How to Get into Berkeley Haas School of Business
- Haas School of Business Program Overview
- Haas School of Business Curriculum
- Extracurriculars at Haas
- Haas Notable Professors and Classes
- Haas Statistics
- Tips for Your 2024–2025 Haas Essays
- Application Requirements for Berkeley Haas
- Haas FAQs
Haas School of Business Program Overview
The University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business is a very close-knit (the latest incoming class featured only 295 students), functionally and culturally diverse, student-driven, and collaborative program. Students make things happen at Haas both professionally and personally. The school’s official Defining Leadership Principles underline the collaborative culture further: “Confidence without Attitude,” “Question the Status Quo,” “Students Always,” and “Beyond Yourself.” If these speak to you, Haas may be a good fit—in your application, how can you show examples of these pillars in your life?
Haas, which is nestled in the foothills of Berkeley, describes its location as “living at the center of innovation” and indeed, such companies as Google, Airbnb, and Apple have their headquarters nearby. Perhaps not surprisingly considering the location, a third (29.8%) of the Haas Class of 2023 went into the technology/telecommunications industry after graduation. However, the school also sends notable percentages of students into the consulting (27.6%) and financial services industries (14.5%).
Entrepreneurship is palpable on campus in numerous ways via the Berkeley Haas Entrepreneurship Program, which refers to its offerings as the “entrepreneurship ecosystem.” Students can take advantage of the program at accelerator, funding, and problem-solving levels, in addition to various competitions, events, and student clubs. Of the Haas Class of 2023, 3.4% reported that they were starting a new business post-graduation. What is your passion?
Think about experiences that have challenged the way you think and how you have grown from those experiences. How will you take advantage of all that Haas has to offer, and what will you give back? Despite the school’s central location, the Haas community is close-knit. Roughly 40% of students in each incoming class enter Haas with a partner, and significant others are quickly taken in as a part of the community. Football is a big part of the university’s culture, and tailgating before games is an integral part of the Haas experience as well. If you make the effort to get to know the school’s culture, this will come through in your application. Make sure you address why the culture is right for you.
Haas has a close-knit culture. “I’m beyond surprised by the inclusiveness of the community,” a Haas student and former Stratus client told us. “Never have I been around people as welcoming and supportive as my peers and professors have been. I would have imagined business school to be quite cutthroat and competitive, but Haas has been the opposite.” Another student and former Stratus client said, “What has surprised me about Haas is the administration’s willingness to listen and adapt according to the needs of the students. For example, many students found academics to be stressful during this pandemic, and after hearing us out, the school dropped the mandatory maximum mean for the last semester and this one as well.”
Haas School of Business Curriculum
The Haas first-year curriculum is divided into four semesters, titled “Fall A,” “Fall B,” “Spring A,” and “Spring B.” During the first-year fall term, students take such introductory courses as “Leading People,” “Financial Accounting,” and “Marketing.” The spring term allows students to start exploring elective courses, in addition to the Applied Innovation course requirement, which can be taken in either Spring A or B. Nearly 20 Applied Innovation course options are available, including such titles as “People Development,” “Social Sector Solutions,” and “Hedge Fund Strategies.”
Students can follow an Area of Emphasis to take advantage of a full suite of resources in a certain subject or design a set of electives to meet their needs. The dozen or so available Areas of Emphasis include Real Estate, Technology, Entrepreneurship, Equity Fluent Leadership, and Sustainable and Impact Finance. Alternatively, students can take advantage of one of the many multi-disciplinary institutes that leverage the resources across the university, such as the Energy Institute at Haas, the Berkeley-Haas Entrepreneurship Program, the Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics, and the Institute for Business and Social Impact, which encompasses both the Center for Responsible Business and the Center for Equity, Gender and Leadership.
The popular “Lean LaunchPad” and “Social Lean LaunchPad” courses are intended for students who are interested in launching a company and offer a rapid-pace, hands-on experience in what the process entails. In “Lean LaunchPad,” students work in teams to discuss and test each aspect of a company and how it would meet customer interest, while venture capitalists from the area visit class to hear the students’ ideas. “Social Lean LaunchPad” follows the same methodology but focuses on social ventures.
