usadmission
08-12-2006, 01:06 PM
HARVARD
Deferred admission to target young
"Catch them while they are young" is increasingly the motto at Harvard Business School, which is now planning to promote its MBA programme actively to students in the final (senior) year of their undergraduate degrees, writes Della Bradshaw.
The business school is planning to offer deferred places, says Jay Light, dean of Harvard Business School, "to make sure we get the really best students". Under the deferred admission scheme, students will be expected to work for two to three years before taking up their places on the MBA programme.
Although the average age of students on the Harvard MBA is 27, the school has been trying to attract younger students on to the programme since 2000. Then it introduced its "early years" programme, which targeted managers with only one or two years of work experience.
Harvard has offered deferred admission to selected college seniors since the 1960s, but is now promoting the scheme to raise awareness among undergraduates about the business school when they are making career choices. In particular, the deferred admission programme will help the business school to persuade young people to consider a career in business in preference to medicine or law.
Although 91 per cent of managers offered places on Harvard's MBA go on to matriculate - the highest yield rate in the business - those that turn down Harvard usually do so to stay in the corporate world. The push for younger participants is designed to attract these managers before they establish their high-flying careers.
Several other top US business schools admit students with little or no work experience; Stanford, Chicago, MIT Sloan and the Wharton school at the University of Pennsylvania, for example. At Wharton, the brightest undergraduates on its four-year bachelor programme can join the MBA at the end of their third (junior) year. Between three and 10 students take this route every year.
Stanford has set itself a target of attracting up to 10 per cent of its 380 students with little or no work experience, but Prof Light says Harvard has no such target.
Not all top schools believe the class should include these younger participants. At the Tuck school at Dartmouth College, dean Paul Danos says his school will not accept students without substantial work experience. The other participants on the programme would not accept it, he says.
Deferred admission to target young
"Catch them while they are young" is increasingly the motto at Harvard Business School, which is now planning to promote its MBA programme actively to students in the final (senior) year of their undergraduate degrees, writes Della Bradshaw.
The business school is planning to offer deferred places, says Jay Light, dean of Harvard Business School, "to make sure we get the really best students". Under the deferred admission scheme, students will be expected to work for two to three years before taking up their places on the MBA programme.
Although the average age of students on the Harvard MBA is 27, the school has been trying to attract younger students on to the programme since 2000. Then it introduced its "early years" programme, which targeted managers with only one or two years of work experience.
Harvard has offered deferred admission to selected college seniors since the 1960s, but is now promoting the scheme to raise awareness among undergraduates about the business school when they are making career choices. In particular, the deferred admission programme will help the business school to persuade young people to consider a career in business in preference to medicine or law.
Although 91 per cent of managers offered places on Harvard's MBA go on to matriculate - the highest yield rate in the business - those that turn down Harvard usually do so to stay in the corporate world. The push for younger participants is designed to attract these managers before they establish their high-flying careers.
Several other top US business schools admit students with little or no work experience; Stanford, Chicago, MIT Sloan and the Wharton school at the University of Pennsylvania, for example. At Wharton, the brightest undergraduates on its four-year bachelor programme can join the MBA at the end of their third (junior) year. Between three and 10 students take this route every year.
Stanford has set itself a target of attracting up to 10 per cent of its 380 students with little or no work experience, but Prof Light says Harvard has no such target.
Not all top schools believe the class should include these younger participants. At the Tuck school at Dartmouth College, dean Paul Danos says his school will not accept students without substantial work experience. The other participants on the programme would not accept it, he says.