SMU’s Cox School of Business (SMU photo)
Looking at acceptance rates over the last five years, we can see the dramatic effects the COVID-19 pandemic had on acceptance rates at most schools in our ranking. Between the Fall 2019 and Fall 2020 admission cycles, acceptance rates rose at 57 of ranked schools. Rates rose at 38 schools the following cycle.
A majority of schools have now reversed that trend. Of 82 schools that have been ranked the last five years, 50 reported lower acceptance rates this cycle than the fall 2019, meaning their schools have gotten more difficult to get into.
One school that went the other way is Southern Methodist University Cox School of Business. It reported an acceptance rate of 10.9% in the 2019 cycle, but rose to 62.5% in fall 2020, a year schools first began grappling with COVID 19 precautions. The school has never fully recovered in this metric, reporting 48.7% acceptance in Fall 2021, 46.04% in Fall 2022, and 48% this cycle.
The table below shows acceptance rates for the last five admission cycles for all 91 schools we ranked for 2024.
5-YEAR ACCEPTANCE RATES AT P&Q RANKED SCHOOLS
| School | Fall 2023 | Fall 2022 | Fall 2021 | Fall 2020 | Fall 2019 |
| University of Pennsylvania (Wharton) | 4.50% | 6.30% | 6.03% | 7.60% | 6.70% |
| University of Southern California (Marshall) | 7.20% | 9.03% | 9.94% | 15.00% | 11.00% |
| Georgetown University (McDonough) | 12.90% | 12.29% | 11.80% | 20.00% | 16.20% |
| University of Virginia (McIntire) | 8.17% | 11.79% | 11.76% | 13.40% | 12.90% |
| University of Michigan (Ross) | 8.90% | 9.80% | 11.23% | 15.20% | 12.00% |
| Cornell University (Dyson SC Johnson) | 4.79% | 4.17% | 5.44% | 8.00% | 6.40% |
| University of Notre Dame (Mendoza) | 12.00% | 13.66% | 15.10% | 19.80% | 17.00% |
| University of North Carolina (Kenan-Flagler) | 8.50% | 10.00% | 11.42% | 11.50% | 10.60% |
| New York University (Stern) | 5.20% | 6.60% | 7.16% | 12.70% | 7.60% |
| Georgia Institute of Technology (Scheller) | 19.40% | 17.74% | 20.10% | 23.30% | 24.00% |
| Washington University in St. Louis (Olin) | 11.00% | 9.00% | 8.36% | 14.30% | 11.40% |
| Villanova University | 18.00% | 16.80% | 18.89% | 25.00% | 22.20% |
| Emory University (Goizueta) | 12.60% | 16.00% | 14.77% | 17.70% | 19.80% |
| Indiana University (Kelley) | 34.83% | 39.71% | 48.96% | 48.80% | 44.50% |
| University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Gies) | 24.17% | 26.96% | 38.93% | 44.10% | 42.00% |
| Northeastern University (D’Amore-McKim) | 6.10% | 5.73% | 16.28% | 19.50% | 19.50% |
| Boston University (Questrom) | 8.00% | 13.54% | 15.23% | 17.90% | 15.10% |
| University of Richmond (Robins) | 22.52% | 24.65% | 28.14% | 31.20% | 28.60% |
| University of Washington (Foster) | 8.50% | 20.98% | 39.08% | 34.20% | 21.00% |
| Bucknell University | 26.00% | 21.46% | 22.78% | 30.10% | 29.30% |
| Fordham University (Gabelli) | 49.60% | 48.49% | 54.50% | 51.20% | 44.60% |
| University of Miami (Herbert) | 19.52% | 19.16% | 28.65% | 34.10% | 25.10% |
| Lehigh University | 25.00% | 38.03% | 44.58% | 51.50% | 35.20% |
| University of Minnesota (Carlson) | 29.27% | 29.52% | 29.16% | 29.30% | 31.60% |
| Texas Christian University (Neeley) | 49.19% | 48.78% | 47.94% | 51.10% | 47.40% |
| Southern Methodist University (Cox) | 48.00% | 46.04% | 48.70% | 62.50% | 10.90% |
| University of Wisconsin-Madison | 16.00% | 23.67% | 27.29% | 26.60% | 28.70% |
| Binghamton University | 24.90% | 27.10% | 32.09% | 32.10% | 30.00% |
| Carnegie Mellon University (Tepper) | 9.40% | 8.62% | 10.38% | 14.30% | 11.60% |
| University of Pittsburgh | 28.11% | 29.46% | 48.05% | 49.00% | 41.60% |
| Tulane University (A.B. Freeman) | 15.10% | 12.86% | 13.56% | 18.30% | 17.50% |
| Purdue University (Daniels) | 19.00% | 17.50% | 74.65% | 71.40% | 57.50% |
| Wake Forest University | 20.16% | 24.34% | 23.34% | 29.00% | 28.40% |
| Texas A&M University (Mays) | 28.00% | 36.19% | 30.54% | NA | 28.60% |
| University of Tennessee (Haslam) | 39.00% | 73.33% | 81.41% | 93.10% | 88.00% |
| Syracuse University (Whitman) | 31.54% | 46.21% | 48.02% | 56.10% | 37.10% |
| Providence College | 48.40% | 52.51% | 58.34% | 55.60% | 46.90% |
