Business schools getting younger?

There will be an element of self-selection bias in that generally older guys don't tend to be as keen on linkedin as the younger generation.

But there's also probably a growing trend of going to B-School early due to the economy.

Interested in your GMAT question as well.

Opinions on taking it now VS. post change?

I think more people with less experience are trying to get into top b-schools now. Mainly because of the economy, but also they plan on going to b-school and don't have the patience to wait. With that said, I think top programs are still looking for 4-5 years of experience.

If you are going to be working at a BB or MM firm with good deal flow, you're going to be working too many hours to study for the GMAT, so take it before you start working. If you won't be working 90 hours/week, I would wait to take the exam.

It would be a turnoff for me if the average experience at a program was 2-3 years. IMO, you don't have enough useful experience to contribute to a collaborative learning environment until you've got 4+ years under your belt. Just an opinion, of course.

there was a post on WSO not too long ago about how HBS prefers people with not more than 2-3 years of experience so that they may "mould the individual 's mindset and (HBS) be a part of that persons success story".

No. No. No.

Yes, they are going younger - not much younger, but it's that the age ranges are tightening (less and less people who are 6+ years out of school).

First of all, recruiters want them young. The younger the population, the more likely they are still single, which makes it easier for companies looking to hire for junior level positions that require long and unpredictable hours, and/or lots of travel (unless you work at say John Deere or leadership development programs where they want older folks). The majority of MBA jobs are in professional services: IB/IM/PE/HF/VC, consulting, tech, and so forth -- cultures where it's easier being single with no responsibilities/priorities outside of work. Of course it's illegal to discriminate, but companies will still try and find ways to focus on the young and single.

Demographics. Keep in mind that a LOT of the growth in applicant numbers in the last 10-15 years has been driven by Indian and mainland Chinese applicants (with the Indians still applying by the billions, and the Chinese declining as more are starting to forgo b-school altogether to stay in China). However, for all other demographics, it's been flat (American) or even declining (Europeans) in the last 10-15 years. One way to ensure that the flow of applicants from their "core" demos (Americans and to a lesser extent everywhere else but India) does not decline (or even grow) is to go younger. What it comes down to is that while there's still some American folks say with 5+ years experience willing to go back to b-school, most with that level of experience in most industries/job functions are already making post-MBA comp (or close to it), and have far less motivation to even apply. With Euros, it's even less so.

Now you may wonder "why worry about keeping the core demos American/European"? That gets into very touchy issues of race and prestige. Put it this way: if you had a b-school classroom full of mostly Indians, would recruiters, applicants, and the public perceive that school to be more or less prestigious, even if these Indians were super smart, savvy, worked at Goldman, etc? B-schools want their schools to be diverse (read: mostly or at least half-white) rather than ethnic (read: mostly non-white). Going younger is a way of reaching into the American pool to ensure that their numbers don't drop off to the point where b-school starts looking like an MS-Engineering program. This is ugly to say, but it's what is bubbling underneath all of this. These deep seeded cultural biases are certainly changing, but it's still there at least for now (maybe 10-20 years from now it'll be reversed).

Women and minorities (but more focused on women these days, it seems). To get more women, they need to go younger. Biological clock and timing - makes more sense to go younger, still have a few years of post-MBA income, and then start having kids. Harder to convince women in their later 20s to go back because there is less wiggle room to have a few years of a post-MBA career and then kids. With minorities (black/hispanic/etc except Asian), the traditional route for the smartest most ambitious kids was med or law school much moreso than whites/Asians. By going younger, they have a better shot of getting those who otherwise would've gone to med or law school (both minority and white/Asian, but especially minority).

Opportunity cost. Most folks 2-3 years out make less (and sometimes much less) than they would with 4-6 years experience. Yes, the savvy applicant knows that b-school is more than just money/comp, but the biggest selling point bschools had for a long time for boosting applicant volume is the idea of a jump in salary/comp. Harder to make that sell if the differential between pre- and post-MBA is smaller or even non-existent for most students. Keep in mind that this also helps to attract the less savvy applicants (b-schools don't care - maximizing applicant volume is the name of the game since it helps with the perception of exclusivity).

Now, it may be fair to say that a class with more experienced folks, but from the admin's standpoint, the benefits of going younger far outweigh that.

Thanks for the response guys..

The second time I took the GMAT was during the period when they were testing material for the upcoming changes and everyone was required to do a 30 mintue section (there was some imaginary "incentive" for giving effort on it). My advice to you is to take it BEFORE they make any changes. The new section reminded me a little bit of the Science Reasoning section of the ACT. There were charts and diagrams and passages all in different tabs from the questions, and it made for a lot of extra reading material. The way the GMAT is now is very straightforward. They are only changing it because some top schools (namely Harvard) have decided fairly recently that there is not a high enough correlation between really high GMAT scores and successful MBA students. No matter what they do material wise on the test, there will always be 790 type people who have never given much effort to anything because they've never really had to.

People have some really long complicated explanations for this phenomenon. People with less experience are younger. Therefore they will work more hours and for less money than an older more experienced candidate. This makes them more marketable in the job market and B Schools like their students to perform well in the job market for stat purposes.

B Schools are very good at making money. They are sometimes the only school to do so within a given university.