The UCLA Anderson School of Management is one of many top B-schools that became less selective since the B-school application boom peaked in 2008.
The economic crisis that has already laid waste to the endowments and reputations of elite business schools now threatens to transform them yet again, this time by making them, well, a little less elite. A third of the top 30 U.S. business schools became less selective when admitting applicants to their full-time MBA programs in 2010, according to data compiled by Bloomberg Businessweek.
While many schools, including the University of Chicago Booth School of Business (Booth Full-Time MBA Profile), Harvard Business School (Harvard Full-Time MBA Profile), and Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management (Kellogg Full-Time MBA Profile), became more selective or reported no change, many others did something that top MBA programs rarely do: They became easier to get into. The University of Michigan's Ross School of Business (Ross Full-Time MBA Profile), UCLA's Anderson School of Management (Anderson Full-Time MBA Profile), Indiana University's Kelley School of Business (Kelley Full-Time MBA Profile), and the University of Maryland's Smith School of Business (Smith Full-Time MBA Profile) all admitted a significantly larger percentage of applicants in 2010 than they did in 2008, when the recession-era B-school application boom was at its peak.
For many, the reason is a decline in applications that's forcing some schools to be less picky. During the recession, applications to business schools grew, but that trend appears to have run its course. Of the 476 MBA programs recently surveyed by the Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC), 47 percent reported a decrease in applications, with 9 percent reporting a decline of more than 20 percent over 2009.
And there's fear among admissions directors at top programs that it could get worse, says Joe Fox, associate dean for MBA programs at the Olin Business School (Olin Full-Time MBA Profile) at Washington University in St. Louis, which has bucked the trend by becoming more selective. In 2010, 29 percent of Olin applicants won admission to the MBA program, down from 54 percent in 2006.
"The early expectation is that this will be a tepid year for applications," Fox says. "It's still early, but people are less than enthusiastic, and turnout at admissions events has been lower."
At the University of Michigan, one reason selectivity slipped—from 20 percent in 2008 to 25 percent in 2010—may be Ross's new business-school building, which opened in January 2009, says Soojin Kwon Koh, director of admissions at Ross. The new building allowed the MBA program to grow from 430 to 500 students per class, she says.
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