The Harvard MBA Class: Then and Now [MBA Facts]

The world has become a very different place since the first students enrolled in Harvard's MBA program back in 1908. Women were not admitted into the program until the early 1960s, and in the 40s international student population used to include citizens of Hawaii and Alaska. The following facts and statistics show how the student population at Harvard Business School has changed in the 100+ years since the school was founded in 1908.

• Harvard's MBA class of 1910, the first class to get a Harvard MBA, was made up of eight students. The MBA became the first Harvard degree conferred in English instead of Latin.

• Harvard Business School published its first alumni directory in 1916. It contained 392 names.

• In 1918, six Radcliffe women petitioned to take Harvard Business School classes related to the World War I effort. Their request was denied.

• By 1930, enrolment at Harvard Business School had grown so much that over half of the alumni had graduated within the past four years.

• By 1933, Harvard Business School had 4,000 graduates and nearly all of them had jobs despite the Great Depression.

• The 1940 class included students from seven "foreign countries": Alaska, Hawaii, Canada, China, India, Switzerland, and Venezuela.

• The majority of graduates from Harvard's MBA Class of 1947 (40%) went on to work in manufacturing. The percentage of graduates working in manufacturing increased to 60.4% ten years later in 1957.

• In 1963, 8 women were admitted into the first year MBA class -- a year after faculty voted to accept women. The incoming class of 1964 included 3 women and 683 men.

• The number of applicants to Harvard Business School has nearly tripled since 1975. 9,331 people applied to be part of Harvard's MBA Class of 2013, compared to 3,381 people for the class of 1975. The number of applicants to the class of 2012 was actually higher than for 2013, with 10,368 applicants.

• The number of undergraduate Humanities and Social Science majors in the Harvard MBA is lower now than it was in 1975. 47% of Harvard's MBA class of '75 were undergraduate Humanities and Social Science majors, compared to 42% for the class of 2013. The class of 1995 had the highest percentage of Humanities and Social Science majors in the past 37 years at 51%.

• The percentages of women, minorities, and international students in the Harvard MBA program have all increased since 1975.

• The percentage of female students for the class of 2013 (39%) is over three times what it was in 1975 (11%).

• The percentage of minorities in the class of 2013 (23%) has nearly quadrupled since 1975 (6%).

• The percentage of international MBA students was lower in 1985 (13%) than 1975 (15%), but has risen steadily since then. 34% of the class of 2013 is made up of international students.

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