More Women Attending Business School

Read trending news from top MBA programs.

While big strides are being made by women attending business school, students at one MBA program are starting six weeks earlier than in years past. Catch all the trending stories for future business leaders.

Women in business expand MBA footprint

The majority of law students are women, and the proportion of female medical students is close to that of males. The glass ceiling is being broken in many places, but for whatever reasons (and there are many theories), women in business school have not fared as well in terms of enrollment. Yet even there, some progress is being made. Many top business schools boast of having classes that are now 40% female. In the most recently recorded test year, almost 45% of GMAT takers were women. Paula Bruggeman, co-author of the GMAC research report Minding the Gap: Tapping the Potential of Women to Transform Business, observes: “Having a diversity of points of view on management teams means you get more creative solutions to business problems. You are bringing in solutions that will draw a broader range of customers to your business. Women and men have different perspectives on that, and that is a good thing. When you bring it all together you come up with better solutions.” (The Globe and Mail)

Fundraising

One of the most difficult jobs of any business school administrator is fundraising. It’s also one of the most necessary tasks for an MBA program’s administration—especially private schools where there’s no state aid. Funding comes from students’ tuition and donations. Top-ranked George Washington University School of Business is in the midst of an ambitious drive to raise $75 million. The good news: They are halfway through their goal. How do you solicit donations from potential supporters? “At the heart of it is relationship building. The most important thing is to be authentic with your constituencies whoever they may be, to listen to people, to understand what they value and how to help build the right kind of strategic connection to the institution,” says Elizabeth Mitchell, the MBA program’s assistant vice president for development and alumni relations. (Business Because)

Early kickoff for MBA program

Top-ranked UCLA’s Anderson School of Management reported higher GMAT scores for its new students and lower applications this cycle, but its biggest change with this entering class is that students are arriving on campus a month and a half earlier than usual. The school made the change based on feedback from previous students who said that they were “bombarded” with too much material during the first semester. Students will now get to Los Angeles at the beginning of August instead of the middle of September. Orientation will extend through the third week of September. “When we look at years prior, when our students start at Anderson they kick things off with orientation, but then are quickly thrust into classes. And they’re also getting acclimated with the B-school experience, they’re meeting faculty and getting used to being in graduate school,” says Alex Lawrence, assistant dean of MBA Admissions and Financial Aid. (Poets & Quants)

Mobile MBAs

As per the above article, juggling all your responsibilities as a first-year MBA student can be a real high wire act. But luckily for new business school students, there’s more than one app for that. One really simple one that’s long been popular in Latin America is WhatsApp (owned by Facebook). It allows you to group chat with many individuals—perfect for the many group projects you’ll be working on. It’s also beneficial because you can operate it in different languages and use symbols to illustrate different currencies. Others prefer an app called GroupMe. Then again, there are some students who are old school and prefer no apps at all. (The Financial Times)

Highest acceptance rate

If you really want to go to business school at all costs, it could mean sacrificing quality of MBA program and outcome just for the sake of having three letters next to your name. That’s not something we particularly advise. Where you go to business schools affects where you go in life afterwards in terms of both salary and career opportunities. Still, the following list provides some interesting data points about which MBA programs accept the most students. One even accepts 100% of applicants. As you’ll see, most of the schools are not even ranked because they didn’t provide the proper documentation. (U.S. News & World Report)

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