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[quote]
"HERE’S a pop quiz for the M.B.A. crowd: With the sharp downturn on Wall Street, applications to the nation’s business schools are likely to a) fall, b) hold steady or c) rally like a tech stock in 1999?</p>
<p>It’s not an academic question. Deadlines for first-round applications at many business schools are rapidly approaching. Some admissions officers are already reporting larger-than-normal crowds at events for potential applicants, which could mean that many people are thinking about leaving the Street to take shelter in the quad.</p>
<p>“It’s a very predictable and reliable pattern,” said Stacey Kole, deputy dean for the full-time M.B.A. program at the University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business. “When there’s a go-go economy, fewer people decide to go back to school. When things go south, the opportunity cost of leaving work is lower.”</p>
<p>During each of the four officially declared recessions since 1980, the number of people taking the Graduate Management Admission Test — a requirement for most business school applications — peaked or was about to peak. Through Sept. 30 of this year, registrations for the test were running about 11.6 percent higher than in the comparable period of 2007, according to the Graduate Management Admission Council, which administers the test...."
<p>wow that's not an advantage for undergrad biz-kids applying to top schools then..................... everything is bad timing...i believe this yr's number of total applicants is larger than any other years. class of, say, 2013 (HS) will probably have it easier</p>
<p>People in the echo-boom (generation Y, millennials) generation are at a disadvantage regardless simply due to the population size of the echo-boomer generation. By comparison, those of us late Gen-X'ers looking to go into mgt have the advantage of competing with relatively few people for management positions required (to manage the large number of echo-boomers).</p>
<p>People would most likely major in the field that would harbor them financial security in the job market unfortunately business is not for everybody as with every other major.</p>
<p>right but im just wondering how the graduate schools will affect the ugrad bschools that much (i see them as 2 different types of applicants to each and just cant really see the correlation between the two)</p>
<p>Millhouse, was the previous poster referring to undergrads going directly to graduate business school? Not sure. Prior to the current state of the economy, these students didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of getting into a top program. Now, their chances are even less.</p>
<p>In general rough economic times can be a plus for grad schools - individuals who might have been lured to the work force by lucrative job offers find it more attractive to enhance their credentials.</p>
<p>You will have no more and no less competition entering an undergraduate program. The only people who will face stiffer competition are those entering GRADUATE school right now or in the next year or so. The slow economy makes the opportunity cost for schooling less appealing, i.e. they aren't going to be losing much income over the next couple years if they decide to go to school, mostly because they don't have jobs.</p>
<p>If you go into an undergrad program you won't be out for 4 years. By then the economy will/should have corrected and you will be prime to get a job working for one of the MBAs, probably one starting this year... so that means they'll be very bright.</p>
<p>There could be an increase in applications to public schools and a decrease in applications to private schools due to price. That's about the only thing I could see affected on the undergrad level (aside from students steering away from finance)</p>
<p>I believe the regional business schools will see an increase in applicants. Elite public schools like Michigan and Berkeley already charge private school tuition for MBA programs. The difference between in-state and OOS tuition is almost minimal.</p>
<p>I think VectorWega was referring to the majority of public and private mba programs, not the elite ones, where a public program may cost 10k a year, and an equally mediocre private mba can cost 20-30k.</p>