One of the largest and most impressive MBA application trends we have been witnessing since 2014 is that more and more female applications are welcomed by top business schools during the recent years.

The statistics of MBA classes’ enrollment and a number of scholarships for women in business have just proved the tendency. For instance, the trend of keeping at least 30% females in each MBA class has been keeping for the last 5-6 years in most business schools.  According to MBA Strategy’s list of admitted MBA applicants,  whose successful applications  we have been fixing since 2010, around 25% of them are women. Our statistics may be lower than the overall one due to the national and cultural specifications of the applicants, who were mostly from post-Soviet countries, where gender roles have always been roughly separated and guarded for centuries.

According to GMAC 2016 Survey, women’s least proportion is met by 2-year full-time MBA programs, whereas Master’s classes face most number of female students:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Source: http://www.gmac.com/market-intelligence-and-research/research-insights/application-trends/where-are-women-in-graduate-business-school.aspx

A Female:Male  ratio does not however, tend to grow, and there are obvious reasons for that:

• Women more often than men face the choice of re-thinking their priorities and values, in prospective of becoming MBA students: career/studies versus family/children.
• Due to smaller number in classes, women in fact have to feel themselves as a minority of group among other class mates. This feeling undermines their confidence and competitiveness.
• There is still women discrimination in career growth and salary amount, evidenced regularly even in highly-developed and global companies. This tendency gives women much less trust in their pot-MBA perspectives. They prefer Master’s programs instead.

So, based on the 3 main arguments above, where are women found more often? It’s very simple: they overtake part-time MBA and other Master’s classes. Flexible schedules of part-time programs (EMBA, part-time MBA, online and distance MBA etc.) are more attractive for women, who tend to still balance between their families’ obligations and careers.