WU BBE & WU WiSo 2026 Offline Entrance Exam Updates (Number of applicants, exam score needed to get accepted, etc.)
- mariakremneva02
- Aug 10
- 14 min read
Dear WU BBE & WiSo 2026 offline entrance exam participants and future WU BBE and/or WiSo applicants (in case you are applying in 2027 or later on), I am writing this post to keep you all informed about the most recent changes in the offline exam format and also to provide you with key information regarding two questions everyone asks: the number of participants AND the acceptance score to get into WU BBE and WiSo this year.
Before we get into the academic details, I would like to thank you all for this amazing 2026 preparation year, where there were so many new challenges (the offline format, the negative point grading system (within a question), the stress and pressure of thousands of people around you), which we sailed through together! :D As they say, a calm sea never made a skilled sailor (yet I still sometimes wonder that maybe not everything good in life has to be achieved through pain&sweat, maybe some good things can just come naturally without you having to prove you are worthy of them, but that's a story for another post) ;)
No matter the outcome of the WU BBE (or WU WiSo) entrance exam, be it accepted or not, you should be proud of yourself for even daring and being brave enough to take this step and willingly and voluntarily take on such a challenge, the qualities needed for this: motivation, dedication, patience, stress resilience, hard work & long study hours, will get you very far in life, no matter where you end up studying, as it is not just the program that makes a person, it is the person that makes the program.
Honestly, this year also took a lot of effort and time from my side with the offline format, as of course I give it my all in every academic year ever since (2020/21-onwards) I have decided to dedicate my life (what is work-life balance when your work is your life ahaha) to helping students from all over the world get accepted to WU BBE (and then also WU WiSo and other universities in Vienna and Austria), BUT this year, 2026, when the offline format was reintroduced after 5 years of online mode, was something else.
I have given so many offline open (free) classes for WU BBE applicants, hosted weekly offline classes for course participants (bbe-exam.com), and on top of that, I organized 6 (!!!) offline exam simulation events (bbe-simulation.com) for WU BBE & WU WiSo (wiso-exam.com) applicants, after which I received such heartwarming feedback.
The offline classes require considerably more energy & social battery & time to be there before and after compared to online webinars (which I also did plenty of;) from BOTH sides, yours and mine, so I was happy to give you my all as I saw the same dedication from your side to give it your all!
Now back to the offline 2026 WU BBE entrance exam updates:
I made a post about it on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/p/DbGUZA7CJ4_/?igsh=MTdnNmM4MXBocG56eA==), and I would also like to write about all the important and must-know updates for WU BBE & WU WiSo future applicants here:
The number of participants for WU BBE & WU WiSo exams who registered vs who showed up to the offline entrance exams on the 30th of June 2026 (10:00-12:00 WiSo exam and 15:00-17:00 BBE exam)
As WU has officially published on their website: There were around 3900 applicants who registered for the WU BBE entrance exam in 2026 (which is +200 people compared to 3700 applicants in 2025 when the exam was still held online), and 2872 applicants ended up actually sitting the exam. This is around an 80% show-up rate (which I expected based on the info&numbers they told us back in 2019) so even though the initial number of registrations was higher than everyone could imagine (as the logical assumption would be that fewer people would apply in 2026 when the exam is offline because of travel&visa&extra expenses logistics compared to 2025 when the exam was online and you could take it from your laptop in the comfort of your home, so this is an additional sign of how popular&desired the English-taught Bachelor's of Business and Economics at WU is) my initial assumption that I published back in November of around 2500 applicants turned out to be spot on;) (I am so glad I got to experience the offline format back in 2019 when I applied&got accepted to WU BBE so that I knew exactly what to prepare you&my students for)
For the German-taught program (Economics and Social Sciences), the show-up rate was similar, out of around 6370 applicants for WiSo 5356 made it to the offline exam, which is also quite impressive how WU managed to host all the students in Messe Wien
Official links to the sources with the numbers:
Initial number of applicants:
Number of applicants who showed up for the offline entrance exam:
My prediction for 2027 based on the data and registration numbers' increasing trend from previous years is that those numbers will only grow! Usually they don't grow by too much in two consecutive years (e.g., 3700 registered candidates in 2025 compared to 3360 in 2024 for WU BBE, so the numbers grow, but not with a 2x or 5x increase), so we can expect +300-500 students registering for the WU BBE 2027 offline exam compared to the 2026 numbers listed above.
