Last week GMAC Research hosted our annual Research Highlights webinar, in which we summarized our major research findings from 2017 and discussed what it all means for 2018.

Following the roughly 30-minute presentation, we enjoyed a robust Q&A session with the live attendees that lasted an additional 30 minutes. The webinar recording, slides PDF, and transcript PDF are now available to all school professionals on gmac.com.

Some highlights from the presentation include:

• In 2017, we saw the continuation of the diversification of the candidate pipeline—more women, more younger candidates, and candidates representing more parts of the world have expanded the “tent” of graduate management education.
• This diversification has coincided with the expansion of business school program portfolios, which now more than ever include programs designed for candidates across stages of their career and in more specialized fields.
• 2017 brought the continuation of changes to application patterns brought on by the globalization of demand and quality programs—more than ever, candidates are global and global programs are effectively competing to attract these candidates.
• This change was accelerated in 2017 by the disruptive effect of the political climate. Specifically, the preexisting long-term trend of US business schools slowly losing market share of the global candidate pipeline sped up as a result of changing international candidate perceptions of the US.
• Looking ahead to 2018, business schools should not assume this is a temporary blip and should think critically about how they fit into this new landscape. Smaller programs with less globally recognized brands should consider strategies to identify regional or functional niches on which they can most effectively compete for candidates and provide long-term value.
• The findings of our 2017 Year-End Employer Poll suggest an overall favorable hiring market for 2018 graduates, especially specialists, though fewer employers say they will hire international candidates. The findings of our 2018 Alumni Perspectives Survey show the continued value of GME, driven in part by the strength of business school professional networks.

Stay tuned to GMAC Advisor for the opportunity to join our next webinar, which will be announced in the coming months.