| Hult International Business School | 56.00% | 48.21% | 40.11% | 37.80% | 19.80% |
| Loyola Marymount University | 42.00% | NR | NR | NR | NR |
| Elon University (Love) | 67.30% | 74.22% | 77.39% | 72.00% | 84.50% |
| University of Houston (Bauer) | 34.40% | 34.17% | 34.53% | 23.80% | 25.50% |
| Florida Southern College | 57.00% | 56.22% | 59.46% | 51.50% | 73.90% |
| Lipscomb University | 56.41% | 55.69% | 76.51% | 86.20% | 38.40% |
| Rutgers Business School-New Brunswick | 41.50% | 47.60% | 46.24% | 47.60% | 45.60% |
| University of Denver (Daniels) | 57.30% | 61.39% | 67.79% | 62.20% | 77.50% |
| Miami University (Farmer) | 75.70% | 76.11% | 78.05% | 86.80% | 76.20% |
| University of South Carolina (Darla Moore) | 54.17% | 57.61% | 59.68% | 67.10% | 67.90% |
| William & Mary (Mason) | 24.70% | 38.80% | 34.04% | 26.00% | 27.90% |
| Saint Louis University (Chaifetz) | 78.50% | 82.29% | 90.34% | 81.70% | 77.40% |
| St. John’s University (Tobin) | 51.60% | 53.75% | 38.51% | 56.70% | 56.90% |
| University of Arizona (Eller) | 66.28% | 69.60% | 59.19% | 62.90% | 67.70% |
| University of San Diego (Knauss)* | 46.70% | 52.62% | 52.70% | 58.70% | 48.70% |
| University of Evansville | 72.10% | 72.04% | NA | NA | NA |
| University of Dayton | 65.00% | 76.45% | 83.13% | NA | NA |
| Michigan State University (Broad) | 44.40% | 48.30% | 55.36% | 64.20% | 39.80% |
| Worcester Polytechnic Institute | 44.00% | 41.45% | 53.38% | 45.00% | 43.20% |
| Hofstra University (Zarb) | 71.00% | 86.31% | 84.41% | 89.60% | 68.00% |
| College of New Jersey | 62.00% | 64.57% | 65.97% | 51.20% | 44.40% |
| Rochester Institute of Technology (Saunders) | 72.30% | 70.86% | 78.28% | 75.50% | 79.10% |
| Marian University (Byrum) | 92.90% | 76.04% | 72.58% | 60.70% | NA |
| Seton Hall University (Stillman) | 76.00% | 72.83% | 73.73% | NA | 59.10% |
| Drexel University (LeBow) | 84.00% | 86.62% | 82.84% | 73.10% | 72.90% |
| University of New Hampshire (Paul) | 68.30% | 70.83% | 74.48% | 71.20% | 71.50% |
| University of Georgia (Terry) | 40.00% | 48.02% | 41.98% | 45.10% | 50.20% |
| University of Delaware (Lerner) | 55.40% | 64.21% | 62.30% | 53.60% | 55.60% |
| Ithaca College | 76.00% | 82.81% | 87.33% | 85.50% | 75.70% |
| Seattle University (Albers) | 84.60% | 78.20% | 88.09% | 82.10% | 78.20% |
| Duquesne University (Palumbo-Donahue) | 83.00% | 93.95% | 96.74% | 79.50% | 80.40% |
| University of Texas-Dallas (Naveen Jindal) | 66.00% | 72.20% | 70.65% | 52.50% | 58.20% |
| Towson University | 74.00% | 67.00% | 67.00% | NA | NA |
| University of Michigan-Dearborn | 58.00% | 55.55% | 64.89% | 61.00% | 54.90% |
| Ohio University | 88.44% | 87.45% | 90.67% | 90.30% | NA |
| University of Oklahoma (Price) | 81.80% | 78.60% | 69.95% | 71.10% | 53.80% |
| Christopher Newport University (Luter) | 87.00% | 77.15% | 79.09% | 93.40% | 63.30% |
| Bowling Green State University (Schmidthorst) | 89.40% | 86.17% | 83.95% | 74.50% | 75.00% |
| University of North Carolina-Wilmington | 71.01% | 60.10% | 58.35% | 68.00% | 62.10% |
| Rutgers Business School-Newark | 70.10% | 79.99% | 86.45% | 75.00% | 69.40% |
| University of Kentucky (Gatton) | 92.00% | 91.09% | 49.50% | 84.50% | 82.40% |
| Roger Williams University (Gabelli) | 87.86% | NR | NR | NR | NR |
| American University (Kogod) | 42.00% | 30.34% | 58.17% | 32.30% | 37.00% |
| University of the Pacific (Eberhardt) | 96.20% | 93.95% | 73.62% | 67.30% | NA |
| Sacred Heart University | 67.60% | 60.84% | 62.84% | 61.50% | 59.10% |
| Oregon State University | 81.10% | NA | 88.39% | 91.70% | 85.90% |
| University of Utah (Eccles) | 93.00% | 73.77% | 67.65% | 71.60% | 62.10% |
| Florida International University | 32.00% | 44.63% | 50.95% | 41.10% | 64.40% |
| Northern Illinois University | 67.90% | 68.75% | 67.47% | 60.80% | 52.50% |
| Texas Tech University (Rawls) | 71.85% | 86.37% | NA | NA | NA |
| San Diego State University | 34.00% | 41.22% | NA | NA | NA |
| University of Akron | 97.00% | 96.98% | 97.10% | 95.10% | 90.20% |
| University of Texas-Arlington | 61.80% | 82.13% | 63.00% | 87.30% | 61.70% |
| University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (Lubar) | 81.00% | 71.37% | 88.85% | NA | NA |
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