What is going on at NYU (big GMAT score drop)?

It looks like the numbers for the class of 2018 are down quite a bit.

The biggest thing that stands out is the average GMAT score drop from 720 last year to 710. Basically everything is worse. Acceptance rate is up to 23% from 19%, even with enrolled students down from 405 to 392. I guess it could be any number of things. I wouldn't think that last year's ranking drop would have such an effect, but now I'm not so sure with the 10 point drop in the average GMAT score. Arguably the 720 average GMAT score was too high for NYU and its moving closer the scores of schools ranked between 8 and 15.

http://www.stern.nyu.edu/programs-admissions/full…

26 Comments
 

if the better-than-Stern programs have more overlapped admits with Stern admits... AND when less-than-Stern programs throw more tuition scholarships to Stern admits, that can just happen. Chill and relax.

 
Best Response

Class statistics, just like rankings, are fluid. And average gmat scores are a terrible basis to gauge the quality of a business school. Any top 20 school could move their average GMAT scores a lot higher if they wanted to, but having a class full of bankers, consultants, and IT engineers with no diversity and non-traditionals is not what they are going for. Unless the profiles of companies that recruit at Stern has drastically shifted, I would not be concerned.

 

i agree to an extent although the top schools manage to build diverse classes while still keeping their GMAT averages at 725+. stern remains where it always has been, somewhere in the 10-15 range, below M7/Tuck+Haas

 

they're never really top 10 to be blunt for you. M7 + Tuck + Berkeley and then squeeze one of the UVa / U-M / Duke Fuqua and you get T10.

Duke had a #1 in BW two years ago. Kudos for them but still nobody ever considered Fuqua as Top 5

 
"CanadianEnergyBanker"

Still can't believe you called a 1.4% drop in the avg gmat score a "BIG" drop....

That's a pretty superficial way to look at it. If it were an even distribution, then maybe, but that 1.4% drop takes the average student from the 94th percentile to the 91st. I'm not saying I agree with OP, the drop doesn't seem material to me, but I don't think taking the percent difference of the gmat score is the right way to look at it.

 

They forgot to submit one of their data points to the US News and got dinged on it in the rankings. This is why they dropped to nearly 20th. Can't speak about the other stuff though.

 

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