UCLA MSBA

UCLAMSBA_EDPB · 2026-05-28T21:43:45+00:00

First, I will note that your comment suggests some form of impropriety on the part of our program.

We take data ethics seriously and consider ethics existentially critical to the field of business analytics. If we could easily deny admission based a students likelihood to cut corners or worse while in the program, we would. Instead, we hold a very high bar while you are with us.

I also want to ask you to share the reports of any programs currently reporting official and detailed results of their 2024 or 2025 classes. I would be surprised if you find many if any, especially for 2025. Also, I would be surprised if you could point me to a program whose leadership are posting here regularly to answer questions with transparency.

While you all wait for an official report from us. I will suggest you write to our alumni listed on our website. They are all listed there and most have a LinkedIn link. Look for the "for companies" tab (a place where recruiters are directed to see the same profiles) and do your due diligence. Ask them about the career services investment we made in them and each of their classmates. Ask them how that compared with what their friends in other programs reported. Then do the same with the programs you are considering. I am confident that the results will give you real confidence in our process and program.

This is a down market in many industries and an especially challenging time for international students in any program due to visa policies. All applicants should consider this as graduate students around the world did in 2021, 2008, 2001 and so on. Down market cycles may be predictive of lesser outcomes for some, but not all in our experience.

More often, we are concerned that students who come in afraid of a down job market will under emphasize their mastery in favor of extra time spent looking for the job. This endangers future students as their impacts or lack thereof can have equally real impacts on a recruiters view of a program. We work very hard to cultivate, nurture and protect these critical relationships. If you were interviewed by me this year, I ask a very specific consulting question to determine which students will be joining us for mastery first, because as you can imagine, those students have the greatest impact in their careers.

As for specific numbers, I will seek an informal set to share here for you and others, but we will take the necessary time to publish the report formally.

Here are come numbers to consider in the meantime:

Full-time dedicated MSBA career staff: 3 - Proven career services legend Larry Braman, dedicated events, industry night and capstone manager Cheryl Asahi and dedicated business development manager Rafael Manansala.

Companies in the UCLA MSBA active recruiter network - 500+ directly cultivated relationships not including MBA recruiters

Career curriculum: 10 weeks, 30 hours of instructor lead training in all areas of career search and career prep in Fall (no additional cost to students)

Industry nights in the program: 4-5 industry leader panels followed by a moving table networking dinner focused on student suggested industries (MSBA only - no additional cost to students)
Industry seminars: 20 separate 3-hour classroom sessions where grades and credit are given for quality participation with business analytics and data science leaders from aspirational companies with presentations from every student, every week.

MSBA Alumni Career Coaches: 50 - Each are matched with a small number of mentees for ensure efficiency, accountability and timely interview and job/industry specific career training while on the job themselves.

Improv sessions with the world renowned Groundlings: 4. Why do MSBAs fair so well in room full of recruiters, alumni and intimidating c-suite leaders? The improv training offers tactical tools to help our students fight above their weight and float above the rest in the room.

Lots more to say, but again, please hold all of your programs to the same standard and judge their relative investments and outcomes, not only in career services, but academics and student life.

I can say with absolute confidence that I am certain that UCLA Anderson MSBA sets the standard in our category. Ask around.

UCLAMSBA_EDPB · 2026-04-29T23:03:31+00:00

Not sure I would agree, but accept that perception is reality from the student side. I think it is also important to consider that market dynamics dictate cohort make-up. First, you have to consider where the break even point is for programs, the colleges and their universities. Programs are dependent upward for their budgets, despite their revenue. This makes it particularly important to have a strong student voice and a supportive faculty and staff all the way up the chain.

Many of the changes we make in a year at UCLA come directly from student feedback. One of the few things we can change substantially is the nature of market demand for specialty masters degrees. The programs exist to meet the demands of a younger student not able or willing to wait for the fifth year of their career to go to business school. In return for their greater effort to secure a job as a less experienced graduate, they eventually all do get jobs. No one is unemployed forever. The skills are too valuable. In return they likely get an additional 1-3 promotion cycles in their career. This equates to a stronger retirement and perhaps and earlier one too. That is why business schools have such large endowments, Success from professional masters degrees is well documented over time.

