According to recent reports in the Financial Times, both Harvard Business School (HBS) and INSEAD plan to increase the size of their incoming classes in the year ahead. INSEAD’s class size will rise from 900 to 980, with most new students enrolling at the school’s Singapore campus. Harvard, meanwhile, will increase its class size from 900 to between 930 and 940 students.
The class size increases come amid an overall rise in applications to business schools. INSEAD, which currently enrolls 600 students on its French campus and 300 on its Singapore campus, will rebalance to admit 400 students in Singapore and up to 580 in Fontainebleau, INSEAD Dean Frank Brown told the FT.
According to Brown, the increase in class enrollment in Singapore reflects growing interest in Asia. “We find a lot of the people on the Asia campus are from the U.S. and Europe,” he told the FT, adding that the growing number of U.S. applicants to INSEAD reflects shifts in the perspectives of younger U.S. managers toward a greater international focus.
Meanwhile, at HBS, a recent article in the Harvard Crimson cited Director of Admissions Dee Leopold as saying that she expects enrollment for the incoming class this fall to increase by 30 or 40 students, up from last year’s 900. So far, according to the Crimson, 942 students have enrolled, but Leopold expects this number to settle between 930 and 940 by the time classes begin.
With these projected class size increases, HBS and INSEAD will remain among the largest of the top-tier full-time MBA programs, keeping company with the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, which has around 800 students.
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