Did you look on portal at the checklist waaaay at the bottom for a waitlist link
The majority will NOT transfer from pre-business into Kelley and will have to find another major if they want to stay at IU. It happens every single year. They simply do not have the space for all of them.
33K is the number admissions has been sharing. The most recent numbers formally reported are the 27K Kelley apps for class of 2028. Target enrollment each year for Kelley direct admit is 2,000. I don’t know the Kelley acceptance rate/yield (overall IU yield is around 18% per 2024-25 CDS.) I would guess the Kelley yield is in the 20-30% range, but don’t know for sure. About 500 students come in via standard admission each year. It will be interesting to see if that declines given the new and more stringent standard admit criteria. All told, just over 10K students in Kelley. Most of this info is in the poets and quants article that someone posted above. Here it is again:Poets&Quants For Undergrads - An Explosion In Demand For Kelley’s Undergrad Business Program
Yes. Those are plausible - they have been trending upwards each year for awhile now. Last ones I saw from prior years was high 20s (Like entry to start fall 2024 was 27k and start in fall 2025 (last years entering class) had not been reported yet, but was estimated to have been double digit growth in applications then so and estimate for 33k total applications or so this year would fit their recent trends.
Historically, they end up with around 2800++ students in a ‘sophomore’ class which was the ADA and DA students who were in Kelley entering Freshman, plus the Standard Admissions in ‘pre-business’ as freshman but not in Kelley who then applied to enter as sophomores.
The historicals were somewhere around 2,000-2,200 were ADA/DA as freshman (Their target of Freshman admits into Kelley was supposedly around 2,000 but continued to get more and more of a surge due to their ADA thresholds being met by larger and larger numbers of applicants - this lead to their DA and Appeals process to get in taking longer and longer as admissions tried to gauge how many of the ADAs were actually going to attend, and this got a lot of parents (and students) heated. That’s not a Kelley direct release, but it’s what I’ve gathered following IU-Kelley for around 5+ years now)
Kelley has around 11k total enrollment undergraduate on the Bloomington Campus (They also have enrollment in Indianapolis as well of around 1,200 students).
The sophomore start thru Standard Admissions pathway would yield around 500-800+ students and so capacity was getting pushed up and up. However my understanding is that between the ADA/DA first years and the Standard admits who met the threshold guarantees, they were constantly exceeding their target/capacity constraints each year and growing.
I don’t believe they publish the number of students who apply through standard pathway (either with guaranteed threshold criteria or thru application review) but the estimates coming from those with some level of knowledge indicate only around 30% of the Pre-Business students have entered through the Standard Admission pathway. Though this may just mean started as Pre-Business, then either changed majors as freshman or determined that they would never meet the criteria or even come close and then didn’t apply - so as far as those who apply as Standard Admits to those accepted is “probably” a higher percentage.
Apparently the growth in the overall class size(s) year / year set the school to change two things -this- year. One is that the ADA criteria thresholds (GPA 3.8, ACT 30 or SAT 1370(?)) were abandoned in favor of a more “holistic approach”. And the second was the Standard Admissions guaranteed threshold criteria (sophomore applicants still applied but if they met the required courses, total GPA, and the minimum grade in every IU course taken, then it was a checkbox for acceptance as opposed to those who didn’t meet the threshold and were then in the position of having their application reviewed entirely for admission offers) were increased.
I believe the prior threshold were a B, then a B+ and now it is an A- in every IU course taken and the issue here is that it was instituted to take affect starting in Fall 2026, but this soft release early June and officially announced by the school in late July or August - after the incoming students to IU had accepted / past the May 1st Decision day. This did not go over well with many of the ‘pre-business’ admitted students or their parents because they were concerned by the timing.
I -believe- but am not certain that this was later explained to say the application of this increase in standards will start with those entering IU in fall of 2026 (thus those who were entering freshman last fall will still only need to meet the B+ or higher threshold). I may be wrong there, but I followed it for awhile because it was a ‘thing’ with some very verbal parents. Anyway, I am pretty sure it will be in effect for students admitted to IU to start in Fall 2026.
Someone with first hand parent knowledge with someone who’s student is currently Pre-Business aiming for Kelley in Fall 2026 as a sophomore should have a better grip on this.
Just to add to your post — The Kelley student count by class is posted here: https://kelley.iu.edu/recruiters-companies/undergrad/statistics/class-profiles.html
Class of 2026 (current seniors): 2781 students
Class of 2027 (juniors): 2811
Class of 2028 (sophs which would include SA admits with the Bs or better requirement): 3074
Thank you for all the information. My daughter spent a couple days at IU for a business leadership class and liked it but felt her personality fit with Purdue better. She was also at IU in the summer so there weren’t a lot of kids around. She was deferred at Purdue and has been reading up on Kelley.
She is concerned with the many posts on forums that state IU is a party school or Kelley is cutthroat with the workshops (we don’t know what this means), and the culture isn’t serious about education. If anyone would please chime in it would be helpful. She is interested but hesitant about IU Kelley.