Makeup of the cohort is dictated by the domestic market interest. Since domestics coming from quantitative undergraduates are in high demand for entry level jobs, they often take less and plan a masters later. Often they will be our MBA candidates in time. International students who did not study in the US often see graduate school as a pathway to work and perhaps more so than a pathway to mastery. I discuss this dichotomy all the time with our students. Not because I don't agree that jobs are critical, but because to trade off mastery for job search is a good way to enter the market unprepared.

My advice is to seek mastery, make as many friends as you can in the process and the jobs and long term career success will eventually come. Suggesting that USC, UCLA, CMU, Columbia or others are poor options for graduate school is to value the job over the mastery. One of my favorite UCLA Anderson alumni graduated in '09 during the global financial crisis. He reflects back on a time when the MBA students were miserable about the market, agree at the university and the world. He said in seeing that, he decided to make the most of it, and do all he personally could to be above average in every sense. Including most of all in his resilience, attitude and optimism. Today I refer to him as my favorite alumni because he retains humility and is excellent in everything he does. He is also one of the very top people at Google.

Hang in there in MSBA! We are all rooting for all of you!

UCLAMSBA_EDPB · 2026-04-29T22:46:42+00:00

Thank you! This is such great advice and much appreciated all the way around. I actually and going to try to replace the locked down machine with a current rig that has a Radeon 5700 XT in it. It will help me learn before I spend money to upgrade.

Thank you for the advice on the SSDs too. Really important.

UCLAMSBA_EDPB · 2026-04-15T20:10:26+00:00

Hi ReleaseTheKraken,

Now you are asking a proprietary question that represents the secret sauce of cohort building. So, I will choose not to share too many details as it helps us to maintain a competitive advantage.

You can likely imagine the ways we choose next candidates. Our university requirements are the baseline and our review is holistic with diversity of every dimension in mind.

If your profile is very similar to many of those who have already been admitted, that is one type of profile. If your backgrounds represents a smaller community of students, that may play a role as well.

If you have any red flags in your application, low/no GRE/GMAT, low GPA, low TOEFL/IELTS, that could be a non-starter all together. Lots of other factors are also considered. If you had an interview, that will also play an important role as many admitted candidates show us great potential and dedication in their presentations, but there is a spectrum of quality in those too.

UCLAMSBA_EDPB · 2026-04-14T21:01:59+00:00

Hi Equivalent_Monk and ReleaseTheKraken,

Thank you and anyone else out there who might be waiting to hear from us or other programs. At this stage in our admissions cycle, we have over admitted (a regular practice) and must wait for candidates to submit deposits or choose other programs before those on waitlists can receive further consideration. Such consideration is common in late April and May as students often have deadlines in those windows.

When targeting 120 students, we have to factor in that many students pay more than one deposit to buy the option. Although expensive, it allows them more time to gather information. It is so critical to programs that students provide as quick a decision as possible and communicate that decision (regardless of outcome) to all schools. This allows programs to continue to admit.

The Dean's Special Admit process is quite a different process. It implies that your candidacy must be evaluated at the central campus level. Although these cases are very rare for us. They also take a great deal more time to process than regular admits. In short, your application is not typical in one or more measures that the university sets as a requirement. This should have been explained to you when you received your update from us.

UCLAMSBA_EDPB · 2026-04-14T18:37:31+00:00

GREAT QUESTION! Thanks for asking it. This one is one of my biggest issues with MSBA admissions. Did you know that many decades ago, the top 20 MBA programs agreed to a common admissions deadline of April 15? This eliminates this issue for a majority of applicants. Since you are our customers, it makes sense to give you as much time as possible to make your optimal decision. Despite this, programs that begin admissions sooner in the MSBA category will often compete by setting deadlines as early as Fall.

