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Share on FacebookYesterday we talked about deltas from the previous year to last in terms of increases in app volumes, and we talked about five-year trends, and which schools saw apps increasing, and which ones (to put it delicately) tanked.
We don’t want to mislead anybody.
The powerhouse schools are still the powerhouse schools, in terms of absolute popularity.
Here’s what we mean:
Yesterday we were musing about how many of the Ivy League schools aren’t bringin’ it right now, in terms of growing their app volumes. But when we look at absolute numbers, no, they don’t seem to be in any trouble — even Columbia, who took such a hit in the prior year’s apps (down by 1,260 – ouch!). Columbia Business School is still sittin’ pretty in the #4 spot when you look at total apps received. Not too shabby.
Another important point which hopefully we don’t actually have to make: THESE ARE ALL GREAT SCHOOLS. We hope nobody is thinking that Harvard is three times a better school than Duke just because HBS got 3x the apps. Just because one school got more applications than another doesn’t say that it’s “better” — and definitely it doesn’t say that it’s better school FOR YOU.
We do find it odd that HBS got so many more applications than anyone. It’s doesn’t seem that HBS is growing the market for MBA candidates; they’re just growing the market for themselves.
It’s almost as if the societal trends of Occupy Wall Street and the 99% resulted in more people deciding that they wanted to be part of the 1%, and thus targeting HBS and HBS only. Weird, huh? We do know of many candidates who feel that it’s only worth getting an MBA if they can go to Harvard (or Stanford) — we would disagree with them, but we understand that perspective. We truly do not feel that the ROI on an HBS MBA is so much greater, that any other MBA is worthless in comparison. But it seems that maybe a lot of other people do.
Of course, in our experience, the ones who apply to JUST Harvard and Stanford rarely make it into either. There’s some exceptions, where BSers put all their eggs in the H/S basket and it paid off, but those are definitely not the rule (particularly not if those H/S apps were submitted in Rd 2).
We’ll be curious to see where the numbers end up for our current admissions season, when HBS had just two essays… lowering the barriers of entry to an app even further… and potentially increasing their relative position even more.
I think HBS also draws more “Why the hell not?” applications, which drives up their numbers. What I mean is, these are people who know they’re reaching but just want to see what HBS will say. I’ve talked to some BSers on the interview circuit and in casual conversation about what other schools they were looking at it’s odd to hear: “Ross, Darden, UNC, Emory, and…HBS.”
Clearly this guy has enough self-awareness to know where he’ll be competitive, but he figures he may as well throw a dart blindfolded from 100 yards away to see if he can hit a bullseye. It’s the old lottery mentality “You can’t win if you don’t play.” I think other heavy weights like Wharton, Kellogg, and Booth receive less of these applications (though I’m sure they still get some) because of the example above – people who know their wheelhouse is in the 10-20 range and want to apply to a reach school figure, “why not aim for the mountain top?” It’s kind of like the closure thing you mentioned somewhere else in the blahg…some people just need to hear an offical “no!” or else they’ll always wonder “what if?”
I’d agree with that, and add on top of it that even people who are applying only to top 10 schools and who have the numbers/experience to get in will always apply to HBS, then the rest of the top 10 they cherry-pick according to things like fit. But I’ve run into a few BSers and STBBS* who are having trouble not applying or turning down HBS just because it’s HBS. They’ll say things like “I hate the case method, but I’m still applying”, while they won’t apply to say, Darden, because they dislike the case method. When it comes to Harvard, all logic and thought seems to disappear from people’s minds.
That being said, there likely are also people out there who are going for the big H and nothing else…
*or whatever they’re called
“When it comes to Harvard, all logic and thought seems to disappear from people’s minds.”
That’s spot on – in fact, I think it’s the scientific explanation.
just saying – looks like we can use this as the MBA ranking.
We know what you mean – the chart above does seem to map to many rankings lists – but you probably anticipated our objection to using a popularity contest for rankings.
(We’re already not so keen on the overemphasis on rankings.) We do get your point though: This shows what the market (of BSers) values. Of course, BSers aren’t that rational of creatures, but then, what group of humans are, right?
The big switch we’d make if this was the EssaySnark ranking is we’d flip the relative positions of Ross and UCLA. To the point you raised in another post: Yeah, definitely, CA > MI … but we don’t think that means Anderson > Ross.