Good Time for an MBA
Jeremy Benhammou
Issue date: 11/17/08 Section: Opinions
Ross Director of Admissions, Soojin Kwon Koh, has had her hands full answering questions from the business press. Are industry professionals taking a cue from the financial crisis, jumping ship, and flooding the admissions office with applications? "Typically what happens in a bad economy is that people will flock to business school," Koh admits.
Opportunity costs are lower during a downturn, and in the past, recessions have often prompted prospective students wavering over the decision to go ahead and invest in an MBA. The current crisis, however, is more severe than any downturn in generations, making predictions for the current cycle difficult. Koh explains that many will be reluctant to give up their current positions when they can't know for certain what their opportunities will be upon graduation.
Making an apples-to-apples comparison with Round I last year is impossible because of the Admissions Department's decision to set this year's deadline three weeks earlier than last year. Nonetheless, Ross received approximately the same number of applications on October 10, 2008 as on November 1, 2007, suggesting that the class of 2011 will be our most competitive yet.
Given the competitive admissions landscape, it's more important than ever to visit the campus in person; prospective students simply shipping off applications to the schools on their list don't know what they're missing. According to Koh, "We've seen through data that once people come to Ross, experience the classes, the collaboration, see the student body and Ann Arbor, it's easy to make the case that this is a really great place to go to school."
Alantria Harris (MBA2), co-chair of the diversity recruitment event Ross UpClose, couldn't agree more. "I attended Upclose when I was a prospective student and it was actually the deciding factor when I was making the decision to come to Ross. I just had such a positive experience. Aside from looking at the view books and the websites and talking to people on the phone, being here and experiencing all of things that the MBA program had to offer really made up my mind."
Opportunity costs are lower during a downturn, and in the past, recessions have often prompted prospective students wavering over the decision to go ahead and invest in an MBA. The current crisis, however, is more severe than any downturn in generations, making predictions for the current cycle difficult. Koh explains that many will be reluctant to give up their current positions when they can't know for certain what their opportunities will be upon graduation.
Making an apples-to-apples comparison with Round I last year is impossible because of the Admissions Department's decision to set this year's deadline three weeks earlier than last year. Nonetheless, Ross received approximately the same number of applications on October 10, 2008 as on November 1, 2007, suggesting that the class of 2011 will be our most competitive yet.
Given the competitive admissions landscape, it's more important than ever to visit the campus in person; prospective students simply shipping off applications to the schools on their list don't know what they're missing. According to Koh, "We've seen through data that once people come to Ross, experience the classes, the collaboration, see the student body and Ann Arbor, it's easy to make the case that this is a really great place to go to school."
Alantria Harris (MBA2), co-chair of the diversity recruitment event Ross UpClose, couldn't agree more. "I attended Upclose when I was a prospective student and it was actually the deciding factor when I was making the decision to come to Ross. I just had such a positive experience. Aside from looking at the view books and the websites and talking to people on the phone, being here and experiencing all of things that the MBA program had to offer really made up my mind."
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