The number of prospective applicants to specialized master’s programs in finance and management grew this year, even as MBA application volume fell off at many schools, the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) reported this week.
According to GMAC’s annual Application Trends Survey, about two-thirds of two-year, full-time MBA programs reported decreases in application volume. On average, applications for these programs fell 9.9 percent over 2010. But other MBA programs – including the majority of part-time and executive MBA programs – reported that their application levels remained the same or rose in 2011 as compared with 2010.
Specialized master’s programs, in contrast, experienced significant gains. Eighty-three percent of master’s programs in finance report applications are up, followed by 69 percent of master’s in management and 51 percent of master’s in accounting programs.
A Wall Street Journal article on application volumes attributed the increased application volume for these shorter, specialized programs to undergraduates hoping to increase their credentials before hitting the job market and to tougher entry requirements by professional certification boards. For example, the Journal offered, students who want to become certified public accountants in certain states must now have 150 hours of college credit to qualify for the CPA exam, more than most get in an undergraduate program.
But for full-time programs, even the very top schools weren’t immune to a drop off in application volume. Applications to Harvard Business School (HBS)’s full-time MBA program fell by 4 percent, to 9,134, from a year earlier.
Of course, for prospective MBA applicants, this news could mean that right now represents a great time to apply. The reduced application volume helped boost HBS’s acceptance rate to 12 percent this year, up from 11 percent in 2010.
The MBA applicant pool is also growing more and more international, the trends survey found. Nearly half (46 percent) of the 331 business schools who participated reported an increase in the number of overseas students, most notably from India and China.
For the complete GMAC Application Trends Survey, click here.
Read the full article: One-Year Specialized Master’s Degree Application Volume Grows as MBA Volume Declines