Schools like Harvard Business School and Stanford Graduate School of Business constantly battle for the top spot in the U.S. News Best Business Schools ranking, but the way to measure the popularity of a school is to calculate its yield.  A yield percentage is defined by the number of students accepted by a school who ultimately decide to enroll in the program.

Of the 132 ranked business schools that submitted acceptance and enrollment data to U.S. News in a fall 2011 survey, the average yield of full-time applicants was 55.4 percent. The average yield among the top 10 most popular business schools was 20 percentage points higher-75.6 percent.

According to U.S. News, on average, 75.6 percent of accepted applicants to the top ten most popular business schools choose to enroll in the programs. The following are the ten schools with the highest yield among accepted students for Fall 2011:

10. University of Utah (Eccles)

Students accepted: 107

Enrollment: 71

Yield: 66.4%

U.S. News B-School Rank: 84

 

9. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Sloan)

Students accepted: 599

Enrollment: 403

Yield: 67.3%

U.S. News B-School Rank: 4

 

8. University of Pennsylvania (Wharton)

Students accepted: 1209

Enrollment: 853

Yield: 70.6%

U.S. News B-School Rank: 3

 

7. Columbia University (NY)

Students accepted: 1062

Enrollment: 751

Yield: 70.7%

U.S. News B-School Rank: 8

 

6. Brigham Young University (Marriott)

Students accepted: 210

Enrollment: 150

Yield: 71.4%

U.S. News B-School Rank: 34

 

5. University of Wisconsin--Madison

Students accepted: 154

Enrollment: 111

Yield: 72.1%

U.S. News B-School Rank: 78

 

4. University of Alabama (Manderson)

Students accepted: 125

Enrollment: 93

Yield: 74.4%

U.S. News B-School Rank: 78

 

3. Stanford University (CA)

Students accepted: 466

Enrollment: 397

Yield: 85.2%

U.S. News B-School Rank: 1

 

2. Pepperdine University (Graziadio)

Students accepted: 128

Enrollment: 114

Yield: 89.1%

U.S. News B-School Rank: 81

 

1. Harvard University (MA)

Students accepted: 1013

Enrollment: 905

Yield: 89.3%

U.S. News B-School Rank: 1

Want to know the top ten Business Schools that lead to the most debt? Click here.

For a list of the ten most popular Medical Schools, click here.