Harvard Business School Applications Down

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Sometimes what looks like bad news inside academe may actually be a good omen for the rest of us. “The number of Harvard Business School applications dropped by 4.5 percent last year, but other class demographics experienced little change, HBS reported in its latest class profile,” Grace A. Greason writes in The Harvard Crimson. “HBS received 9,886 applications for its two-year MBA program for the class of 2020, down from 10,351 the previous year.”

“The class of 2019 figure, however, marked a 6 percent increase in applications from the year prior. In the past year, business schools across the United States have reported significant declines in the number of MBA program applicants partly because fewer international students are seeking to study in the U.S. as a result of the political climate.”

That actually may be cheerful news. For one thing, some prominent HBS grads were in positions of responsibility during the financial crash of 2008. “Phillip Delves Broughton, an alumnus of the Harvard Business School, says a procession of Harvard–trained MBAs played starring roles in the economic collapse,” National Public Radio reported in 2009. “George W. Bush was a Harvard MBA. “

“[Former U. S. Treasury Secretary] Hank Paulson was a Harvard MBA. The CEOs of General Electric, Procter & Gamble, the heads of hedge funds, private equity funds [were Harvard MBAs],” Broughton says.”

“In a piece he wrote for The Times of London, Broughton calls them all Harvard’s ‘masters of the apocalypse.’”