Is MBA Admissions Really a Black Box?

Every admissions season, I hear some version of the same phrase:
“Admissions is such a black box.”

It’s understandable why candidates feel this way. You put enormous effort into your application, submit it into the ether, and months later an email decides your fate.

But after years of sitting on the other side of the table—as a Dean of Admissions and as someone who has spent many hours in admissions committee deliberations—I can tell you this: MBA admissions is not the black box it’s often made out to be.

Admissions ≠ Black Box (in the “randomness” sense)

Business school admissions can feel opaque because committees don’t publish weighting formulas or release detailed rationale for each decision.

However, it’s not arbitrary. AdComs follow well-defined evaluation frameworks, usually a combination of academic readiness, career trajectory, leadership potential, school fit, and contribution potential. Each application is evaluated by multiple readers, and many schools use committee discussions or calibration processes to ensure consistency.

That’s the evaluation part: structured, criteria-based, repeatable.

But what many outsiders conflate with randomness is actually the selection stage: the part where schools must decide, among hundreds of equally qualified applicants, who gets admitted.

Evaluation vs. Selection

Evaluation asks: Is this candidate qualified and likely to succeed?
Selection asks: Among all the qualified candidates, which combination creates the most compelling, balanced, and dynamic class?

That distinction explains most of what applicants interpret as mystery. The evaluation process is disciplined and fair. The selection process is human, contextual, and, yes, sometimes heartbreaking.

What Outsiders Don’t See

Here’s something few people outside admissions realize:
An admissions committee can genuinely love an applicant and still say no.

That’s not a euphemism. It happens constantly at the most selective programs. I’ve been in those rooms where readers debate over two exceptional candidates, both of whom could thrive at the school. There’s no red flag, no fatal flaw. It simply comes down to shaping a class, balancing backgrounds, industries, geographies, and voices.

Those moments can end with an almost reluctant decision:

“I wish we could offer this person admission. But we also have that person. And we have to make a choice.”

To those of us who’ve sat in those chairs, that’s the truth behind the so-called “black box.” It’s not randomness. It’s prioritization amid abundance.

The Predictability We Crave vs. the Exception We Hope to Be

Many applicants wish schools would publish a checklist: Do these things, get in. But in the same breath, they also hope to be the exception, the one admitted because of a distinctive story or unconventional path, despite being outside the class profile statistics.

That tension is at the heart of admissions. The process must remain structured enough to be fair, yet flexible enough to recognize extraordinary individuality. Evaluation ensures fairness; selection preserves humanity.

So, No, MBA Admissions is Not a Black Box

It’s a transparent structure wrapped around a deeply human process. Admissions officers aren’t picking random winners; they’re building the class they need. The decisions may feel mysterious from the outside, but they are the product of thoughtful evaluation followed by complex selection—both intentional, neither arbitrary.

And if you’re one of the applicants still wondering what you can control, here’s the answer: plenty.

You can control the clarity of your story, the coherence of your goals, and the way you demonstrate the impact you’re ready to make. The rest sits in the realm of judgment (but not mystery). And understanding that difference is how strong applicants focus on what truly moves the needle.

Onwards and upwards,

Petia