Schools Succeed In Attracting More Women

A Columbia Business School study reports on climate of being a woman in the full-time MBA program.

SCHOOLS HAVE INCREASED THE NUMBER OF WOMEN IN THE APPLICANT POOL 

Now a new survey of business schools by the Graduate Management Admission Council, published today (Sept. 22), shows that schools have been successful in increasing the number of young professional women in the MBA applicant pool over the past five years.

“Across all program formats, the percentage of programs reporting increases in female applications in 2015 outweighs the share of programs reporting decreases,” GMAC said in its 2015 applications trends report. “More than half of the following program types report growing application volume for women in 2015 compared with last year: full-time two-year MBA (51% of programs), full-time one-year MBA (50%), executive MBA (50%), online MBA (55%), Master in Management (55%), Master of Finance (56%), and Master of Marketing and Communications (60%).

In addition, the proportion of women represented in the applicant pools for all programs this year has grown compared with 2011, with the exception of Master of Accounting programs, which continue to maintain the same majority representation of women (57%) in their applicant pool. This year women also represent the majority of applicants to Master in Management (55%) programs.

THREE BIG HURDLES GET IN THE WAY OF FURTHER GAINS: ‘BIAS, BIOLOGY & BEHAVIOR’

The not-so-closely-guarded secret behind the increases: Targeted outreach efforts like the one hatched by Dean Blount at Kellogg. Some 67% of the schools with two-year MBA programs responding to the GMAC survey said they had done targeted outreach to women to increase their representation in the applicant pool. Only one other group of prospective students received more attention: Some 73% of the schools said they made efforts to target international applicants.

Still, to get to 50% will take a lot more effort.Sri Zaheer, dean of the Carlson School, says there are three significant hurdles that hamper continued female enrollment gains: “bias, biology and behavior.” The perception of business by many young women isn’t all that favorable so a high percentage of them are biased against the idea of going into the field as a career. It doesn’t help, adds Zaheer, that many business jobs are not structured to provide flexibility.

Because most business schools also require three to five years of work experience to get into a top MBA program, more women pursue medicine and law because those schools admit directly from undergrad. Women, says Zaheer, can then get their advanced education out of the way before they start to think about having a family. And finally it comes down to a lack of awareness of the opportunities available in business. “If your parents were both teachers, you might not even think that business could be an option for you,” she says.

Nonetheless, progrèss is clearly being made by many schools who have reported record enrollments of women this year. It’s unlikely that this tide will turn back anytime soon.