MIT Can’t Defy Widespread MBA App Decline

Kelley School of Business at Indiana University/Photo by Josh Anderson

MARKET FORCES FORCE APPLICATIONS DOWNWARD

At the University of Indiana, the hardest-hit top-25 school with more than 40% of its application volume lost over the last three years, the view is that “market forces” are to blame and a bounce-back is coming. The school was hit with a triple-whammy: Its full-time MBA program briefly fell out of the top 25 a year earlier when it lost six places to drop to 27th from 21st in U.S. News‘ ranking, it’s in the midwest where schools have been hit harder, and it’s in a rural, rather than urban area. Schools in more rural areas, including Dartmouth Tuck in Hanover, N.H., also have seen a greater impact on applications.

“The market forces affecting most full-time MBA programs certainly impacted the Kelley School this year,” Ash Soni, executive assistant dean for academic programs, told P&Q last month. “We are confident that the prospective students will respond positively to our increased investment in our already-strong professional development and career services programming. In addition to our unmatched Me, Inc. program and certified career coaches, we have hired a professional sales force to bring even more new career opportunities to our students.”

Progress is already underway, Soni says, following this year’s recovery to a rank of 21st in U.S. News. “We are already seeing results — in the first four months the new sales team generated over 800 new job postings. The market is beginning to take notice. This year our web traffic from new users is already up over 10% versus last year.”

Will a recession break the fever? Probably not, experts say. Will the app slump continue at MIT Sloan and its peer schools, not to mention the mid-tier schools elsewhere in the U.S.? Stay tuned …

THE BRIGHT SPOTS: SOLID GMAT, HIGH GPA, 42% WOMEN

MIT Sloan’s class profile data, still unpublished and incomplete, includes some bright spots for the school. Sloan slipped just 1 point in the average score on the Graduate Management Admission Test after setting a school record last year when they jumped six points to 728, vaulting the Sloan School into some rarefied company.

MIT Sloan also enrolled 42% women, matching the school record set two years ago and matched last year, and 42% international students, up from 38% last year, and a real feat in the current environment. Countries represented in the new class number 54, up from 49 last year. The school also enrolled 18% under-represented minorities as a percentage of U.S. citizens and 10% as a percentage of the total class, the latter down considerably from last year’s 27.6%.

A couple more bright spots for Sloan: This year’s average undergraduate GPA is 3.60, up from 3.48 last year. And in an interesting twist, 23% of the school’s MBA matriculates submitted Graduate Record Exam scores, a school record and a 5-percentage-point jump from two years ago.

DON’T MISS APPS TO MAJOR U.S. PROGRAMS PLUNGE AGAIN or MIT SLOAN 2019-2020 APPLICATION DEADLINES

AS WELL AS OUR REPORTING ON THE NEW CLASS PROFILES AT THE LEADING SCHOOLS: 

HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL

THE WHARTON SCHOOL 

STANFORD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

NORTHWESTERN KELLOGG

COLUMBIA BUSINESS SCHOOL

DARTMOUTH TUCK

UC-BERKELEY HAAS

MICHIGAN ROSS

YALE SOM

Questions about this article? Email us or leave a comment below.