Meet the MBA Class of 2024
As fall officially arrives and we at Admissions anticipate the next application season, I want to take a moment to look back and recognize the wonderful students who have completed this journey and have just started their MBA studies here at Yale. We were delighted to welcome the 347 members of the Yale School of Management MBA Class of 2024 to New Haven last month. August 15 marked the start of orientation for the Class of 2024, with classes beginning August 22. Despite the lingering pandemic, life at Evans Hall continues to return to normal day after day.
The class that has arrived is special in many ways. About three-quarters of the class speak two or more languages, and more than 30% speak three or more. In all, the class speaks 50 different languages, including Mandarin, Cantonese, Spanish, Japanese, French, Taiwanese, Indonesian, Palembang Malay, Toba Batak, German, Korean, Turkish, Azeri, Nepali, Hindi, Tagalog, Portuguese, French, Mandinka, Dutch, Polish, Swedish, Thai, Arabic, Urdu, Tamil, Kiswahili, Russian, Punjabi, Bengali, Italian, Tamil , Hebrew, Afrikaans, Malayalam, Lao, Twi, Urhobo, ASL, Gujarati, Macedonian, Estonian, Ewe and Belarusian.
It’s a very musical group; class members play instruments such as piano, trumpet, organ, guitar (acoustic, electric and bass), violin, ukulele, cajon, kalimba, bassoon, drums, flute and even bagpipes. Many others are interested in singing, listening to music and dancing.
There is no doubt that the class is also extremely athletic, with the majority of students listing one or more sports on their CV including Yoga, Muay Thai, Football, Tennis, Swimming, Golf, Table Tennis , scuba diving, boxing, climbing. , hiking, kayaking, running, acrobatics, Krav Maga, hockey, Pilates, karate, skiing, mountain biking, bouldering, sailing, weightlifting, ultimate frisbee, windsurfing, badminton, snowboarding, jumping rope, lacrosse, kitesurfing, rugby, volleyball, wrestling, figure skating, cricket and snowboarding; Others exercise through Bollywood dancing, pole dancing, salsa dancing, ballroom dancing or ballet.
This group has quite a few distance runners, including several half-marathon and marathon finishers. One class member noted that he had completed a 100-kilometer ultramarathon in 12 hours in addition to 10 full marathons, and another mentioned that his greatest running achievement was completing his third marathon when he was 35 weeks pregnant!
In addition to their full-time careers, members of the class have found time to establish themselves as professional stage performers, translators for TED talks, sound designers and music producers with Spotify verification, campaign organizers large-scale stem cell registration, private pilots, certified bartenders and professional catch-and-release fishermen.
Their hobbies include solo exploration (with one student traveling to over 50 countries), Legos (“recently brought a Star Wars Imperial Star Destroyer to life – all 4,784 pieces”), sustainable fashion, searching for the best flavor of ice cream in every travel destination, raising chickens, beekeeping, impressions and imitations of Mickey Mouse in Al Pacino, baking cakes, visiting Disney theme parks as often as possible, listening to podcasts (thanks for all your great recommendations by the way), Chinese sword dancing, novice carpentry, freestyle rapping, and skydiving, to name a few.
In numbers, 48% of the class of 2024 hold passports from a country other than the United States, with 48 different countries represented in total. Women make up 43% of the class. Fifty-four percent of American students are students of color and 24% are underrepresented American students of color. The average GMAT for the class is 723 (the average GRE is 165Q/164V, an equivalent of 720), and the average GPA is 3.65 on an American four-point scale. Students come from various academic institutions and backgrounds (167 different schools are represented), from engineering to the arts. Seventeen percent are first-generation college graduates, while 10% have already earned a graduate degree. Another 12% are pursuing a joint degree here at Yale at one of Yale’s eight other schools. Thirty-nine are members of the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management (our highest number ever) and six are members of the inaugural QuestBridge Graduate Match program. They have received various academic awards and honours, from summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa at Fulbright Fellowships and Rhodes Fellowships.
Their professional credentials are equally diverse and impressive, spanning all sectors and a range of industries and businesses. Seventy-five percent of the class comes from the private sector, while 25% comes from the nonprofit and public sectors. Employers range from AT Kearney to ZS Associates. In total, more than 200 different employers are represented, including Boston Consulting Group, Alibaba, Samsung, Goldman Sachs, Clinton Health Access Initiative, Google, the Los Angeles Chargers, Palantir Technologies, Sumitomo Bank, Unilever, Boeing, Steppenwolf Theater Company, Shopee , and Teach for America. The class includes 16 U.S. Army veterans, as well as 30 Silver Scholars.
What brings these incredibly diverse members of the Yale SOM Class of 2024 together is their aspiration to embody the school’s mission to educate leaders for business and society. We are so excited for them to start this journey!
