An expansion of the business school's master's of business administration class is padding a down year for applications to the school's higher-end programs.
Douglas Breeden, dean of the Fuqua School of Business, said that the decision to add 65 students to the daytime MBA program has worked out well and that the school has not lowered its standards for admission. He added that the move has helped balance a sharper decline in applications to the school's Global Executive MBA program, which went from 102 students this year to what Breeden estimated would be a class of about 75 next year.
"We're seeing a decline in some of those applications," Breeden said. "Frankly, we're all feeling kind of good about bringing in an extra daytime section, because it's insulated us from hurting from the decline in the Executive MBA program."
Specifically, the financial shock of lower applications to the Global Executive MBA program - which commands a tuition price tag of about $100,000 for the year-long course of study - has been absorbed by the additional tuition brought in by the regular MBA program. Breeden cited the sagging economy as the prime factor in the decline in interest in Fuqua's executive education programs.
"If we did not have the extra section, our expansion plan, in terms of faculty, would have been greatly compromised," said Richard Staelin, deputy dean and Edward and Rose Donnell professor of business. "As it is, we've been able to build a business model that allows us to break even."
Fuqua is particularly well-regarded for its programs in executive education - designer programs for business executives who have more than 10 years of experience in businesses. Corporations often pay to send their managers and executives through such programs.
"We have a higher weight on that than many schools," Breeden said. "It's a very profitable business, business we want, but it's a high beta business... which means it has a higher volatility basis."
The daytime MBA program is the standard three-year MBA program at Fuqua. Organized into sections, Fuqua officials decided to add a sixth section of 65 students, increasing the class from 340 to 405. Breeden justified the move as natural for a school that has historically been smaller - in faculty, student body size and facilities - than its competitors.
As the school has inched higher in rankings and as it continues to expand its research output, its faculty size and its physical infrastructure, it has also been able to accommodate more students.
Breeden said the jump in class size has not forced the school to lower its selectivity and that applications to the MBA program, which jumped 15 percent last year, have remained steady this year. Last year, the program admitted just 18.1 percent of its applicants - a strong rate, but still the highest among the top 12 business schools, as ranked by U.S. News and World Report.
So far, the average GMAT score for the admitted students is 705 and the average GPA 3.419. Of those, 21 percent are minorities and 35 percent are women. Fuqua was honored earlier this year for having one of the most diverse student bodies by The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education.
Staelin said that he and other deans have been working on attracting more students from Europe and Asia, in light of a new partnership with Seoul National University in South Korea.
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