 and up area. Now schools in top 15 are showing the same stats.

So now it’s even more important to get a competitive GMAT score just to stay competitive with the applicant pool for schools in the top 15. Soon, all top 20 will have these kinds of GMAT scores.

So if you’re far from this range, you’d better make sure you get your act together. Getting into business school is tough. At the minimum, you should be in the target range of your target school. The target school for schools in the top 10 to top 30 have risen–so make sure you keep your game up! If you don’t already, make sure you have a GMAT study plan.

In other news, NYU’s Stern School of Business announced that they no longer require the GMAT exam for Executive MBA applicants. Regular MBA applicants still need to take the GMAT. It’s just those who are executive level who are now exempt from sending in GMAT scores.

Other resources:

GMAT Practice Questions

GMAT Vs GRE For Business School