Haas MBA Class of 2018

Last month, University of California, Berkeley’s Haas School of Business welcomed a cohort of 252 MBA students to campus with Week Zero, a series of orientation activities. Small by top B-school standards, the class was drawn from a pool of 4,031 applications.

Haas’s Week Zero included one day devoted to each of the school’s Defining Principles: Question the Status Quo, Confidence Without Attitude, Beyond Yourself, and Students Always.

Haas cites the school’s culture as the number one factor attracting students to Haas over other top business schools, and there’s no doubt that Haas’s MBA program is in high demand: applications this year were up 12 percent from last year.

With so much interest in the school, Haas is selective about who they admit, and it shows in the class profile. This year’s class boasted a 3.64 average undergraduate GPA and a 717 average GMAT.

However, while there’s no doubt Haas’s Class of 2018 are an academically accomplished bunch, they vary in the details of their academic backgrounds.

Twenty-four percent, 18 percent and 18 percent did college majors in business, economics and engineering respectively, down from 26 percent, 23 percent and 20 percent last year. Students with humanities degrees, on the other hand, are up from 6 to 10 percent.

Several matriculating students have more than just the typical bachelor’s degree, too. In fact, 13 percent have master’s degrees, and 1 percent even have law degrees.

Besides academic background, the Class of 2018 is reasonably diverse in terms of demographics as well. Thirty-eight percent of its students are international, representing a total of 41 countries, and 38 percent are women.

However, 32 percent are U.S. minorities, down from 36 percent last year and 41 percent two years ago.

A typical member of the Class of 2018 is 28 years old, with five years of post-university work experience. If you had to guess what industry he or she worked in, you’d want to put your money on consulting, which accounts for 22 percent of this year’s class.

Also popular are banking and finance (17 percent), technology and electronics (10 percent), and – naturally – other (17 percent). The remaining 34 percent represent a whole range of industries, from consumer products to non-profit and entertainment to the military.

Despite the cohort’s diversity in terms of background and interests, Haas’s latest class is united by a single attribute, according to one Class of 2018 student.

“While the MBA students at Haas are diverse on many fronts, I find that all of them share a concern for positively impacting others,” said Nahry Tak, who also did her bachelor’s at Berkeley. For more stats, visit Haas’s full Class of 2018 profile.