And for WU WiSo (the German-taught bachelor's of Economics and Social Sciences at WU) the picture is similar, if in 2025 there were approximately 6000 registrations, back in 2024 there were almost 5000 candidates, and in 2026 with the offline format, around 6370 applicants registered (of course less showed up as I stated previously, but also in the years the exams were online not every single person who registered ended up writing the exam for various reasons), so the growth for the WiSo program is around 400-1000 applicants each year, but there are also many many many more spots compared to WU BBE (2703 study spots for WU WiSo and 240 spots for WU BBE)
The score needed to get accepted to WU BBE and WU WiSo in 2026
As expected due to the negative point system (before in the online years, 2020-2025, you would not get point deductions for selecting a false statement as true for example, you would just get 0 points for that statement) and the offline exam format where everyone is taking the exam in honest and fair conditions, the passing score for both programs decreased
For WU BBE 2026 it was:
99.42 points out of 160 (so around 62%), this score corresponds to 196th place, and I know that someone with 97.33 out of 160 points (around 60.8%) got 243rd spot and unfortunately did not make it from the waitlist... (first time ever that someone this close to top 240 does not make it). So the acceptance score must be between those two numbers.
AND IT IS SOOO MUCH LOWER COMPARED TO 2025 WHEN IT WAS 86.8% (243rd place, accepted automatically without a waitlist) :)
For WU WiSo 2026 it was:
A student with 87.3 out of 160 points (around 54.6%)=got accepted (we do not know the place that corresponds to this score because the WU WiSo admission team did not publish the rankings of the students, just the score and the final decision "accepted/not accepted")
And a student with 87.0 out of 160 (around 54.4%)=unfortunately did not get accepted
This once again shows that even 1-2 (or even less in this case) points can be detrimental to the final outcome for both entrance exams, the WU BBE and the WU WiSo one, so I will always vouch for studying for them in advance and with quite a lot of effort, as these exams are something I really DON'T advise to freestyle (it is possible, but a risky move)
This is also lower compared to last years where the acceptance score was around 70%, based on what the students said after emailing WU about it.
So for both exams (WU BBE & WU WiSo), the acceptance score dropped by around 15-25 percentage points, this is due to a much stricter grading system, the exam's difficulty slowly but surely increasing compared to previous years (ESPECIALLY in the maths part, as with Economics they can't really get too creative as it is based solely on the book they provide for the entrance exam and English/German part depends on how well you know the language and how quickly you can answer text-based questions, so the structure and the difficulty there stay more or less the same year-to-year) and more stressful and also more honest conditions compared to when the exams were online.
The percentage weight of each part (Maths, Economics and English/German) for WU BBE (English-taught) and WU WiSo (German-taught). This year, the total points added up to 160 (instead of 100%, as it usually was for WU BBE) for both exams.
The point distribution for each of the 3 subject parts for WU BBE:
10 Economics questions worth 6 points each=60 points
The Economics questions usually are similar year-to-year because they are based on the same 6 chapters (64 pages) book WU provides for the exam, and a lot of my students told me that the questions that I made for my WU BBE entrance exam preparation course (bbe-exam.com) were very similar to the WU BBE 2026 exam ones, and this happens because I make the practice questions based on 2021-2025 (and for 2027 also on 2026) detailed students' feedback after the exam takes place :D (and I don't use AI for the practice questions as yes, it can make a lot of them at once without too much effort, which is definitely good for marketing purposes, but it makes questions that are weird/too easy/not too accurate/too vague and I do not want my students to get the wrong idea of how the exam questions might actually look like, so "actual intelligence" instead of "artificial intelligence" it is ;) ).