A Haas student and former Stratus client highlighted the “Operations” class with Professor Terry Taylor as a favorite. “This class gave me a behind-the-scenes look at how some of the most important businesses are run. The cases are very diverse and the simulations really help cement the concepts. It’s extremely engaging even in a virtual environment,” the student said.
“One of my favorite courses has been “Strategic Brand Management” with Bill Pearce,” another student told us. “He was the CMO of Taco Bell and a Marketing Director at Procter & Gamble and does a really good job of bringing in his real-world experience into the class material.” A Stratus counselor and Haas graduate said, “My favorite class/experiential learning opportunity was International Business Development (IBD). It is a course that you need to apply to be a part of, and you spend one semester doing research on your topic and country and then spend three weeks in the country working with a local organization. I worked on a team of five in Bangladesh with the leading telecom operator in the country. It was the single most international experience of my life to date—and I’ve now lived abroad!”
Extracurriculars at Haas
Haas has an extremely student-driven culture. If you see an opportunity for a new club or extracurricular activity, you are empowered to find like-minded individuals to get it started! A perfect example is the LAUNCH Accelerator, which was born in 1999 as the Haas Business Plan Competition. LAUNCH has grown into a university-wide program and has accelerated more than 250 companies to date. Competition to enter the program is intense, as is evident in the more than 100 applications each year.
There are no classes on Fridays, but students can attend the Consumption Functions, often sponsored by one of the clubs. These happy hour events provide the opportunity to catch up with classmates, friends, and family. Some Consumption Functions have themes—for example, the Black Business Student Association has hosted one to celebrate Black History Month. On weekends, students can hike in the Berkeley hills or Marin County with the Redwoods@Haas outdoors club or enjoy wine tastings in Napa and Sonoma with the Wine Club. A Haas student and former Stratus client told us, “Thanks to its location, Berkeley has a plethora of outdoor activities—kayaking, hiking, biking, yoga. We’re also pretty close to Tahoe and Yosemite—so it’s fairly easy to zip away for a ski weekend. I also host a cocktail making and tasting session with another classmate, which has been a fun way to test out our creativity and meet new people.”
Giving back is also a large part of the Haas experience, whether through Challenge for Charity, which brings together nine West Coast business schools for a friendly competition to collect funds for charity, or Boost@BerkeleyHaas, which supports first-generation, underprivileged high school students. Additionally, during each winter break, students can take either global or career-related treks with fellow classmates.
A Haas student and former Stratus client mentioned the Story Salon as one of their favorite events on campus. “This is a regular event where students give 30-minute speeches that describe some deeply personal moment of their lives that sometimes their significant others didn’t even know about prior. It’s been humbling to learn about the rich inner lives of other people that would normally walk by without thinking about. I’m regularly moved to tears by hearing my classmates’ inspirational stories and defining life moments,” the student said.
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Haas Notable Professors and Classes
Cameron Anderson
Professor Anderson teaches organizational behavior at Haas and also serves as the Lorraine Tyson Mitchell Chair in Leadership and Communication II. His research interests include team dynamics, the psychology of power, and status hierarchies.
Professor Anderson, who has been at Haas since 2005, teaches such courses as “Power and Politics in Organizations” and “Negotiations and Conflict Resolution.” He has received several teaching awards for his work, including the Earl F. Cheit Award for Excellence in Teaching.
Terry Taylor
Professor Taylor teaches the popular “Operations Management” elective course at Haas. His teaching methods have earned him two Earl F. Cheit Awards for Excellence in Teaching, and outside the classroom, he serves as a departmental or associate editor for the journals Production and Operations Management, Management Science, and Operations Research.
Beyond operations management, Professor Taylor focuses his research on such topics as sustainability, supply chain management, social responsibility in operations management, and on-demand service platforms. He is the Milton W. Terrill Chaired Professor of Business Administration at Haas.
Juliana Schroeder
Professor Schroeder joined Haas in 2015 as an assistant professor. She has since been appointed associate professor, the Harold Furst Chair in Management Philosophy & Values, and the Barbara and Gerson Bakar Faculty Fellow, and she also holds appointments at UC Berkeley’s Social Psychology Department, Cognition Department, and Center for Human-Compatible AI.
