Despite big changes at the Yale School of Management, including the creation of a new campus on Sachem Street, applications to the school held steady this year.
In addition to a new campus, the school hired Edward Snyder, previously dean of University of Chicago’s top-ranked Booth School of Business, as dean beginning next fall. Still, School of Management Director of Admissions Bruce DelMonico said that this year the school received around 2,900 applications — about the average of the past five years. Though the total number of applicants did not fluctuate, he added, the number of international applicants increased while domestic applicants decreased by roughly 5 percent, which is in keeping with a national trend among business schools.
“Domestically, applications were up in the 2008-2009 period during the recession,” said School of Management Dean Sharon Oster. “Now people have jobs, so there has been a nationwide decline in domestic applications to business school.”
Oster added that the number of applications spiked five years ago when the school introduced a new curriculum, which emphasizes practical business management skills and is intended to better prepare students for work in a globalized economy.
This academic year, the school received two multimillion dollar gifts to finance the construction of the new campus — $50 million from private investor Ned Evans ’64 and $10 million from investor Wilbur L. Ross ’59. But DelMonico and Oster said they had not expected a similar increase as a result of the new campus or dean because the new buildings will not be usable until the fall of 2013, and prospective students tend not to respond to administrative changes.
But Snyder was involved in the admissions process, assisting DelMonico and speaking to prospective students.
“It’s good for me to be a small part of [the admissions process] because I learn from the interactions,” Snyder told the News in February. “One admit’s decision is coming down to Yale SOM versus Kellogg [Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University]. I made the ‘positive case’ for both. I also, no surprise, made it clear that I hope that it comes out Yale.”
Oster added that she aims to enroll a class of around 225 students, and is confident the school will meet this goal. Final numbers for the incoming class will not be available until mid-summer, she added.
Snyder will arrive on campus this week in preparation for the school’s admitted students weekend.
In this year’s U.S. News & World Report rankings, Yale SOM rose from 11th to 10th for best business school. These rankings take into account factors such as post-graduation salaries, grade point averages and standardized test scores.
Correction: April 13, 2011
An earlier version of this article misstated Bruce DelMonico’s title. He is director of admissions, not dean of admissions.