Important note: It was casually mentioned that they might extend the WU BBE entrance exam economics book for 2027, as it has been the same since 2019, and what I assume they will do is just add the 3 missing/hidden chapters that are available in the paper/hardbook cover version that you can buy at WU's shop when it is in stock (the ones marked in grey in the online version available on WU's website)
14 Maths questions worth 3-7 points each=69 points
(It went as follows, starting from topic 1/question 1=4+5+4+5+7+4+3+6+4+5+5+7+5+5)
An important update here: you could see the points per question, BUT you could NOT see the topics' names at the top left corner of the question as you would usually do in the previous online-exam years, so it made it a bit more difficult to navigate yourself, but from the conditions of that task you could understand which topic the question was about
11 English questions (5 text-related ones, 4 vocabulary-related ones, and 2 grammar ones)=160-60-69=31 points
(With the following approximate point distribution as stated during WU BBE's exam review session with the professors held on the 13th and 15th of July in 2026: 4 points for text-related questions, 2 points for vocabulary-related questions, and 3 points for grammar questions)
Note: If you follow this point distribution, you will get 5*4+4*2+2*3=34 points but it cannot be 34 as it has to be 31 with the total being 160, so it must be the case that a few text-related questions just weighed less as it happened in the previous years that some text questions weighed more and some by 1 point less, but again, this is just a minor detail
My advice for WU BBE 2027 (& years-to-follow) applicants would be:
To first familiarize yourself with the WU BBE exam-like questions (I post a lot about them & also provide detailed solutions to them; you can find examples here: https://youtu.be/G8O743mcrcM?si=-UgRgdvpUwX3E8l3 and here: https://www.bbe-exam.com/post/wu-bbe-entrance-exam-like-sample-tasks-in-all-existing-formats-text-based-graph-based-equation-b) and if they seem easy and doable in 4-6 minutes: that's a good sign, but if you see that additional studying is required, please do not leave it up to chance and start preparing for the WU BBE entrance exam in advance, because a well planned study schedule can potentially save you 1 year of waiting to reapply again in spring (as the registration to take the WU BBE entrance exam happens only once a year)
This would be a good time to sell&market my course (bbe-exam.com) because I genuinely know and see that every skill you might have needed to solve the WU BBE 2026 entrance exam tasks was covered and taught by me (as a teacher at heart I am super happy and proud to say that) but to be honest I don't like pushing students to join/buy it, I am here to give you all the information you need, to provide you with accessible study materials (including the free open lessons I host) and then leave the final decision of how to study&prepare to you, both options, preparing by yourself and preparing with my detailed study materials & lessons can lead to a successful outcome :D Each student has a unique story of what they already know, of how they have prepared, of how stress-resilient they are, and how quickly they can solve the tasks.
I am here to help you on this journey and be by your side during it, but it is still YOUR journey to take ;D
The point distribution for each of the 3 subject parts for WU WiSo:
12 Economics questions worth 7 points each=84 points in total
They are all based on the approximately 100-page-long book WU provides, making it the most predictable and easy-to-study-for part (they can still ask about details from the book and not just the general concepts, so it is best to give yourself enough time to read and study that book before the exam, and not just skim it once)
10 Maths questions worth 3-7 points each= 45 points in total
(The point distribution starting from the first maths task went like this: 6+4+3+3+5+5+5+7+3+4, and there were also no topic headings in the top left corner of the question; it just went straight into the task)
10 German reading comprehension questions: 160-84-45=31 points in total
An important note: There were 2 texts instead of 1 in 2026, one short one with fewer questions and one longer one with more questions. Even though this seems like a small and negligible change compared to 1 long text in 2025 and all questions about it (there have been no vocabulary or grammar questions in the WiSo German language entrance exam part so far), IT STILL MAKES IT MORE DIFFICULT FOR INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS (in case you are not a native German speaker), it makes sense because during WiSo studies almost all of the subjects are in German and for you not to struggle all the time when reading academic texts in it you should have a very confident C1+ level of German, but at the entrance exam stage you have to accept the fact that you have to prepare for the WU WiSo offline entrance exam so well that you can be in a competitive position, because even though there are around just 2 people per spot (so around 50% of the applicants get in, which might sound easy peasy compared to10-15 applicants per spot for WU BBE) it is still competition, 50% will still unfortunately not get in, and a lot of applicants for the German-taught bachelor's are, surprise surprise, native German speakers, so if German is your native tongue, use this part to maximize your points and if you are still in the process of learning German, please make sure you intensively improve it every day.
