The Class of 2010 at a Glance

One student was named BusinessWeek’s top young entrepreneur. Another captained the Turkish national swim team. A third coordinated environmental monitoring for the world’s largest offshore oil exploration project. One owns a Microtel franchise in Florida; one crafted a national personal savings campaign for Japan; one played tennis professionally; one designed an inner-city commercial wind farm; one started a textile company in China.

As individuals, they’re 193 people with long lists of accomplishments. They’ve worked for Goldman Sachs, the Bank of China, PepsiCo, Teach for America, the Federal Reserve, the Chicago Climate Exchange, the Israeli Defense Forces, and McKinsey. They’ve lived in more than 28 countries, including India, China, Japan, Turkey, Brazil, Kazakhstan, Peru, and Liberia. They speak dozens of languages, whether it’s French, Spanish, German, Punjabi, Urdu, Finnish, or Yoruba.

This year’s incoming class boasts an average college GPA of 3.5 and scored an average of 718 on the GMAT. The class is comprised of 34% women, continuing SOM’s long history as one of the best business schools for women. Nearly 30% are international students; 20% are U.S. minorities; 8% are U.S. underrepresented minorities.

But taken as a whole, they’re something greater than their individual resumes. Bruce DelMonico, the director of admissions, said what’s most impressive about the Class of 2010 is not what they’ve already done, or even what they’re likely to do in the future. Instead, he said that what strikes him is just how closely aligned they are, both personally and professionally, with the school’s mission of educating leaders for business and society. "These are people who could have chosen to study just about anywhere for their MBA, but they came to SOM because they believe in what we are doing here at Yale and they believe that a Yale MBA will help them become the leaders they want to be," DelMonico said. "To see a group of such high-achieving individuals come together as a community in this way is a truly inspiring thing."