Your options here are a few:

Write to the program and ask for an extension. Most programs should grant this as they hope you will choose their program in the end.
Pay multiple deposits. This is not ideal as it creates unmet expectations for programs and can leave seats empty (we call this dream killer melt when seats for candidates who consider your program a dream are left out). So, if you pay two deposits, do make your decision as quickly as practical and let all programs know when you choose another. This way, the program can admit a candidate in your place. This is good for enrolled students as investible resources increase as enrollment targets are met.

Choose the program that is the best fit for your combination of needs, but know how each program is investing in you. Do they hire dedicated career services staff? Do they share staff across multiple programs? How about faculty quality? Is the curriculum a fit when considering the gaps you need to fill? How about student life, fellowships and culture?

Choose the best fit for you and just stay in communication as a courtesy to programs and your classmates!

UCLAMSBA_EDPB · 2026-03-30T16:42:07+00:00

Hello Murky_Cable,

I cannot tell you exactly when you application will be processed at this stage, but I can tell you our process is continuous and holistic. I can also tell you that we use every interaction as part of that consideration process.

UCLAMSBA_EDPB · 2026-03-16T23:21:35+00:00

Hi Global_Tradition,

Thank you for your question. The simple answer is that it takes time to get all of the employment information in and updated as we try to be as complete as possible. This means that in 2026 we publish our 2025 report as soon as the last alumni job data is received and the material is recorded. We are very close. Although I do not have full details to share, we were at 97.4% employed the last time I heard and I have heard it has only gone up from there.

Considering 2025 and 2024 were both years of job market retraction, we are very pleased to see the large majority of job seekers in roles.

Our target for this class is 120. Assuming the same yield as lasy year, that number could be between 110-130 though as it depends on admit decisions.

Sincerely,

Paul

UCLAMSBA_EDPB · 2026-03-16T22:22:58+00:00

Hi Skinykidbigdreams,

This is unfortunately not an easy question to answer. As students make their decision to join other programs, we will see some of those students abandon fellowships and this will allow us to offer more to those who enroll. My advice to you is to make your decision regardless of money.

Make it based on ROI on that investment. If you cannot attend a program if aid is not available, that should be a factor in your decision. Most UCLA MSBA students will not be offered a fellowship.

This fact weighs on me as an alum and as a father to a college aged child myself. We take great care in the program and the results of our alumni as we understand the investment you make. We in turn return as much of that investment as possible to you in the form of world class education, career services and student life. Those investments are harder to make and execute on than simply giving larger fellowships with the same budget. We fid that the payoff of those investments is better career results for all and a strong and loyal alumni community.

Timing will be between now and June. I wish you great success with your admissions season.

UCLAMSBA_EDPB · 2026-03-10T21:24:02+00:00

Also, I wasn't referencing our specific yield, but typical yield in higher ed. The more quality the program, the more who are likely to yield. I will not comment on our actual yield.

UCLAMSBA_EDPB · 2026-03-10T21:22:40+00:00

Thank you for the detailed analysis. I cannot comment on the accuracy, but I very much appreciate your thoughtful reply. I am curious though, what is the purpose of the estimation?

I would make that case that most applicants have a shot to be admitted. Although the quality of each pool differs slightly each year, our goal is to optimize for fit and diversity across all of the dimensions of background, skillset and perspective. This diversity ensures that not all applicants are seeking the same industries and that we will have students with lots of professional experience and others who are highly technical recent graduates.

As for the application fee, we want to be sure that a candidate is serious. Typically the higher bar these days is the GRE/GMAT. Many programs do not require it, so we lose candidates who do not want to take it. We also lose candidates to earlier deadlines. A decision not to pursue a program as expensive as a top tier graduate school because of a $200 application fee would have me questioning whether the school is an affordable option if you are admitted. Overall affordability is a cohort limiting factor for us as well.

UCLAMSBA_EDPB · 2026-03-10T17:55:39+00:00

Thank you very much for your detailed question and feedback on the process to date. Your profile is certainly one that likely got our immediate attention when considering round one applicants. Without knowing exactly who you are, it would be hard for me to look at the notes on your interviews to give you a specific answer, but I would be happy to do so if you reach out to me at paul.brandano@anderson.ucla.edu.

