As national borders become less meaningful, business schools are pushing to increase the number of international students they attract as well as the amount of international work experience their domestic students get.
Raghu Tadepalli, dean of Babson College’s Olin Graduate School of Business, says 2011’s incoming class of 168 full-time MBA students is about 51 percent international. His goal is to increase the number of incoming international students to about 60 percent by next year.
“Since we are a global school, we feel it natural that more of our students should come from foreign countries,” Tadepalli says. He adds that one of the key changes made to achieve this goal was to increase the likelihood of international students receiving scholarships by removing the country of origin question on the scholarship application.
Top-tier schools have also made international diversity a priority. At the Wharton School, the incoming class is 36 percent international and has 73 countries represented, says Ankur Kumar, deputy director of MBA admissions for Wharton. She says the school considers all admitted students for fellowships regardless of country of origin and also makes loan products available for international students without co-signers.
Read the full article: Top MBA Programs Going Global