Professor Schroeder is particularly interested in social interactions, social inferences, and the influence of others, and her research has been included in such publications as The New York Times and the Harvard Business Review. She co-founded the Psychology of Technology Institute, which supports scientific research on the psychological consequences of technological advancements. Professor Schroeder is a recipient of numerous awards within and outside Haas, among them the Earl F. Cheit Award for Excellence in Teaching and the International Social Cognition Network Early Career Award.
Impact Startup Disco
Situated near the startup hub of Silicon Valley, Haas is known for its strong entrepreneurial offerings. The “Impact Startup Disco” is a one-weekend course intended to help entrepreneurial-minded students meet and brainstorm together. Students are asked to submit a business idea approximately a week before the class takes place, and students vote on the best ideas to move forward.
Both full-time MBA and evening/weekend MBA students are welcome to take part in the “Impact Startup Disco” course, and a similar event has been hosted for undergraduate students in the past. “Previous students have said Impact Startup Disco is one of the most worthwhile and memorable courses they have taken through Haas,” the course syllabus notes.
Lean LaunchPad
The “Lean LaunchPad” course is one of Haas’s Applied Innovation offerings. The course “combines theory with a ton of hands-on practice,” as the school’s website says, and by getting students to test nine aspects of their business model in various settings outside the classroom.
Each student team presents their findings—including the original hypotheses, the issues they came across, and the problem-solving techniques that they used—to the faculty at the end of each week. “This course reshaped my approach to starting a business and taught me to ‘do’ my way through problems, instead of ‘think’ through them,” a past “Lean LaunchPad” student commented on the Haas website.
Haas Statistics
Class Profile (Class of 2026)
Class Size: 295
Average Work Experience: 5.6 years
Average Undergraduate GPA: 3.65
Women: 42%
U.S. Minorities: 51%
Underrepresented Minorities: 29%
International Citizenship: 38%
Countries Represented: 35
LGBTQ+: 19%
Veterans: 7%
Average GMAT: 730
Middle 80% GMAT Range: 690-760
Average GMAT Focus: 660
Middle 80% GMAT Focus Range: 615–675
Average GRE Verbal: 161
Middle 80% GRE Verbal Range: 155–168
Average GRE Quant: 162
Middle 80% GRE Quant Range: 154–167
Career Placement (Industries, Class of 2023)
- Technology: 29.8%
- Consulting: 27.6%
- Financial Services: 14.5%
- Health/BioTech/Pharma: 7.5%
- Energy/Utilities: 6.6%
- Real Estate: 4.4%
- Consumer Packaged Goods/Retail: 3.9%
- Public Sector/Nonprofit: 2.6%
- Manufacturing: 1.3%
- Other: 0.9%
- Transportation/Logistics: 0.9%
Geographical Placement (Class of 2023)
- Europe: 0.4%
- North America: 96.5%
- West: 75.4%
- Northeast: 9.2%
- South: 5.3%
- Southwest: 3.5%
- Midwest: 1.8%
- Mid-Atlantic: 1.3%
- Outside North America: 3.5%
- Asia: 2.2%
- Latin America/Caribbean: 0.9%
Tips for Your 2024–2025 Haas Essays
Berkeley Haas has decided to meet the activity of the past year with a steady hand, keeping its essay questions similar to 2023-2024. This means the adcom must have liked what they saw in candidates’ responses last season.
Required Essay #1
- What makes you feel alive when you are doing it, and why? (300 words maximum)
Required Essay #2
- What are your short-term and long-term career goals, and how will an MBA from Haas help you achieve those goals? Short-term career goals should be achievable within 3-5 years post-MBA, whereas long-term goals may span a decade or more and encompass broader professional aspirations. (300 words max)
Required Essay #3
- One of our goals at Berkeley Haas is to develop leaders who value diversity and to create an inclusive environment in which people from different ethnicities, genders, lived experiences, and national origins feel welcomed and supported. Describe any experience or exposure you have in the area of diversity, equity, inclusion, justice, and belonging whether through community organizations, personal, or in the workplace? Candidates seeking consideration for mission-aligned fellowships may use this space to reflect on their commitment to the mission of those fellowships. (300 words max)
Video Essay
- The Berkeley MBA program develops leaders who embody our four Defining Leadership Principles. Briefly introduce yourself to the admissions committee, explain which Defining Leadership Principle resonates most with you, and tell us how you have exemplified the principle in your personal or professional life. Please review the Defining Leadership Principles in advance and take time to prepare your answer before recording. You will be able to test your audio-visual connection before recording. Video essays should last 1-2 minutes and may not exceed 2 minutes.
