Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Class of 2008 - interesting profile!

It seems the class of 2008 at London Business School is filling up now! I have wanted to post some interesting facts for some time but there were a few people I knew personally hadn't paid the reservation fee (they chose other schools :-( ) who still showed up on portal for many weeks, but now they've been removed so I assume apart from open R4 candidate decisions and a few waitlist movements the following should be an accurate profile of the class of 2008 : (DISCLAIMER to waitlist candidates: I have no idea how many waitlist candidates will still enter the class, these are simply observations on those people who are currently confirmed as attending, maybe 10 or 20 or 30 waitlist candidates will still be added to the class, that's something I have no information on- UPDATE: according to the official LBS blog,
the final few places for this year’s class are being allocated. The final admissions deadline passed last Friday, so 95% of the new class is now known, but there will still be a little movement from the Wait-list right up until the beginning of class in late August.)! May sound little but it means 15 waitlist candidates can still move up!

1. Female share: up up up!!

This is the most interesting one. It has often been noted that European schools have failed to raise the share of female MBA students in recent years. As far as I know, INSEAD is especially low with a share around 18 or 19%, and in recent years I had read that despite some efforts LBS female share was stagnating around 22%. Well, this year it is different! It seems that all the efforts from Laura Tyson, the Women in Business Club, the Deutsche Bank Scholarship, the Lehman Brothers study centre etc. etc. have paid off!

Almost 1/3 of girls, that's excellent news! I think it makes the guys happier and the girls who are there will also be happy not to be an "interesting minority" but "normal" members of the school community. In general, it must be good for the school community and recruiters will be happy too, so well done Women in Business Club, Laura Tyson and corporate sponsors ( and anyone I might have forgotten...)!

2. Biggest national group: Indians!
Reflecting the growing importance in the global economy on campus, the largest group among the admits seem to come from India! The second largest group are US Americans. The biggest group of Europeans comes from the UK, followed by Italians as the prime representatives of continental Europe.

What I find quite interesting is the relatively low number of Chinese admits - this is something that had struck me already at admits weekend. Do they prefer to go to US schools? Shouldn't all major current and future economic powers have a good representation at LBS? Maybe it's time to step up the marketing efforts in China? - The cooperation with Hong Kong University is definitely a good start.

3. Class size
Ths class size seems to be pretty much exactly the same size as the class of 2007 - though we're up one person from 325 to 326 :-). Overall there are now 326 students who have paid the commitment fee. I assume some R4 candidates might still jump off, but then they might be replaced by waitlist candidates, so we're at least one person more than the class of 2007 :-). Also excellent news! The more the merrier!


10 comments:

Marina said...

Nice!

From what I heard at the GMAC conference, the LBS AdCom is not very excited about you publishing these statistics. LOL

-tvu said...

At least it will give the boys some hope of having a social life while in
LBS. Cheers to the increase # of female students. I'm certain the boys class of 08' are very cheerful. hehe

Anonymous said...

This is interesting! I can't wait to meet the 325 people who will be a part of the next 2 years of my life!!

I already replied to your query on my blog :)

angie said...

Hey Marina, thanks for you comment. Actually I edited my post a little bit so as not to giveaway statistics but talk more about general trends.

I'm quite astonished though they talked about that at the conference - was that a general comment or specifically about my blog? Would be grateful for more details!

MBA Pirate said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

Angie,

I'm a R3 waitlist guy and do hope you're mistaken with your statistics..!!!.

Thanks for your comments.

angie said...

Hey Ovningar, as I said in the post I think they hold true "except for some waitlist movements". I guess there are some R4 candidates who might still decline the offer and be replaced by waitlist candidates. I really don't know what a realistic number of outstanding places is, since i don't know how many candidates were from R4...

I wish you good luck with the application though!

Marina said...

Haha It was an example made by someone on the admissions committee as information that the school prefers outsiders not to know, but they obviously have to deal with it :) It kind of made me LOL The comment went something like "We have a blogger who is posting our admissions statitics blow by blow and we are not too pleased about it"

Though I wouldn't worry cause if it was a big deal, I am sure they would let you know off-line :)

angie said...

Hey Marina, funnily enough they have just published some waitlist info on the official LBS blog, it seems they have now started to publish some information themselves to avoid being the last ones :-). I think that is a good effect of my blogging :-). I'm glad it didn't seem to be serious, but as you say I guess I would hear from them if it was.

Anonymous said...

Hello Angel angie,

Sorry but I don't share your excitement on LBS diversity. I applied , I had an interview with a memeber of the extreme right wing of my country who was a LBS Alumni. they change my interviewer but I have to admit that even though I was waitlisted last winter (To be honnest I might have been dinged)I withdraw my candidacy.

But if you are ot from a minority, I am sure that it is a great school!

Anyway, bad memories in the past. We are all heading to a great MBA program!Best of luck!

signed: Black is beautiful