Less MBA applicants are business undergrads (Stanford)

Graduate School Business School - MBA
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<p>So, I've been looking through Stanford MBA Class Profiles to look at what backgrounds MBA seeking-applicants usually have. I assumed that a bachelor's in business would be a popular background for a master's in business. Of course, I knew that business undergraduates aren't so plentiful because top graduate business schools don't have undergraduate programs (e.g. Harvard, Stanford, Booth (UChicago), Kellogg (Northwestern), etc.) so they wouldn't exactly dominate MBA classes. But still, I was surprised that not only do business undergrads make up a fairly small percentage of MBA students at Stanford (class of 2011: 17%) but that it was at a downward trend as well. It goes:</p>

<p>Class of</p>

<p>2008: 21%
2009: 19%
2010: 19%
2011: 17%</p>

<p>I can only guess that class of 2013 might be as low as 13-15%. Is this trend because the value of undergraduate business degrees are shrinking or is it possibly because more humanities students are getting into the action (humanities & sciences went from 43% to 47% during this same period, indicating that they replaced the missing BBA students, unlike the engineering degrees whose percentage has remained the same: 36%)? Or is it because it is just a random coincidence and that it's really just 4%, which is only about 15 students give or take a couple.</p>

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<p>I think it’s the latter. </p>

<p>For example, if you examine the trend of former business undergrads at Harvard Business School, the recent trend actually seems to be going up.</p>

<p>[MBA</a> Program - Statistics - Harvard Business School](<a href=“http://www.hbs.edu/about/statistics/mba.html]MBA”>http://www.hbs.edu/about/statistics/mba.html)</p>

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<p>Well, while I can agree that it is most likely a coincidence, citing a trend from a different university doesn’t really settle the subject since the upward trend could be unique to Harvard.</p>

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<p>And similarly, the downward trend could be unique to Stanford. </p>

<p>Look, HBS and Stanford GSB are peer schools. If both schools were to demonstrate a rising trend in some phenomenon, then that might be evidence in favor of that trend not being random. But if they show countervailing trends, then it is probably the case that we’re simply looking at random noise.</p>

<p>However, there is no way to “settle” the subject, because statistical data are, by their very nature, random. Reminds me of the following Dilbert:</p>

<p><a href=“http://clipmarks.com/clipmark/4905F106-063A-401C-8631-392E2E49652A/[/url]”>http://clipmarks.com/clipmark/4905F106-063A-401C-8631-392E2E49652A/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>All you can do with statistical information is discuss what is probably happening. You never know for sure.</p>