The MBA Admissions Report
Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, Booth, Kellogg, Columbia, MIT Sloan, London Business School and INSEAD, side by side: who gets in, what it costs, what it pays, and how each school decides, with essays and interviews explained from the interviewer's chair. Then a complete course for the GMAT Focus, GRE and Executive Assessment: method chapters and timed sections with 188 problems written for the report. Every figure is from the schools' own pages.
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PDF, delivered as soon as payment goes through. Edition 2, October 2026, for Round 2 of the 2026–27 cycle and for next year's applicants. Sample pages are shown below.
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What is inside
- 18 schools, one profile each, and comparison charts. Tuck, Haas, Yale, Stern, Ross, Darden, Fuqua, Cambridge and IESE join the nine main schools: class size, GMAT Focus and its middle range, GPA, women and international students, pre-MBA industries, cost and pay, each figure from the school's own pages.
- 6 chapters on the tests, with 122 problems written for this report. GMAT Quant: percentages, ratios and number properties; GMAT Quant: algebra, word problems, counting and statistics; Data sufficiency; GRE Quant: comparisons, geometry and numeric entry; GMAT Verbal: critical reasoning and reading; Data Insights and the Executive Assessment. Each chapter sets out the method for a question type, works examples the way a top scorer thinks them through, and ends with exercises; full solutions follow the last chapter.
- Four timed practice sections: 66 questions you will not find on this site or anywhere else. GMAT Focus Quant (18), Data Insights data sufficiency (14), GRE Quant (24: comparison, multiple choice and numeric entry) and Executive Assessment (10), written for the report. Every answer was reproduced by an independent computation; every data-sufficiency and comparison answer was checked by testing every possible case.
- The interview, from the interviewer's side. From an LBS admissions interviewer: what the interviewer writes afterwards, the questions and what each one tests, and what makes an interview easy or hard to write up.
- From story to essay, worked through. One applicant's raw material taken to a goals-essay plan, with a weak paragraph and the same paragraph rewritten.
- Building a school list. A method for placing your score and career against each class, with a worked example.
- The class profiles in one table. Class size, GMAT Focus and classic GMAT, GRE, GPA, work experience, women and international students, as each school publishes them, with charts.
- Every 2026–27 deadline and decision date. All nine schools, all rounds, including INSEAD's four and Harvard's 2+2.
- What it costs. Published tuition and budgets: $130,318 a year at Harvard, $143,030 at Columbia, £123,950 at LBS, €109,860 at INSEAD.
- What it pays. Median base salary by school and by industry, from $161,000 in technology to $225,000 in investment management.
- Whether it pays back. Years to recover the cost on base pay alone, built from the schools' own figures, for three starting salaries.
- Essays and interviews, school by school. What each school asks this cycle and how its interview works, with guidance from an LBS admissions interviewer.
- Two plans: Round 2 in January, or Round 1 next autumn.
From the report
- Round 2 is the window still open. It closes between 5 and 12 January 2027 at the US schools and on 6 January at LBS.
- Harvard enrols 943 students from 9,409 applications.
- GMAT Focus scores cluster between 670 and 690 where schools publish them; Harvard's median is 685.
- The GRE is a full equal. 44% of Harvard's newest class submitted it.
- Median base pay after the US schools is $175,000 to $185,000; INSEAD's median is €100,000.
- On a typical pre-MBA salary the degree pays back in about five years. For anyone already earning what MBA graduates earn, it doesn't pay back on salary.
How it was made
Every school figure comes from the school's own class profiles, application pages, cost-of-attendance pages and employment reports, read on 5 October 2026, and every source is listed. Where a school doesn't publish a figure, the report leaves the cell blank rather than estimating it.
It was written by an LBS MBA who interviews MBA and EMBA applicants for the school and works as a high-frequency trading quant.
Paid in full, in advance. No refunds. Full terms
Common questions
How do I get the report after paying?
Payment is handled by Stripe. When it goes through you are taken straight to a page with the download link.
Which schools does it cover?
Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, Chicago Booth, Kellogg, Columbia, MIT Sloan, London Business School and INSEAD.
Is it useful if I'm applying next year rather than now?
Yes. The profiles, costs, salaries, essays and interview formats change little from year to year, and the report includes a twelve-month plan for Round 1 in autumn 2027.
Can I share it?
The licence is for your own use. Please don't redistribute the file.
Practice: GMAT practice questions, GRE practice questions and Executive Assessment practice, each with worked solutions.
Free from the same research: GMAT or GRE, read from the class profiles, Executive MBA deadlines for 2027 entry, and LBS interview questions from an interviewer.