July update - There's still more good news on MBA hiring, this time from the University of California at Berkeley. The East Bay Business Times reported on July 1 that, to date, 87 per cent of the Haas School's 2005 MBAs had job offers, with an average base starting salary of over $90,000. Haas added a fourth, New York based account manager to its career development office this past year. This has allowed Haas both to expand its career contacts along the West Coast and to put Haas grads in touch with New York employers as well.

There has been a steady stream good news for prospective MBAs over the past six months. 2005 should bring more job opportunities and higher starting salaries for b-school graduates, according to the 2005 GMAC Corporate Recruiters Survey. The annual survey found that demand for MBAs is higher than in past years, and is especially strong among financial services and consulting firms. These and other employers were offering higher salaries than in previous years, with an average starting salary for 2005 MBAs at $78,040, compared to $72,021 in 2002. Overall, the GMAC survey expects a dramatic increase in MBA hiring in 2005.

This trend is already evident at business school career offices, which report significant increases in job postings and interviews. MIT Sloan's career services reports that postings for business school graduates are up 65% and postings for MBA summer interns are up over 40%. Meanwhile, Harvard Business School reports that over 90% of last year's students had received job offers by graduation. (The year before, only 88% of the HBS grads had similar offers.)

At the same time, it looks like the volume of business school applications declined again this year. Even top business schools are reportedly receiving as much as a third fewer applications than they did a few years ago. This is good news for prospective applicants, especially those from non-traditional backgrounds. Smaller applicant pools mean that admissions committees may look more carefully at applications they would have dismissed in previous years. Outstanding applicants will stand out all the more, and non-traditional applicants may get their best chance ever to make their case for admissions.

No one should fall into thinking, however, that business school admissions have become easy. Admissions officers we have talked to from Harvard, Wharton, Stanford, Tuck, and Duke have all told us that that the "quality" of the applicant pool remained as competitive as that of previous years. Indeed, Wharton reported that the average GMAT score of its first round applicants was 715. (The average GMAT score for an admitted applicant was 718 ?an immaterial difference.) Top business schools are still turning away far more applicants than they accept.

It is important to keep in mind that the recent decline in application numbers is due in part to the absence of so-called 'bandwagon applicants,' meaning applicants who applied to business school just because it seemed like what everyone else was doing. They didn抰 put much thought or effort into their applications, and consequently never really had a chance to get into a top business school. The drop-off in this kind of applicant makes for smaller, but not less competitive, applicant pools. (See our interview with Rod Garcia of MIT Sloan) for his in-depth analysis of what was behind a decline in business school applications last year.)

The bottom line is that admissions to top MBA programs are always competitive, no matter what the size of the applicant pool.

[此贴子已经被作者于2005-8-2 0:37:33编辑过]