The Women’s Leadership Institute?
D26 attended one of these as well.
We are OOS (North Carolina). D26 is now DA in Public Policy Analysis at Kelley and Quantitative Business Economics at Purdue/Daniels, along with other options which are in the mix, and waiting on decisions for a few others before things get ‘serious’.
I saw your prior post on your Daughter as DA at Kelley and Deferred at Purdue Daniels on another thread, and admit I am somewhat perplexed as well but that may adjust in the future.
Those have been the prevailing reputations of IU and of Kelley for a long time. I’m sure there are hardcore supporters who will defend against everything, and hardcore detractors who say the reputations are well earned. I do think the ‘culture is not serious about education’ is probably more aimed at IU in general, because the Kelley grads appear to stack up well in competitive fields. I also think spending time on campus with current students and with current admitted students (“who” is already there and “who” is likely on the path to being there with your D26) like at an admitted students weekend can be very helpful in the checking the vibe of the students and the interaction with the faculty and staff - and asking about those questions in person to get their candid reactions and responses will likely also be informative. I believe most schools and most students know their reputations and are able to speak about the truths and maybe mis-perceptions quite well. Our spring calendar campus tour scheduling is starting to fill up - and we will have a week+ stretch in the midwest to revisit IU and Purdue and probably one or two others for her to be more invested in investigating these options.
Good Luck.
IU is a party school like most of its peers, but there are many serious students.
IMO Kelley has a significant finance bro culture, with a significant proportion of students who I would call ‘gunners’. From day one they are competing for membership into the elite business clubs (which have low acceptance rates) and programs/workshops (some also highly selective). I can’t speak with very recent knowledge as to how important membership in said clubs and participation in programs/workshops is to recruiting, specifically in IB and top consulting. Obviously most grads are getting good jobs regardless their club/workshop/program participation. I hope someone with recent recruiting experience chimes in.
Here are the workshops:
https://kelley.iu.edu/undergraduate/academics/workshops/index.html
Clubs:
https://kelley.iu.edu/undergraduate/student-life/student-organizations.html
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Thanks. I have read a lot about the workshops and how crazy it sounds. My daughter isn’t going to “elbow” people to get anywhere. It’s not her nature. I know the leader of the class, named Posey I think, stated they wanted more women in finance. Sounds like the school needs to get active in changing the culture.
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33,000 applicants, 2000 admit. So they accepted just under 30% or 9000.
IU confuses me. Kelley is somewhat selective but the school as a whole accepts 80% of applicants. Are there other schools this skewed?
Yes. Direct admit to engineering at Boulder is another example. More selective overall but another example is CS 7% at UIUC vs just under 37% overall.
IU has some insanely-ranked programs that have less than 20% in-state students.
Most people know Kelley. But the Public Policy school (O’Neill) has the #1 masters program in the nation tied alongside Harvard. The International Relations school (Hamilton-Lugar) teaches the most languages of any school in America and has not one but three (3) Language Flagship programs (out of 19 total, nationwide), which are a direct feeder to the State Department. The music school (Jacobs) was routinely tied with Juilliard at #1 when US News was still ranking music programs.
In return though… they dump all the in-state students into the College of Arts & Sciences or the School of Public Health, especially those who get weeded out of Finite Math or Economics (both are university-wide prerequisites).
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So what percentage of students get into these workshops? They sound like classes but you have to apply to them??
I don’t know the size of the program (looks small if the picture at the link below shows all participants from a given class) or the percentage who get in/acceptance rate. The requirements to apply can be tough to meet. For example, the IB workshop requires a 3.75 GPA (among other things), students apply in Fall of the second year (all this is spelled out at the link below.) The program runs for part of second year, as well as third and fourth years, giving 7.5 credits in total. Selection to the program is holistic, so I expect there is some attempt to balance by gender as well as other diversity factors (race, major, etc.)
https://kelley.iu.edu/undergraduate/academics/workshops/investment-banking.html https://kelley.iu.edu/undergraduate/academics/workshops/investment-banking.html
Many school with selective programs are. For example, Purdue posts what their admission rates are for different majors and colleges. They are more selective for proflight, nursing, and engineering compared to the humanities degrees.
How do you know they accepted 9000? Or is this just a prediction based on past yield rates?
Just a guess from past predictions. It’s been around the 25-30% range in the past.
Seems like the modeling for most schools has been way off and since they got rid of auto admit I’m guessing they want to control it a bit better. They probably selected about 4k -5k in this round hoping to get a idea how many accept so they can readjust for the next
How does IU give out scholarships? Do they compare each student college by college, or are they relative to the entire university admits. I’ve been accepted to Kelley so just wondering my chance of receiving merit aid.
If you get a merit scholarship, OOS is generally a higher amount than in state. If you do get any merit, you should be notified in the next few weeks by email. I encourage you to apply for scholarships on IU platform. There are many scholarships through the university.
That would be great. Do you think the next round will be moving kids from the waitlist to direct admit?