Signs Point to Rising B-School Application Volume

The following is from the All Star Essays blog for April 10:

Last week we wrote about the correlation between rising application volume and shrinking acceptance rates in college admissions. Now comes news that Wharton's overall 2006 graduate applicant pool grew by 12.2 per cent over last year. This suggests that we ought to say something similar about b-school admissions.

The Daily Pennsylvanian, in a March 30 article on international student applications to graduate programs at the University of Pennsylvania, mentioned in passing that applications to the Wharton School's three graduate programs had increased by 12.2 per cent. The exact statistics for application volume to Wharton's MBA program are not available yet, but it's clear that they grew substantially. (It's also clear that the increase in MBA applications came almost entirely from U.S. applicants – a representative of Wharton's admissions office told the campus paper that international application volume grew by only about 1 per cent over 2005.)

There have been rumors and hints and bits of news floating around for months about a rebound in b-school application volume. Tuck's application volume was reported to have increased by 40 per cent or more this year, not counting R3 submissions. Goizueta's applicant pool is also reported to have grown by 40 per cent, while the volume of applications to Haas was said to have grown by about 30 per cent. Recent news about improved hiring and salary prospects for MBAs is bound to drive interest in b-schools even higher.

What we said about college applications and acceptance rates holds true for business schools, too. When application volume goes up, acceptance rates have to go down. B-schools, just like colleges, can only accommodate a certain number of first-year students. A school that can enroll 400 first-year MBA students when 2,000 people apply can still only enroll 400 first-year MBA students when 3,000 apply. The thing that does change is the number of people who wind up getting dinged.

The same advice we gave college applicants facing increased competition for admissions applies to b-school applicants, too. Large MBA applicant pools will be a fact of life for the foreseeable future. One of the biggest hurdles you will face in b-school admissions is simply to get yourself noticed among the hundreds of other applicants with similar backgrounds, GPAs, and GMAT scores.

Your admissions essays are your best chance at achieving this. They need to be more than merely competently written and grammatically correct. They need to show that you have thought about your education and career prospects carefully, researched your options, and concluded that school X is the right b-school for you – and convince the admissions committee to come to the same conclusion.