Berkeley Welcomes Record Number of MBAs in for Class of 2020
Last week, UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business unveiled stats for the incoming students that comprise its full-time MBA Class of 2020.
With 291 full-time MBA students (along with 276 evening and weekend students), the Berkeley Class of 2020 is larger than any before.
The new class one of the most academically accomplished in school history. Average GPA for this year’s first-year class is 3.66, off just .05 from last year’s. But an increase in average GMAT offset the tiny backslide in GPA. At 726, it moved up one point higher than last year’s incoming class.
In terms of professional experience, Haas students come from various backgrounds. About a quarter of the students come from the consulting industry, and another 20 percent come from banking/financial services backgrounds. The industries drawing the third-, fourth-, and fifth-most Haas grads are high tech (10 percent), nonprofit (9 percent), and healthcare/pharmaceutical/bio (7 percent). In addition, 5 percent of the incoming class has military experience.
The percentage of women in Haas’s incoming class is also up over the previous year, something we’ve also seen this year at Northwestern’s Kellogg School, Duke’s Fuqua School, and USC Marshall, among others.
About 43 percent of the incoming Berkeley Class of full-time MBAs are women—a 3 percent increase. International students from 30 countries make up around 34 percent of the class, down from 39 percent last year. Here, too, Haas is not alone. Many U.S. schools have shared, in both in published class profiles and informal conversations, that international application volume was down, or at best, flat year over year.
Former Haas Dean Richard Lyons stepped down in June after 11 years with the school, a role in which he raised more money than any prior dean and oversaw the construction of Connie & Kevin Chou Hall. The addition of the new building helped make it possible to expand the Haas class, an effort Lyons championed. He and other supporters viewed it as a way to help ensure that Haas has enough graduates to command attention from the world’s top recruiters without compromising the intimacy and culture.
“Part of the reputation of the school is a function of its scale, and there are times where you are just not at the right reputational scale. You’re too small,” he explained in a 2017 interview with Clear Admit.
“It’s a super intimate experience—there’s no question about that—but target companies want to go to a place where there are enough people graduating that they can send a team of recruiters, for example. If you are too small you are below the threshold.”
Ann Harrison, a renowned economist and member of the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, will serve as Haas’s next dean. Harrison begins her term on January 1, 2019. Professor Laura Tyson, the current interim dean since Lyons left, returns to her prior faculty positions next year.
This article has been edited and republished with permissions from Clear Admit.
Wharton Economist, Berkeley Alum Ann Harrison Named New Haas Dean
Ann Harrison, a renowned economist and member of the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, has been named the next dean of the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business. Harrison earned her undergraduate degree from Berkeley and served as a professor in Berkeley’s Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics from 2001 to 2011.
“Professor Harrison is an accomplished administrator as well as a world-class economist who has dedicated her career to creating forward-looking policies in development economics, international trade, and global labor markets,” Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ said in a statement announcing the appointment. “It is a great honor to welcome her back to Berkeley to become the dean of Haas, and I have no doubt that she will be a wonderful leader the institution.”
Harrison, who will begin her term on January 1, 2019, said she is thrilled to return to Berkeley and looks forward to meeting Haas students and alumni and working with its distinguished faculty and staff, according to the release from the school.
Harrison worked as director of development policy at the World Bank before joining the Wharton faculty in 2012, co-managing a team of 300 researchers and staff. In her time with the World Bank, she reformed its research fund allocation process and supervised its most important publications, including the annual World Development Report. Setting a milestone in transparency for the institution, she convinced the World Bank’s president to release all historical records on project loans.
Ann Harrison named new Haas dean
“Ann has a remarkable track record of pioneering research on trade and development, including influential studies of globalization’s effects on jobs and inequality,” Berkeley Economics Professor Maurice Obstfeld said in a statement. Obstfeld serves as chief economist at the International Monetary Fund and was a colleague of Harrison’s when she worked in Berkeley’s Agricultural and Resource Economics Department.
Princeton Professor Emeritus Sir Angus Deaton, who has known Harrison since her days as a graduate student at Princeton, praised her appointment. “Based on Ann’s experience at the World Bank, she will be an effective and much-loved manager,” said Deaton, who also holds the 2015 Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences for his analysis of consumption, poverty, and welfare.
In addition to a Ph.D. in economics from Princeton, Harrison also holds a diplôme d’études universitaires générales from the University of Paris and is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a member of the United Nations Committee for Development Policy. Author and editor of three books—including Globalization and Poverty and The Factory-Free Economy—Harrison is one of the most highly cited scholars globally on foreign investment and multinational firms.
Harrison replaces outgoing Dean Rich Lyons, who stepped down in June 2018 after serving as Haas dean for the past 11 years. He plans to return to teaching at Haas after completing a sabbatical. Haas Professor Laura Tyson, who has served as interim dean since Lyons’ departure, will remain in the role until January, 2019.
