Economy's effect on admissions this year

[mbaguy513]

Hi,

Obviously everyone thinking of applying this year is concerend with the competitiveness and size of the applicant pool given what has happened to the economy. However, it seems there are some differing schools of thought. I have heard some talk about the doom and gloom of trying to apply this year. They claim that everyone will be applying in order to go school to ride out the tough economic times. Others say that the economy is getting so bad that the jobs MBAs would want aren't there anymore. When that happens the value of the degree temporarily decreases and applications drop a bit. With this weeks events and the collapsing wall street banks (major recruiters of MBAs), is it possible that the situation is so bad that less people will apply now?

Is there any truth to these two schools of thought?

Thanks in advance.

[MBAApply]

You're right on both counts but off on the timing.

In the early stages of a downturn, applications tend to increase as people are looking to ride out the storm - like this year.

But as the downturn gets prolonged, applications will eventually decrease as people will hold on to whatever they have because they won't know how much longer the storm will last.

So applications will increase this year, flatten out next year, and probably start to decrease the year after that -- beyond that, it depends on how long this downturn will last. Applications won't pick up until we're well into a recovery.

But it's wishful thinking to believe that applications will decrease this year.

Alex Chu
alex@mbaapply.com
www.mbaapply.com
http://mbaapply.blogspot.com