In my last post, I looked back at 2014, and predicted the trends that will affect business schools and MBA applicants in 2015. In this post, I continue to put my psychic powers to the test.
A book released ahead of its time, the OG14 was actually behind its time: the content was identical to the OG13 released in 2012. (It did offer you an online quiz, though.)
Still, the OG14 / OG13 is the best book for GMAT preparation. It is the only one that offers hundreds of real, retired questions from past GMAT tests.
Will the GMAC (the makers of GMAT) release new GMAT practice questions in 2015? Frankly, I don’t much care. In addition to the book’s practice questions, the free GMATPrep software on mba.com offers 90 practice questions and two full practice tests, and you can pay for an additional question pack and an exam pack with two more full tests. To me, that’s more than enough.
Mastering the GMAT does not require reviewing thousands of practice questions; it requires recognizing the common themes and the most efficient methods of tackling problems.
Several elite business schools tried to make MBA applications “easier” – although whether they succeeded is still under debate.
Back in 2013, Harvard Business School shocked the world by not requiring an essay at all (although 90% of applicants chose to submit the optional essay). Virginia Darden and UCLA Anderson each required a single essay that year.
In 2014, other schools started dropping essays like unwanted acquaintances. Wharton required just one essay (but allowed you to submit an additional optional essay), as did Yale SOM, Georgetown McDonough (“Why You?”), and Chicago Booth (essay or presentation). Stanford, Dartmouth Tuck, Berkeley-Haas, and Michigan Ross dropped essays. Word counts were slashed as well.
For my GMAT students, the stress went up. With admissions committees cutting the essay component of the application, much more seemed to be riding on that GMAT score.
And after the exam? There may have been a few who thought that short essays were easier – until they started writing. “Please describe your plans and aspirations, personal and professional, and why you belong in our business school, and a transformational experience, and how you showed resilience and grit, in 250 characters” seems to have been one trend in essay prompts.
Writers of haiku probably did well.
The other trend was, as I mentioned, to require a single essay. Writing one essay that fully encapsulates your best qualities as a future MBA student and captain of industry would be daunting even for an accomplished essayist.
Many business schools also tried out new formats to get to know “the real you” and reduce the cookie-cutter applications. Kellogg and Yale SOM required video essays, and schools like Rice Jones allowed optional videos to be submitted. NY Stern allowed either an essay or a multimedia piece; UT McCombs allowed an essay, video, or about.me profile; MIT Sloan allowed an optional multimedia presentation.
On a very positive note, several schools – Columbia, HBS, Kellogg, Michigan Ross, Stanford, Virginia Darden, Wharton, and Yale SOM – began standardizing on two questions for recommenders. No longer would a recommender have to slave over multiple mini-essays.
Will the written essay sets continue to shrink for the 2015-2016 admissions season? For my prediction, I look to the success of the various new formats that schools are trying. Chicago Booth has stuck its famous “PowerPoint” presentation format, which it introduced in 2007. Kellogg introduced the video essay in 2013, and liked the results so much that the school required two videos this year. UT McCombs kept its video and about.me options. From the outside, it appears that the admissions committees appreciate being able to assess candidates by other measures than their essay writing skills.
So, I surmise that more business schools will ask for videos, presentations, and the like, as a replacement for some written essays. Business people must be able to think on their feet, and present information and data visually, as well as through the written word.
Will more schools adopt a common set of recommender questions? I hope so. It makes sense for all involved, so I will be optimistic and predict that more schools will do so in 2015.
Never before have I seen so many top schools suddenly decide to host information sessions in the fair state of Texas all in one year. Sure, MIT Sloan and Chicago Booth have been coming here regularly, as has the multi-school whistle-stop tour that brings Berkeley-Haas, Cornell Johnson, Duke Fuqua, Michigan Ross, NYU Stern, Virginia Darden, and Yale SOM.
But Harvard Business School? Stanford? Kellogg? Columbia? These are schools that occasionally sent representatives to specialized events, such as the Forté Forum for Women – but this year, they hosted their own events here. London Business School, IESE, and IE Business School all made appearances, as well.
Will the Top 10 business schools trek to Texas in 2015? Probably, yes.
Texas is benefitting from trend that began during the Great Recession, when the hard-working admissions folks had to really work to recruit the best MBA contenders from a shrinking candidate pool. The recession ended, but admissions representatives are still in heavy recruitment mode.
Even the Ivy Leagues have been affected. It wasn’t so long ago that HBS held its few off-campus admissions events in Boston, with an occasional trip to NYC. Now, even HBS holds regular webinars and sends people on the road to remote regions of the world like … Houston.
