According to a survey by Stacy Blackman Consulting, students are sending applications to more business schools this year than in previous years. In the survey the consulting firm recorded that more than 25 per cent of business school applicants are planning to apply to five schools this year, up from 22.9 per cent last year. More than ten per cent even plan to apply to six schools whereas on average most students apply to four or five schools.
According to the San Francisco-based website, Blackman said that only a few years ago some elite applicants held the view that if they couldn’t get into one of the top three schools, they wouldn’t go for an MBA. This approach of applying to Harvard, Stanford and Wharton has changed now into a more open attitude allowing for more options. According to Blackman students now also include schools like UCLA, the University of Texas at Austin and the University of North Carolina into their top choices.
The survey amongst 675 respondents who plan to apply to business school in 2014 and 2015 also showed that business school rankings continue to be a major decision maker for students. “The one thing that always surprises me is the importance of the rankings,” Blackman told Poets and Quants. “The rankings matter so much. Less than one per cent said they weren’t important. Almost 70 per cent said rankings were extremely important. Rankings matter a lot.”