Only half a dozen years ago, Elissa Sangster had pretty much given up hope that female enrollment in MBA programs would ever equal the much higher numbers at law and medical schools during her lifetime. The executive director of the Forté Foundation then said she would like to see MBA programs get to the 40% level.
“I’d like to see the day when a school puts together teams of MBAs and they just don’t have one woman,” she told Poets&Quants in an interview in 2011. “It’s been a decade, and we’ve seen it move a few points. But I don’t think we’ll get to 50 percent.”
Fast forward to this year’s incoming classes at leading business schools and it’s quite a different story. A newly released study out today (Nov. 30) by Forté has found that women’s enrollment at Forté member schools has steadily gained each year. This fall, 17 schools had 40% or more women enrolled, up from only two schools that reached this milestone in the fall of 2013. Another 26 schools report 35% or more women enrolled, more than double from 12 schools in 2013. Overall, women made up an average 37.4% of this fall’s incoming MBA classes at Forbe member schools, up four percentage points from 33.4% five years ago in the fall of 2013.
PREDICTION: AT LEAST ONE LEADING BUSINESS SCHOOL WILL REACH GENDER PARITY BY 2020
The progress achieved in recent years has now led Sangster to expect that at least one leading school will reach gender parity within three years by 2020. “A lot of deadlines have been set on 2020, and I am just hopeful there is a school out there that will hit that mark. We are on a positive trend, and I don’t see that turning. This progress demonstrates that gender parity is not a pipe dream,” says Sangster, who joked that her more pessimistic prediction six years ago occurred because she had done her earlier interview on two hours of sleep.
In many cases, the increased numbers of women streaming into MBA programs is changing the on-campus dynamic. “Forty percent is a place where women are no longer feeling like the minority,” adds Sangster. “It’s a welcoming environment versus 25%. Even if we are not at 50% yet, we’re getting close. There is a race to get there. Wharton and a few other schools have taken a leadership position and the others at the top have followed. Schools are taking it very seriously and they want to see this milestone of gender parity reached.”
Much of the progress in encouraging more women to enroll in MBA programs has been made at the leading business schools. In the past five years, for example, every single Top Ten MBA program can today boast that they have more women in classrooms than ever before. In many cases, the gains have been stunning. At Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business, women make up 44% of this year’s entering class, up 11 percentage points or 33% higher than the 33% in the Class of 2014. Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, under the leadership of a female dean, has grown its enrollment of women by ten percentage points in the same timeframe, to 42% this year from 34%. At UC-Berkeley’s Haas School, women composed 40% of this fall’s new MBA class, up nine percentage points from 31% five years ago (see table below).
NOT ALL HIGHLY PROMINENT SCHOOLS ARE AT RECORD OR NEAR-RECORD LEVELS
Many other schools also have now reached or exceeded the 40% level. They include the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business (43%), the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management (41%), the University of Texas’ McCombs School of Business (40%), Arizona State University’s W. P. Carey School (40%), and Oxford’s Said Business School (40%). Many more MBA programs are just below that level, including Washington University’s Olin School (39%) and the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business (38%).
Schools have lured more women into their programs with generous scholarship support, more active recruitment efforts by admissions staffers, female alumni and students, and mentorship programs for women once on campus. A number of schools, including Harvard, have reached out to female undergraduates in hopes of increasing the pipeline of women to MBA programs years later. And students at many schools have formed groups of male allies to promote inclusion and create a more welcoming atmosphere. Sangster notes that there are now 24 chapters of male allies at Forté’s 51 member schools, up from none five years ago. “There are so many men who want to get this right,” she says. “The whole point is to have an awkward conversation and not be the bystander who walks away when they saw something suspicious happening.”
The progress reported by some of the big brand schools, however, has often come at the expense of many other schools as the elites have dipped deeper into the overall MBA applicant pool to increase women enrollment. Deans privately acknowledge that the percentage of women in their applicant pools can trail their enrollment numbers by five or more percentage points. Several prominent schools with highly ranked MBA programs have seen their women numbers drop, including Vanderbilt University’s Owen School (26%), Cornell’s Johnson Graduate School of Management (27%), and Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School (27%).
‘IN THE MID-SECTION AND LOWER-SECTION OF SCHOOLS YOU ARE STILL SEEING MORE VOLATILITY’
“This is definitely a game and when the top schools reach into their waitlists and try to push their numbers higher that will affect the other schools,” says Sangster. “They have to have a lot of scholarship money to support change. Showing that there are schools committed to moving closer to gender parity is important. It’s also a critical part of getting the attention of a dean who will then put more resources behind it. But in the mid-section and lower-section of schools you are still seeing some volatility.”
Forté Foundation was launched in 2001 and grew to 25 member schools in 2005 in the U.S. Today Forté includes 51 member schools: 39 in the U.S., four in Canada and eight in Europe. Five years ago, there were about 4,000 women in its member schools. This fall, that number–counting only the member schools in the organization from 2012–has risen to 4,500.
While Forté schools based in the U.S. have a higher percentage of women enrolled on average, schools based outside the U.S. are gaining ground faster. Forté’s U.S. schools had close to 38% (37.8%) women enrolled, on average, in the fall of 2017, up less than 1% from 37.1% in the fall of 2016, and 34% in 2013. Those based outside the US had 36% women enrolled in the fall of 2017, an increase of almost 3.5% in just one year from 32.8% in 2016, and 31.1% in 2013.
MAJOR BOOST IN SCHOLARSHIP AID TO WOMEN WHO ARE NAMED FORTE FELLOWS
Scholarships awarded to Forté Fellows have played a key role in increasing the number of women MBAs, climbing from 33 scholarships in 2003 to more than 1,300 scholarships for the incoming class of 2017 and another 1,100 scholarships for second year students. Since 2003, Forté Foundation sponsor schools have awarded over $142 million in scholarships to Forté Fellows.
“Our schools have been working on this for some time,” says Sangster. “It’s not something new or unique that has happened this past year. But it is something of a tipping point after many years of effort in building the pipeline and helping the women who are considering buisness school polish their applications and stories. Our MBA Launch program will be in its fourth year this January, with 600 people going through this year. That program helps applicants present their best selves in the admissions process, and it has also given the schools the chance to have specific conversations with women earlier in the pipeline. We have a number of schools that have been very engaged in coaching sessions we offer and that has been reflective in the numbers showing up at their business schools.”
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