A Three-Fold Rise In Women Joining MBA Programs

Efforts by Business schools to create more gender-balanced classrooms have started showing results with the average female enrollment at several schools coming close to 36%, while the number of women worldwide taking the admission test went up to 38%, a three-fold rise over the men, between 2006 and 2015.

This was revealed in surveys by Forte Foundation, which promotes increased enrollment of women in business schools and making a career in business sector, and also by the Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC) which conducts the GMAT test. The scores are taken into consideration during admissions to management institutions.

The average at many schools is close to 36 percent, according to the Forte Foundation, which advocates for women in business school and in business careers.

Meanwhile, according to U.S. News data, 41% of the 1872 full-time students who started their program in fall 2015 in Harvard Business School (HBS) were women. University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton Business School was slightly ahead with 41.5% of the 1715 full-time students being women.

GMAC says that by 2014, women accounted for 44.4% of those who appeared for GMAT globally – the highest female-to-male ratio in the history of the admissions test.

However, among MBA degree holders in 2012-13, men constituted the majority at 64% compared to 36 % women. For specialty business degrees during the same year, the figures were more evenly matched.

U.S. News found more number of women enrollment in top-ranked schools at around 40%. The east coast of the US had the largest number of business schools, including Harvard and Wharton, had a high percentage of women.

Of the 25 MBA programs that had the highest percentage of women 13 were in the east and five in California. About half of them were in big cities including New York, Miami and Boston. Such locations are advantageous for the student’s networking since bigger cities would have larger concentration of alumni.

Women, however, continue to remain under-represented in top leadership positions. Diversity advocates have been urging business schools to not only attempt to increase intake of female students but also recruit top female faculty as well as invite successful women executives into classrooms.

Among the advantages being cited in having more women in business schools as well as boardrooms is in having a diversity of views and more creative solutions to business issues since men and women have different perspectives. Such view-points, after due consideration may lead to better results, according to Paula Bruggeman, co-author of the GMAC research report Minding the Gap: Tapping the Potential of Women to Transform Business.

The report claims “companies that have more women serving in top leadership roles and on their corporate boards tend to have a healthier bottom line than those without.”

GMAC had also associated with the Forté Foundation earlier this year to conduct a social media campaign in the US to persuade female undergraduates to appear for the MBA admission test while still pursuing the degree.

Mariska Morse, vice-president of marketing and operations for Forté, Research says research has proved that if women still in college take the GMAT, they could score better than at any other time in their career. They could also bank the scores for five years till they select an MBA program.

ALSO READ : GMAC Corporate Survey 2016 : Strongest Show Of Employer Demand Since 2010 For MBA Grads

In Canada, Smith School of Business at Queen’s University, in association with Forté Foundation, gives scholarships of $40,000, roughly half of the tuition fees to four top female MBA recruits. Forté fellows also get access to networking opportunities through the year, including links with alumni. Thus, women constitute about 35% of Smith’s current MBA cohort.

To overcome the problem faced by women about starting their MBA at a time when after a few years of work, they are settling down to start a family, York University’s Schulich School of Business, offers the students flexibility to switch back and forth between the full-time and part-time MBA. Schulich has 31% females in MBA. In line with global trends, women constitute around 50% or sometimes more in speciality programs that do not require much work experience.

In British Columbia’s Sauder School of Business too, female representation have been steadily going up for the past three years to about 35% at present.

In faculty recruitment. 13 of 24 faculty members hired during this period were women, representing 28% of the faculty compared to 19% in 2010. (Image Courtesy : pixabay.com)