B-Schools With The Most Women, Minority & First-Generation Students

Northern Illinois University’s College of Business. Courtesy photo

UNDERREPRESENTED MINORITY STUDENTS

In June, the U.S. Supreme Court effectively struck down affirmative action in college admission when it ruled in favor of a pair of lawsuits against Harvard University and the University of North Carolina. Both lawsuits were brought by a group of students for Fair Admissions claiming that race-based admission considerations discriminated against White and Asian American students.

Universities, and their business schools, are still grappling with the decision. In an increasingly global world, diversity in the classroom prepares students for diversity in the workplace. According to a survey of 20,000 high school seniors, students value diversity in the classroom as well. Niche found that a diverse student body was a top factor in choosing a college with 42% of respondents saying diversity in campus community was “appealing,” and 38% saying it was a “must have.”

We at Poets&Quants tend to agree. It’s why we ask business schools to report the percentage of underrepresented minority students in the most recent incoming class as part of our ranking.

No other school had a higher percentage of U.S. minorities entering their business school this past fall (2023) than Florida International University (ranked No. 85 overall) at 76%, up a tad from the percentage it reported for fall 2022 at 74.38%. Northern Illinois University had the second highest percentage at 61.8%.

This fall, four schools enrolled a higher percentage of minority students than non minority compared to five schools in fall 2022. Nine schools reported minority students percentages of 40% or higher.

HIGHEST & LOWEST MINORITY STUDENTS AT P&Q RANKED B-SCHOOLS

At the other end of the table, Worcester Polytechnic Institute reported an entering class that was just 3% minority, down from 11% the year before. University of New Hampshire Paul School of Business reported 3.96% minority students while Miami University’s Farmer School of Business reported 8.4%.

In all, eight schools reported enrolling incoming classes that were less than 12% minority.

Across all ranked business schools, 24.37% of the incoming class in fall 2023 were underrepresented U.S. minorities. That’s down 2% from last year’s average of 23.67%.

DIVERSITY AT THE TOP 10 BUSINESS SCHOOLS

The top 10 business schools in our undergraduate ranking for 2024 enrolled, on average, classes that were more diverse than the previous admissions cycle. The average percentage for minority students was 24.19% in fall 2023 compared to 21.89% the previous cycle. That’s a 2.3% increase.

Seven of the top 10 reported raising the percentage of minority students in its latest admission cycle, none more than the No. 1 ranked University of Pennsylvania’s The Wharton School. Its fall 2023 entering class was 32% underrepresented minority, compared to 22.6% a year ago – a 9.4% increase.

MINORITY STUDENTS AT P&Q’S TOP 10 B-SCHOOLS

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