GMAC Advisor

Deciding to pursue a graduate management education is a big decision in candidates’ lives, and like any big life decision most candidates depend on the opinions of others to help guide their choices. Understanding who is influencing the decisions of different types of candidates can give business school admissions and recruitment professionals insight into candidates’ mindsets and behaviors, and help them better position the value proposition of their programs to align with candidates’ goals.

In GMAC Research’s annual Forward-Looking Review webinar in January, we discussed how an important trend we’d be continuing to watch closely in 2018 is international student mobility, which in 2017 saw significant shifts that impacted many programs’ overall application volumes. A new data brief from GMAC Research, published on gmac.com this week, shows that halfway through the current admissions cycle many U.S. business school programs are continuing to see declining interest from international candidates.

For many business school candidates, the investment they make in their graduate management education will be among the most substantial investments they make in their lives. The implication of this fact for school admissions and recruitment professionals is not only that you should have an appreciation for the financial importance of a candidates’ decision to pursue business school, but also that you should have a sense of how various kinds of candidates plan to finance their degree.

The mba.com Prospective Students Survey—the largest data resource of its kind available to the graduate management education community—provides business schools around the world with reliable survey data to inform their understanding of candidate demand.

In testing year 2017—the period from July 1, 2016 through June 30, 2017—a greater share of GMAT exams were taken by women than ever before (45%). In fact, over the past five testing years the number of exams taken by women has grown 12 percent. How has this testing growth translated to applicant pools?

Every year, women make immeasurable contributions to the world of business and society overall. For a number of women leaders, a graduate management education was a critical step in their professional development. In recognition of International Women’s Day, GMAC Research has produced two new research documents to share with the GME community.

Overall, recent alumni are more likely than earlier alumni to report studying abroad and traveling internationally as a part of their business school experience, according to new findings from the 2018 Alumni Perspectives Survey.

Overall, the vast majority of business school alumni are employed, whether for a company (79%) or as self-employed entrepreneurs (10%), according to new findings from the 2018 Alumni Perspectives Survey, which solicited responses from 10,882 alumni worldwide representing 274 institutions and a wide variety of program types. 

Diversity of backgrounds and perspectives adds to the business school classroom experience. In the words of Jindal School of Management professor Sheen S. Levine and David Stark of Columbia University in a December 2015 New York Times op-ed: “Diversity improves the way people think. By disrupting conformity, racial and ethnicity diversity prompts people to scrutinize facts, think more deeply and develop their own opinions.”

Pre-experience business master’s programs are an increasingly big part of global graduate management education. With each passing year, more business schools expand their program portfolios to include more of these programs, and a growing share of candidates tell GMAC Research that they are considering applying to them.