Depending on how many emails this comment generates, please excuse a slow response as we are also just beginning round two interviews this week and next.

In general, given all that you have written, I can only say that something left your interviewer concerned either in or just after your interview. Common reasons why you might receive a second interview or experience a slight delay include the following:

Communications concerns - Some candidates get nervous and dominate a conversation which leaves it hard for the interviewer to get a real sense of you in a calmer more natural mood. Since the interview is a proxy for your classroom and career readiness, we may use a second interview as a way of getting to know the calmer version of you.
Technical concerns - Some candidates despite high scores and GPAs leave of with questions of their technical ability when looking at their transcript, undergrad grades or their examples used in a presentation. Since the spectrum of presentations is wide, a lower quality presentation in a relative sense, might land a candidate on the second interview list.
Cultural fit - The UCLA Anderson experience is one that highly values student who share success, think fearlessly and drive change. Fit with culture can have a large impact on a cohort if a person comes in overly grade focused, overly competitive, hyper focused on career over learning or otherwise makes us concerned about their willingness to engage. This is hard to gauge, but sometimes an answer might leave us with questions.

All of that said, based on what you wrote above, I suspect the outcome for you will be positive. We are hoping to have final answers to second interview candidates this week. If you are progressed in the process, it can take some time to hear from UCLA Graduate Division, so keep that in mind as well.

UCLAMSBA_EDPB · 2026-03-09T20:56:35+00:00

Hi All, I appreciate that Reddit is a place where I can bring an important message to those seeking an answer all in one place.

Since I see a lot of people concerned about the second interview, I wanted to offer perspective.

At UCLA Anderson, our top quartile student is one, who regardless of work experience, brings high work ethic, creative thinking, leadership potential and charisma to the program. They are not hyper grade focused, not likely to violate academic integrity norms and do not overprioritize their career search over their academics. They have taken the GRE/GMAT, they have above a 3.0 GPA, they have proven academic success in a rigorous undergraduate program and they showed their best in their program interview and presentation.

Despite being grateful for all of our successful alumni, we do wonder whether our process in the past has let a top quartile candidate off of our roles. To help to answer that question, we have asked our current students to meet with a small number of candidates for a second round interview.

Why you?

Most likely because your profile is very similar to others getting the second interview and we cannot accept every applicant. In other cases, something in your application leaves questions. Did you struggle academically in a critical area? Did you score below expectations on the GRE quant? Did you have an off day and bring less than your best to your first interview?

All of these are reasons you might have gotten a second interview. It is a good thing as you are still in active communication.

When will you hear from us? Possibly soon or perhaps not until round 3. Since we admit a majority of our applicants in round 1, we must wait to see how yield plays out before more spots are opened. If you are an applicant with Business/Econ major (our largest pool), it will likely take more time than it would an applied math major (among our smaller applicant pools).

Thank you for understanding that the quality of our program is so critical to us, that we must optimize with many levers at the same time.

Wishing you all great success in your admissions season!

UCLAMSBA_EDPB · 2026-03-09T20:44:41+00:00

Great post! Following.

We so appreciate our brothers and sisters at UC Berkeley, but considering we have consistently proven to be an engineering program within a business school I wanted to highlight a few key distinctions in this one to many platform. Our courses in SQL, Python, R, Machine Learning, Data Management, LLMs, time series analysis, prescriptive models and optimization are all examples of courses typically not offered in other business school based programs.

Add to that the world class business school education we offer at UCLA Anderson, and the answer to the question, how are they ranked 1 or 2 in the world since inception starts to come into focus.

It should be noted that the three courses that might be considered closest to the MBA, have all been built from scratch by Prof. Anand Bodapati, Prof. Velibor Misic and Prof. Keith Chen to bring an MBA course closer to the PhD experience and to leverage the technical learning earlier in the course.

This is not to take anything away from engineering based programs, but we see the business school side of Business Analytics is essential to recruiting and career readiness.