(Sidebar: The HBS event in Houston was not open to just anybody who wanted to show up. HBS is still very much gated. My students who received an invitation to the event all had 700+ GMAT scores.)
Texas has finally been recognized as a prime recruiting ground for MBAs. The lure is its energy and healthcare interests (two industries where MBAs are getting hired), its entrepreneurial culture (especially in Austin’s Silicon Hills), and its population explosion. Texas is a melting pot of potential MBA candidates.
Which is a long way of saying, “Y’all come back now, y’hear?”
The majority (61%) of full-time MBA programs reported a rise in application volumes in 2014, as compared to 2013, when just 50% saw increased volumes. As a result, 2014 was a more competitive year for MBA program applicants.
In the U.S., will the 2015-2016 application season be as competitive as it was last year? A recent employer survey by GMAC Researchers suggested that the trend to hire MBAs will remain steady in 2015, and salaries may increase. If the survey is correct, more people may be encouraged to head to business school.
Much of the new application volume came from overseas. Last year, of GMAT scores sent to U.S. two-year MBA programs, 52% came from international candidates. The international applicant pool was primarily made up of candidates from East and South East Asian countries, with another large contingent coming from Central and South Asia.
This leads me to a safe prediction for U.S. citizens applying to business schools this year – you will have overseas competition in terms of GMAT scores. Here are the latest 2014 statistics, according to GMAC research:
• United States (87,110 GMAT tests taken) – mean score sent to MBA programs: 562
• China (57,783 GMAT tests taken) – mean score sent to MBA programs: 610
• India (28,325 GMAT tests taken) – mean score sent to MBA programs: 595
In both China and India, standardized testing is taken very, very seriously. So, although business schools don’t admit people solely on the basis of their test scores, I would encourage you to focus on your preparation for the GMAT exam as early as you can. Take your cue from Chinese and Indian test-takers, and plan to put in the recommended 100+ hours.
In 2013, 101,336 women sat for the GMAT exam, marking the fifth consecutive year that women took more than 100,000 tests. Happily, women not only took the GMAT, they applied for MBA programs. At top business schools, there were notably higher percentages of women in the Class of 2016: Berkeley-Haas, 43%; Stanford GSB, 42%; HBS, 41%; Wharton, 40%; and MIT Sloan 39.4%.
Quietly, New Jersey’s Rutgers MBA program, known for its excellent supply chain management program, achieved gender parity in 2014: 51% of its entering MBA class were women.
Having seen many highly qualified and capable women candidates in my GMAT classes, I derived much personal satisfaction from the new class profiles.
Will more women enter MBA programs in 2015? Yes. The women I know who are pursuing their MBA degrees plan to move to more lucrative careers or launch their careers into executive management. As more women recognize the value of an MBA, I expect the trend to continue.
Duke Fuqua rocketed to the top of the BW ranking in 2014, and venerable HBS dropped to No. 8. What happened? The brand-new BW staff surveyed more MBA recruiters, and based 45% of the ranking entirely on those results, instead of “anchoring” the current year’s results with previous recruiter surveys. For a thorough explanation of BW’s changes in methodology, read UT McCombs’ blog post.
The rankings shake-up riled up powerful schools and alumni, and the validity of the BW ranking was called into question – although not the validity of recruiters and students’ overall satisfaction with Duke Fuqua.
Given the BW controversy, will applicants become less fixated on MBA rankings in 2015? My prediction: No. Until there is a strong replacement, such as a centralized ratings system, the media will continue to run various MBA rankings as they see fit. And applicants will continue to rely upon rankings as the easiest method to weigh the worth of various business schools.
December: Business schools declare War on Christmas.
Why would a large number of top business schools, big and small, choose three dates, January 5, 6, and 7, for their Round 2 deadlines? I smell a conspiracy here.
All of my students who took the GMAT in December – and there were many – then worked non-stop through the holiday season on essays. In a competitive year, they couldn’t risk applying to one or two schools. Christmas: ruined. Hanukah and Kwanzaa: collateral damage.
Emory University’s Goizueta chose a slightly later deadline of January 9, so thank you, Goizueta.
Will business schools conspire to wreck other holidays in 2015? I don’t know. I just hope that they choose to destroy LBJ Day (August 27) rather than Halloween or the Fourth of July.
Despite their evident hatred for holidays, in 2014 the admissions officers seemed intent on getting to know their applicants better, beyond the essays. I encourage all of you MBA candidates to return the favor, and get to know the schools better, beyond the rankings. My final prediction is for you (in haiku):
The school is a match.
You and the school synchronize.
Yes, it will admit.
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