Elite M.B.A. programs like to tout their rising minority enrollments, but are B-school students all that diverse?
The answer: It depends.
While many top programs boast that ethnic or racial minorities comprise a quarter or more of their student bodies, most of that population is Asian-American, a group that is statistically overrepresented at business schools when compared with their proportion of the U.S. population at large. But among traditionally underrepresented groups, including African-Americans, Hispanic Americans and Native Americans, enrollment remains low -- a sign, some say, that B-schools have much more work to do to attract those students.
For example, Cornell University's Johnson Graduate School of Management reported that 34% of its two-year M.B.A. class graduating next spring will be minorities, up from 31% in the class that graduated this year. But taking Asian-Americans from that count shows the share of underrepresented minority students actually fell during that time, to 12% from 15%.
Despite 'minor fluctuations' in the population of underrepresented minorities, 'we have been very pleased to consistently exceed our goal of being over 30% minority and 10% underrepresented minorities in our recent two-year M.B.A. classes,' says Nsombi B. Ricketts, director of Johnson's Office of Diversity and Inclusion.
A decade ago, Johnson's M.B.A. class was 19% minority, and 8% underrepresented minority.
Enrollment numbers are only part of the issue, schools contend -- applications from underrepresented groups are also low. Most schools don't break down their application data by race, but admissions consultants and other business-school insiders say those groups remain underrepresented in application pools too.
'When you look at B-school demographics, you see pretty healthy numbers on overall minorities. When you unpack it a little bit, the numbers are very different,' says John Rice, founder and chief executive of Management Leadership for Tomorrow, one of the largest nonprofit organizations supporting underrepresented minorities applying to business school.
Growing minority enrollment is a major factor in attracting corporate recruiters, who are seeking more diversity among new M.B.A. hires and are particularly drawn to schools with such populations. And it is important for B-schools to bring companies to their campus, since the schools draw in new students in part based on their prior job-placement success.
Many schools are hesitant to discuss their diversity numbers in detail. Columbia Business School and Stanford Graduate School of Business, for example, reported minority populations of 35% and 27%, respectively, for the M.B.A. class graduating in 2013, but don't disclose the 'underrepresented' figures.
'[Schools] cloud the picture by the way that they report statistics,' says Peter J. Aranda III, executive director and CEO of the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management, a nonprofit that offers application assistance and financial aid to minorities in business school. 'There's certainly a portion of the general public that think 30% is a good number.'
The class of 2012 was the most diverse ever at Dartmouth College's Tuck School of Business, with 19% minorities and 10.2% underrepresented minorities. Karen Marks, diversity officer and associate director of admissions, says the school has 'significantly increased' those figures in her 4 1/2 years at Tuck. However, that figure has fallen, and just 14% of the class of 2013 is classified as 'minority.'
University of Michigan's Stephen M. Ross School of Business reported 28% of its 2013 graduating class are minorities, but just 10% of the class is African-American, Hispanic American or Native American. The minority and underrepresented minority figures at Carnegie Mellon University's Tepper School of Business are 27% and 9%, respectively, and those at Yale School of Management are 25% and 7%.
B-school diversity can lag behind that of other graduate programs, such as medical and law schools, according to enrollment data from various schools.
Groups like MLT, as well as the National Society of Hispanic M.B.A.s, National Black M.B.A. Association and the Consortium help prospective students compile competitive applications, prepare for interviews and connect with top schools, and provide some financial aid. MLT's 225 fellows join the group as much as a year before actually applying to business school, Mr. Rice says.
Often minority applicants, even those with stellar credentials, aren't confident in their ability to gain acceptance to top programs, says Scott Shrum, director of M.B.A. admissions research at Veritas Prep, a firm that advises business-school applicants. That is in part due to the dearth of role models who have successfully completed business school, Mr. Shrum says.
'Sometimes they need a little more coaxing to actually pull the trigger' and apply, he says.
But applicants who get such coaching fare well: Mr. Rice of MLT says upward of 90% of his fellows are accepted to at least one school, with success rates two to three times as high as the general applicant pool.
Another major barrier to entry is cost. Manny Gonzalez, CEO of the National Society of Hispanic M.B.A.s, says that population in particular sees financing a degree as a major obstacle. And while most of these groups provide scholarship aid, the awards tend to be fairly small. The Robert Toigo Foundation, for example, offers its 50 to 60 fellows an annual scholarship of $2,500. Nancy Sims, president and chief executive of the finance-industry organization, calls it 'a symbolic recognition' of their participation.
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