From the Assistant Dean for Admissions: Meet the MBA Class of 2022

Amid all the uncertainty of the current global health situation, we were thrilled to be able to welcome 350 new students in a hybrid format to the Yale School of Management community as members of the Yale SOM MBA Class of 2020 this past month. August 26 marked the beginning of orientation for the Class of 2022, with classes beginning on August 31. This fall, the school’s hybrid model of instruction has some students in person on campus and others studying remotely.

The Class of 2022 is a talented and accomplished group.

Among them are musicians who play guitar, cello, trumpet, drums, piano, clarinet, flute, ukulele, tabla, guzheng, and dilruba, among other instruments. One student is in a band that will be putting out new music in 2020; another is known for their free verse poetry and rap, which led to an audition at Def Jam Records; and yet another sang holiday songs for Barack and Michelle Obama at the 2012 and 2013 White House Hanukkah parties. They dance—from ballet to belly to Bollywood. And they sing—a cappella, contemporary, and opera, among other genres.

The Class of 2022 is athletic, with the majority of students including a sport on their list of activities and interests, including running, kickball, taekwondo, skiing, football, yoga, badminton, snowboarding, fishing, tennis, golf, rugby, biking, karate, ballroom dancing, rock climbing, scuba diving, baseball, ultimate frisbee, surfing, swimming, ballet, CrossFit, weight lifting, softball, volleyball, soul cycling, and skydiving. In addition to the many members of the class who have completed marathons, triathlons, and other extreme distance races, there is one who competed with a team of six individuals in a no-rules, 340-mile running relay from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. One student was a professional soccer player for Sporting Kansas City from 2014 to 2016; one led their lightweight crew team to the 2016 National Championship; one received a silver medal in the Junior Olympic Men’s Fencing competition; and one hiked the 2,189-mile Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine.

Roughly three-quarters of the class speaks two or more languages, and more than a quarter speaks three or more, including Spanish, German, French, Tagalog, Hebrew, Mandarin, Arabic, Georgian, Telugu, Hindi, Serbo-Croatian, Punjabi, Vietnamese, Tamil, Kannada, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Korean, Gujarati, Finnish, Russian, Swedish, Turkish, and Azerbaijani. Their activities include building scale-model automobiles and aircrafts, collecting sneakers, enjoying Japanese hot springs, podcasting, birdwatching, oil painting, knitting, brewing and drinking Kombucha and craft beers, watching and performing in musicals and other theater, baking bread, watching The Office, reading and collecting books, and more. Among the many cooks and bakers, one student founded the Japanese restaurant with the highest Yelp ratings in Minnesota, and another took second place in the D.C. State Fair’s pie-baking contest two years in a row with a chocolate peanut butter chess pie and a sour cherry pie. One birdwatcher has seen more than 280 species and traveled to more than 13 countries specifically to birdwatch. Many students enjoy traveling, with one having traveled to more than 70 countries. One student competed in America’s Got Talent as a juggler.

By the numbers, 40% of the Class of 2021 holds passports from a country other than the United States, with 46 different countries represented overall. Women make up 39% of the class, and U.S. students of color 32%; 11% are underrepresented U.S. students of color. The average GMAT for the class is 720 (the average GRE is 164Q/164V), and the average GPA is 3.63 on a four-point U.S. scale. Students come from a range of academic institutions (172 different schools are represented) and backgrounds, from engineering to the arts. Ten percent are first-generation college graduates, while 12% have earned a previous graduate degree. Another 13% are pursuing a joint degree here at Yale, at one of nine Yale schools. They’ve received various academic awards and honors, from magna summa cum laude to Phi Beta Kappa to Fulbright Fellowships and Gates Millennium Scholarships.

Their professional credentials are equally diverse and impressive, covering all sectors and a range of industries and companies, from Accenture to ZS Associates. In all, 175 different employers are represented, including Bain, Blackstone, Tesla, Tencent, The Brookings Institution, Shell, Schlumberger, NBCUniversal, General Mills, Goldman Sachs, Dell, Deloitte, the Girl Scouts, Unilever, Acumen Fund, BNP Paribas, CICC, Korea Exchange, Aviana Holdings, US AID, and the Walt Disney Company. The class includes a record number of veterans from all branches of the United States military, as well as a record number of Silver Scholars.

What brings these incredibly diverse members of the Yale SOM Class of 2022 together is their aspiration to embody the school’s mission of educating leaders for business and society. We are excited for them to begin this journey!