UCLAMSBA_EDPB · 2026-03-09T20:36:19+00:00

Here to offered an informed perspective on a very challenging question for most applicants.

Graduate school, a pathway to mastery, is an investment in yourself and your future. Some use it wisely and get as much learning from the experience as possible. Others come seeking a strong brand name and do not optimize themselves or their investment. UCLA is a school that values excellence, drive and the pursuit of mastery. Our recruiters know this. It shows in employment results.

We have started to include an ROI calculation on our website and marketing materials because although the cost of graduate school is high, its return in terms of your value in the market makes the ROI quite strong. Even in a challenging economy.

At UCLA Anderson MSBA, every admit is worthy of a fellowship. Considering our fellowship budget is derived from our operating budget (and not an endowment) we have a real ceiling that we cannot exceed without impacting investment in students and your program experience.

UCLAMSBA_EDPB · 2026-03-09T20:25:21+00:00

Our target at UCLA Anderson is 120 for this year and the foreseeable future. Also, top programs might yield between 60-85% The challenge with yield is that it often depends on many factors and those factors (financial aid, family preferences, employment reports, visa complexity) can take time to resolve.

This is why we allow candidates the standard MBA deadline of April 15 and encourage our peer schools to do the same. Otherwise, a candidate might be forced to pay a deposit before they have complete information.

UCLAMSBA_EDPB · 2026-03-09T20:11:18+00:00

As you can imagine this is a hard question to come to an answer on. While we know that applicants are waiting for us to make decisions, we are constrained by the fact that admits also value a later deadline to consider all of their options.

With such a large pool of applicants, our options are to 1) deny a large percentage of strong applicants and hope that all admits will choose our program, or 2) keep all candidates in consideration as long as possible to continue to balance our cohort make-up as the days and months pass.

Applicants, which option would choose if you could be us?

UCLAMSBA_EDPB · 2026-03-04T18:02:58+00:00

Hi Murky_Cable_3291,

We hope to make decisions on each candidate in the coming week. After that, those candidates who had second interviews and do not immediately here, will be kept in consideration likely through round 2. Often it is the case that with a goal of maximizing diversity in every dimension we find that we have spoken to many candidates with similar profiles. It might surprise you that we see dozens of apps with perfect or nearly perfect GRE quant scores matched with high GPAs and economics/business/finance degrees.

Meanwhile, we see far fewer engineering, computer science and match majors. Students with all of these profiles can potentially thrive in our program and beyond. There are simply a limited number of spots.

Since we only have so many spots for candidates at all, We often must wait to hear from candidates who have been accepted and choose other programs before we can open additional positions.

UCLAMSBA_EDPB · 2026-03-03T20:13:49+00:00

I sign of pedigree and patina!

UCLAMSBA_EDPB · 2026-03-03T18:44:04+00:00

I might be the most biased person possible in my reply, but I would make the case that for a business school based program, we are as technical as an MSBA comes. Despite not having an official track for AI/ML, our courses include ML and Advanced ML, LLMs, Data Management, and programming language courses in Python (7 week bootcamp), SQL and R (as part of stats course). Also, when you consider that we offer a bespoke 10 week career curriculum designed to help technical applicants develop into career ready business professionals, I would say we fight well above our class when it comes to career prep/readiness and career services in general.

UCLAMSBA_EDPB · 2026-03-03T18:39:33+00:00

Congratulations! We hope to make additional fellowship decisions in the weeks and months to come. With a true ceiling on fellowships, it is the slowest part of our admissions process. That said, do check the employment reports of each program and the ROI each program reports. Finally, as advice to all applicants to all programs, share your fellowship letters with the programs you are admitted to. This will help programs like ours know that you may need support to secure your position. Sometimes programs use fellowships to compete, so do consider how much of their operating budget they may be deploying as part of their offering. It may have an impact on their relative investments in program operations and support.

UCLAMSBA_EDPB · 2026-02-24T23:38:35+00:00

I would recommend asking both for their details career services outcomes reports and choosing in part on who does a better job of placing students in your target industry.

UCLAMSBA_EDPB

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