Optional Information #1
- We invite you to help us better understand the context of your opportunities and achievements.
Optional Information #2
- This section should only be used to convey relevant information not addressed elsewhere in your application. This may include explanation of employment gaps, academic aberrations, supplemental coursework, etc. You are encouraged to use bullet points where appropriate.
Click here to read our advice on Berkeley Haas’ essay questions.
Application Requirements for Berkeley Haas
Bachelor’s degree and transcripts
Berkeley Haas requires all applicants to have completed a four-year bachelor’s degree (or its equivalent if the applicant graduated outside of the United States) and to provide official academic transcripts with their application.
Resume
All Haas applicants must submit a resume with their application. “When reviewing applications, we are interested in the progression and milestones of your career, as well as your supervisor’s assessment of your value as an employee and potential as a leader,” the school notes on its website.
Recommendations
Haas requires two recommendation letters from all applicants and asks that one is from a current supervisor/employer. If you do not have a current direct supervisor or manager, consider past supervisors, colleagues, or clients, based on your work situation. Family members, friends, and professors are typically not suitable recommenders. “The title or status of those you select is not important. What does matter is how closely your letter writers have worked with you and whether they can attest to your value as an employee, your professional accomplishments, and your personal qualities and interpersonal skills in an organizational context,” the Haas website says.
Test scores
Haas accepts the classic GMAT, the GMAT Focus, and the GRE to fulfill the test score requirement. All applicants must provide a test score, although the school does not have a stipulated minimum score. For the Class of 2026, the average classic GMAT score was 730, and the middle 80% range was 690–750. The average GMAT Focus score was 660, and the middle 80% range was 615–675. The average GRE Verbal score was 161, and the average GRE Quantitative score was 162. International applicants are also required to provide a TOEFL or IELTS score.
Anything else?
An interview and two essays are also required of Haas applicants. Interviews are conducted on an invitation-only basis by current Haas students or alumni who have not reviewed the application beforehand. Interviews are conducted virtually. These are some of the questions that are commonly asked during Haas interviews:
- Take me through your resume.
- What are your short- and long-term career objectives and how has your work experience to date help prepare you for them?
- Why Haas?
- How do you see yourself contributing to the Haas community?
- How have you contributed to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in your personal or professional life?
Haas FAQ
What is Berkeley Haas best known for?
Haas is known as an innovative and interactive school with a close-knit culture despite its urban location. The Berkeley name carries high recognition around the world, and the Haas alumni pool is reportedly very active and responsive. The school describes itself on its website as “a community designed to support curiosity” [at the] “epicenter of innovation,” as is evident in the stated goal for the full-time MBA curriculum: “to help [students] develop as [leaders] who [are] capable of turning innovation into impact.”
How much does tuition cost?
Tuition for the Haas full-time MBA program is $115,616 for California residents and $127,862 for non-residents for the 2024–2025 academic year. This includes program charges for three semesters, housing and food, health insurance, and such additional fees as transportation, books and supplies, and personal expenses.
How difficult is it to get accepted into Haas?
As is the case with all top-ranked business schools, Haas has a competitive acceptance rate—in 2023, the school received 2,904 applications and admitted 667 applicants. This means that approximately 23% of applicants received an invitation to join the program. Out of the 667 applicants who were admitted, 244 decided to enroll.
Berkeley Haas may be best known for its strengths in innovation, but do not let a school’s reputation steer you elsewhere if it doesn’t seem like a perfect match right away! Approximately 3.4% of the Haas Class of 2023 started new businesses after graduation, but Haas graduates also accepted positions in such fields as technology, consumer products, financial services, and consulting. The school’s central location in California exposes students to a plethora of opportunities and sets them steadily on their chosen career paths.
Are you considering applying to Haas? Whether you are looking for comprehensive MBA admissions consulting, hourly help, or perhaps interview prep, we at Stratus Admissions Counseling can help you! Sign up for a free consultation today!