From the Assistant Dean for Admissions: Meet the Class of 2025

With fall arriving and the upcoming application season heating up, I want to take a moment to introduce the wonderful students who have completed their admissions journey and have just began their MBA studies here at Yale. We were thrilled to welcome the 339 members of the Yale School of Management MBA Class of 2025 to New Haven last month. August 14 marked the beginning of orientation for the Class of 2025, and classes began on August 21.

The Class of 2025 is truly global in nature, representing 46 different countries, from Argentina, Australia, and Azerbaijan to Venezuela, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe. Members of the class speak innumerable languages, including Mandarin, Hindi, Cantonese, Swahili, Asante, Russian, Greek, Portuguese, Shona, Korean, Tamil, Thai, German, Italian, Fante, Finnish, Bengali, Dutch, Armenian, Marathi, Japanese, Maithili, and French, among many others.

This is a very musical group—class members play such instruments as piano, trumpet, organ, guitar, violin, ukulele, saxophone, sitar, drums, harmonica, flute, and even bagpipes. Many others are interested in singing (choir, a cappella, jazz), listening to and creating music, and dancing (ballet, belly, high heel). There is a YouTuber who creates K-pop dance videos and a vocalist who performed at the National Jazz Festival and was a top 10 vocal soloist at the Berklee Jazz Festival.

They are creative, writing poems, children’s books, and allegorical fiction, as well as producing short films and podcasts. One reads more than 100 books a year, another won first place in the International New York Times Writing Competition, and yet another is a columnist and blogger for eight national publications.

They are extremely active, with the majority of students listing one or more sports on their résumés, including yoga, football, tennis, swimming, golf, table tennis, scuba diving, basketball, boxing, ice climbing, hiking, kayaking, running, acrobatics, hockey (field and ice), karate, skiing, cycling, bouldering, sailing, powerlifting, ultimate frisbee, cricket, windsurfing, badminton, ski-mountaineering, lacrosse, kiteboarding, rugby, volleyball, wrestling, canyoneering, figure skating, and snowboarding. Among them is a professional cricket player, a semi-professional soccer player, and a former member of the U.S. National Rowing Team. One of them was a torchbearer for the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea.

This group is adventurous and includes long-distance runners, including several half-marathon and marathon finishers. There are triathletes and PADI Open Water divers. They’ve climbed Mount Blanc, Elbrus, and Kilimanjaro; camped in Antarctica; trekked the Himalayas for 36 days on $40; run the Grand Canyon rim-to-rim—twice; and hiked the Camino de Santiago de Compostela. One has visited 86 countries, while another has traveled to six continents.

Their hobbies include gardening and baking, bartending and photography. Many play chess—including at least one Life Master. There are pilots and personal trainers and a sommelier who was certified through the world’s most prestigious wine-training program. One creates DIY hydroponics/aquaponics systems to grow food, while another, self-effacingly, is “struggling to grow tomatoes.” There is a dog shelter volunteer and several individuals who foster dogs, cats, and rabbits—including one who fosters future autism service dogs in training. One of them creates jewelry from recycled materials, while another likes to hunt for culinary adventures (not to mention an Asian street food enthusiast, who could get along well with the culinary adventurist!). There is the owner and co-founder of an escape room in Chicago, a self-appointed professional jollof taster, and a student who has a family band with himself on guitar, his spouse on piano, their toddler on percussions, and infant on vocals. One was a Jeopardy! contestant. The list goes on.

By the numbers, 50% of the Class of 2025 holds passports from a country other than the United States—with, as noted above, 46 different countries represented overall. Women make up 40% of the class. Forty-eight percent of the U.S. students are students of color, and 18% are underrepresented U.S. students of color. The average GMAT for the class is 723 (the average GRE is 165Q/164V, a 720 equivalent), and the average GPA is 3.63 on a four-point U.S. scale. Students come from a range of academic institutions and backgrounds (199 different schools are represented), from engineering to the arts. Sixteen percent are first-generation college graduates, while 16% have earned a previous graduate degree. Six percent are pursuing a joint-degree with another Yale school. Twenty-five are members of the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management, and six are members of the QuestBridge Graduate Match program. They’ve received various academic awards and honors, from summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa designations to Fulbright Fellowships and other prominent scholarships.

Their professional credentials are equally diverse and impressive, covering all sectors and a range of industries and companies. Eighty-one percent of the class comes from the private sector, while 19% comes from the nonprofit and public sectors. Employers range from AARP to Wells Fargo. In all, more than 250 different employers are represented, including SpaceX, Meta, New Haven Public Schools, Tesla, Domino’s, Alphabet, Mayo Clinic, Gap, Noom, Samsung, and IBM. The most common employers are the U.S. Army, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, McKinsey & Company, and Capital One. The class includes 23 veterans of the United States military, as well as 29 Silver Scholars.

What brings these incredibly diverse members of the Yale SOM Class of 2025 together is their aspiration to embody the school’s mission of educating leaders for business and society. We are so excited for them to begin this journey!

Bruce DelMonico
Assistant Dean for Admissions

Admissions Office
Yale School of Management
165 Whitney Avenue
Box 208200
New Haven, CT 06520-8200
203.432.5635, Admissions Office
fax 203.432.7004
mba.admissions@yale.edu