It's getting even harder to earn an MBA from Wharton.
Or from anywhere else.
Local and international applications to MBA programs are rising steadily due to a stronger economy and more company demands for management degrees, the Graduate Management Admissions Council reported in August.
And that is exactly the situation at Wharton, where applications from India and China nearly doubled in the last two years, making the pool even more competitive than ever before and leading many applicants to hire outside consultants to help them tweak their applications.
In simple terms, MBA applicants have to work harder to prove that they deserve a spot at their business school of choice.
Thomas Caleel, director of MBA Admissions and Financial Aid, said Wharton receives applications from nearly 130 countries, and the 800-person student body is nearly 45 percent international.
The applicants are rising on all fronts: Not only are the applicants coming from even more remote corners of the world, but they are branching out from the traditional undergraduate disciplines of finance, marketing and consulting.
"We're seeing nice diversity," Caleel said, adding that more and more applicants are coming from backgrounds in the not-for-profit sector, the government and the performing arts.
The average GMAT scores have gotten increasingly higher at the top schools, said Chad Troutwine, co-founder and owner of Veritas, an MBA admissions consulting firm.
People who are set on the "holy trinity" of business schools - Harvard and Stanford business schools and Wharton - have to lower their expectations, Troutwine said.
As a result, some applicants are turning to MBA admissions consulting firms to spice up their applications.
"We will more than double the number of clients we have this year versus last year," Troutwine added.
One first-year MBA candidate who did not use Veritas wanted feedback on his applications to a range of schools, including Wharton, Dartmouth College's Tuck Business School and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan Business School, among others.
The candidate requested anonymity for fear of being looked down upon for using a consultant.
"I knew that as an Indian applicant, I had to stand out," he said.
Another first-year candidate, who also did not use Veritas and who requested anonymity for the same reason, knew that her lower GMAT scores and older age on the MBA spectrum were an indication that she needed help to fight her way into a top MBA program.
"The prestige and reputation of the school are determining factors in what job I am going to get after graduation," she said. "A little over half of us used admissions consultants, . but it is still considered very taboo to talk about it" for fear of being considered a weaker candidate.
Caleel pointed out that Wharton does not have an official policy banning these types of consultants, though he said admissions officers can usually tell when an applicant is not using his or her own "voice."