In conclusion, my main advice for the WU WiSo entrance exam would be:
If you grew up in Austria and are familiar with Matura, the education system here, your German is great, and you are good at remembering details (for Economics) and good at solving relatively hard maths tasks, then you have pretty good chances at passing the exam even with just 2 weeks of preparation and you can wait until your school exams are over and then focus all-in on the WU WiSo prep
If you grew up in Austria BUT you need to refresh your maths skills and the exam-like tasks I have posted and discussed on YouTube (https://youtu.be/qDFoKHQiUSA?si=_cfQp2BJ--hARjhi) seem hard, and you need more than 4-6 minutes to solve them, then I would recommend studying for at least 2-3 months before the exam, and improving your maths skills consistently while also prioritizing the WU WiSo Economics book as that part has the most points out of the whole exam and doesn't require advanced maths skills (and usually when you know, you know, and then you need like 3 minutes per Economics question and then this gives you more time for the maths questions, and trust me, there you need all the time you can get)
If you are an international student who is NOT familiar with Austrian Maths Matura and you are still in the process of perfecting your German I would advise to plan your study schedule in a way where you climb the study ladder in small steps every day for 6+ months, because a) these small steps add up over time, b) realistically, studying in a language you are still learning is more brainpowerconsuming, so even if you would like to study for 8 hours every day, after hour 2-3 it just won't be productive anymore
Since 2025, I have also been preparing students for the WiSo entrance exam (wiso-exam.com), and the online webinars are done by my native German-speaker colleague who is a current WU WiSo student to make sure you get first-hand advice & guidance of someone who is at already at a place and has experience of how to get where you are heading :D
What happened to the waitlist for WU BBE & WU WiSo?
Waitlist for WU BBE 2026:
Unfortunately, this year it was very, very short; the last place I know that received the waitlist email was 251st, and in the end, even 243rd place unfortunately did not get accepted after a few weeks of anxious waiting for WU's final decision
In comparison, back in 2025 there were at least 6 students that I know of with the same spot (263rd) who got accepted to WU BBE from the waitlist, and I also made a post about it here: https://www.instagram.com/p/DOEFCNgiLq0/?img_index=4&igsh=aW5vZDIwajRmNGhh
This drastic difference in the waitlist length&outcome in the online year (2025) and the offline year (2026) is likely because when the exam was online, it was less of a commitment for some students, so some students applied just to try it out but in the end decided to go with another option, but in the offline year everyone who ended up attending was very serious about it and it meant that it is likely their plan A, so they were much less likely to reject the spot after they got in, so for 2027 WU BBE applicants: time to study extra well to aim for the top 240 spots and not be in a stressful waitlist situation
Waitlist for WiSo 2026:
It doesn't exist :') Unfortunately for WU WiSo, there was never a waitlist available, as I assume they already have so many students (officially 2703 spots) that they don't mind if a few students reject the offer
What can you expect from me in 2027&upcoming years?
So now that we are in the final part of this academic article that I spent a few days perfecting to make sure to give you the most detailed&informative overview possible, I would like to mention what is coming up!
I will be posting more educational content on my YouTube channel with WU BBE & WU WiSo entrance exam sample tasks based on 2026 students' feedback (https://www.youtube.com/@mariakremneva1664)
I will be making informative posts with printable versions of those sample tasks here on this blog (https://www.bbe-exam.com/blog), best enjoyed&savoured ahaha on a laptop (but it is also adapted to be accessible from anywhere on your phone)
I will be hosting offline&online free/open lessons for WU BBE & WiSo 2027 applicants, so stay tuned for those! I usually announce them on my Instagram several days before (https://www.instagram.com/maria.teachie/)
I am here to answer any questions you might have about WU BBE & WU WiSo entrance exams and how studying at WU in Vienna is (as some students are reaching out already now, so don't worry, it is not too early if you have questions you would like to consult me about already now, and I am not on a long summer vacation :)
See you in 2027 (& years to follow)!
Yours,
Maria Teachie
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