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As others' shrink, Wharton MBA size the same

(02/15/07 10:00am)

The number of spots available at some of the top business schools in the country is dropping - but not at Wharton. The Yale School of Management is planning for an incoming class of 195, compared to its 220-person class of 2008, and Stanford's Graduate School of Business is also aiming to scale back its class size by 20. Wharton officials, however, say they're happy with the class size of 800 that they admit every year. "Faculty . believe that 800 is an optimal number, and, as such, we will remain at this level for the foreseeable future," Director of MBA Admissions Thomas Caleel wrote in an e-mail. Officials at Yale and Stanford universities said their programs' reductions are due to curricular changes. "We will expand our class size again once the core curriculum has been in place for a few years," Yale SOM Director of Admissions Bruce DelMonico said. Business experts pointed to other factors that may come into play when figuring out the class size of a given year. Financial Times Business Education Editor Della Bradshaw called reducing class size "a virtuous cycle." "If [MBA programs] are losing money, it makes a lot of sense to cut the class size and weed out the rubbish students," she wrote in an e-mail. "You lose less money, and you can do a better job in getting them good jobs." Shores added that the increased number of applicants is the result of a cyclical process - when the economy is good, the MBA is in high demand - and that it doesn't make sense to continuously adjust a system in flux. The decreasing availability of spots comes at a time when applications are up around the country, and these two factors are fueling increased competition among prospective MBA candidates. According to the Graduate Management Admission Council, a Virginia-based organization that works with business schools, 65 percent of two-year full-time MBA programs, including Wharton's, reported increased application volumes in 2006; that trend is expected to continue this year. "It is a very healthy and robust year," said Mae Jennifer Shores, senior associate director of Wharton's MBA admissions, of this year's applicant pool. But despite the high number of applications - and reduced competition from other schools that are accepting fewer students - Wharton is not expecting its incoming class' profile to be stronger than in past years. "We always have an incredibly strong pool," Shores said. "You may get a little more diversity." The University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business, the only business school ranked above Wharton in Businessweek's 2006 ranking of MBA programs, also has no plans to change its class size of 550, said GSB spokesman Allan Friedman.

https://www.thedp.com/article/2007/02/as_others_shrink_wharton_mba_size_the_same

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