Business as usual

It’s one of those conundrums. Slightly fewer than half the students in medical school are women. Ditto for law school. Yet in the hunt for a master’s degree in business administration, women remain a definite minority — about a third at the top schools.

In some places, female enrollments actually have fallen.

Why aren’t women knocking down the doors to graduate business schools? The answer involves a negative perception of the business world, education experts say — and it’s depriving women of an important tool to enhance their careers.

“In business overall, I probably have to admit, there isn’t a clear path for women to advance, and therefore the appeal of entry to women isn’t as straight as say, law or medicine,” says Dan Bauer, founder of the MBA Exchange, a Chicago admissions consulting firm. “That’s sort of unfortunately ingrained in the culture of many businesses. … And I advise our clients that it creates a tremendous opportunity.”

For many women, an MBA apparently doesn’t look very promising. From 2000 to 2002, female enrollment at the top 20 MBA programs fell by 35 percent, as did enrollments overall, according to Business Week magazine. Also, women’s share of MBA enrollments at those schools has barely risen (roughly three percentage points) since 1992. That’s half or less the rise that law and medical schools saw in the same period.

Not all schools follow this trend, says Kathleen Rogan, director of George Washington University’s full-time MBA program.

Ms. Rogan says her university has averaged from 45 percent to 50 percent women in its MBA program over the past three years.

It isn’t just one factor leading to that higher figure.

True, being in the heart of Washington certainly helps, with its higher proportion of professional women. However, she credits her university for its aggressive outreach program to both young women and men.

It also helps that the university emphasizes teamwork more than aggressiveness in its lesson plans. That may sound like a soft and fuzzy approach, but she says it imitates the real world.

“When you’re put into an organization, you’re often put on a team,” says Ms. Rogan, whose MBA programs feature 17 fields, including nonprofits and marketing.

The university’s modest class size also draws positive reaction from students.

“We’re a small program here of about 200 students,” she says. “Everybody gets to know each other; it’s very friendly.”

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