On Age Discrimination In MBA Admissions and Rookie Hype

This made a lot of sense to be. By 35 especially, most professional people who I know fit into one or two categories. They are either A) married or unmarried and rearing children or B) childless, but quite settled into the jobs they have and/or the cities they live in.

From a professional standpoint, few of these folks are willing to quit working for two years to go back to school. And the ones who are willing to go back to school at all will generally opt for a part time program that will allow them to keep working so that they can pay the mortgage/not uproot the husband, wife and/or kids/not have to restart building political clout at work, etc.

What makes me a bit different is that while I have always kept a 9 to 5 job, I have also always had long term goals tied to full-time entrepreneurship. While I have definitely learned the value of training for business ownership while working on someone else’s dime first (actually, I strongly recommend it), I’ve forgone a lot of financial obligations (like mortgages and children) that other people in my age group have signed up for in order to ensure that I would have expendable income to take entrepreneurial risks.

I am by far an anomaly within my age group; well–not so much in Los Angeles. People like me are somewhat of a plurality here; although, many of them have *Hollywood* dreams (not my cup of tea, but I respect the hustle. Its takes tons of heart!). Regardless, I am definitely a blue and orange pin-striped, flying T-Rex compared to 35 year olds that live practically anywhere outside of LA and New York.

So again, Ms. Leopold’s statement about the dearth of 30+ yo applicants makes complete sense to me. Uprooting for 2 years would be an unthinkable notion for most people may age; but I am not most people.

On Average Ages as Proof of Discrimination

I also question the statistical significance of average ages at certain business schools as proof that these schools simply don’t want 30 something folks in their classes. For one, there is very little difference in the average ages of top business schools. Nearly all of them have consistently stayed within the 27-28 (even schools like Wharton and MIT, who are reportedly more welcoming to “older” applicants) range, with Stanford occasionally slipping down to 26. And with Stanford being a smaller program, it is easier for a few 23/24 year olds to dip their average down to 26. Now, if a larger program like CBS, Wharton or HBS had an average age of 25, THAT would be an eyebrow raiser.

Below is some data from a post I read earlier this year on Poets and Quants from admissions consultant Deborah Knox. Next to each school, she lists either the age range OR the range in years of work experience she was able to dig up about each school.

[from Deborah’s Post, unedited]

UCLA (Anderson) 22-42

USC (Marshall) NA

Northwestern (Kellogg) 25-30

Columbia 23-37

Berkeley (Haas) NA

Michigan (Ross) 1-15 yrs WE

Indiana (Kelley) 23-39

Dartmouth (Tuck) 24-36*

Duke (Fuqua) NA

Virginia (Darden) “usually 23 to mid-30s”**

Yale 22-38

MIT (Sloan) 22-37*

Chicago (Booth) NA

Harvard See histogram

NYU (Stern) NA

Carnegie Mellon (Tepper) NA

Penn (Wharton) NA

Cornell (Johnson) NA

Stanford 0-18 yrs WE

Sources:School websites and interviews with deans of admission

*Class of 2012 data

**As per Darden’s head of admissions

[End of Deborah’s Data]

My personal belief is that H/S/W in particular become targets for a lot of extreme A-types who’ve been planning their MBA path since they were toddlers. This demographic also seems to be the most concerned with the prestige of the name of the school they attend.

The Young, The Privileged and The Rest of Us

At several events that I’ve attended (Riordan/DMAC, Harvard info session and Stanford info session) I’ve run into a certain young lady over and over. When I met her it didn’t take more than a split second for me to ascertain that I was dealing with an exceptionally ambitious “over-achiever” (again, I resent that word. As I’ve said in the past, I don’t believe in “over” achieving, just “under” achieving)–all black pants suits, bone straight mane with not a hair out of place, exceptionally good looking–the works. She’s the corporate version of many of the young people who move to Los Angeles to be actors and actresses.