Admission Deferrals: Business Schools Hold the Line

Once fairly routine, deferrals of admission are getting increasingly rare. Next year will be worse

By Anne VanderMey

Your applications are done. You've been accepted at your dream school. You paid the deposit. What could go wrong? For the would-be MBA class of 2011, plenty. The unforeseen events that often waylay admitted students were compounded this year by difficulty securing loans, problems selling homes, and anxiety about leaving the workforce. At many programs, that meant more would-be students asking for a deferral of admission. But while that may seem like a simple process for an applicant qualified enough to get in initially, next year will see more top schools leaning away from handing out deferrals, even as the financial turmoil prompts more students to ask.

Deferring admission is the relatively common practice of guaranteeing an admitted student a spot in next year's class, or at some schools, fast-tracking their application for consideration that year. A typical MBA program might grant a dozen of these requests in any given year, most aimed at accommodating unforeseen circumstances outside of students' control. But in recent years the question of what constitutes a valid reason for deferral has grown more complicated as programs have evolved, application volumes have increased, and each new class is more qualified than the one that preceded it.

In an effort to stabilize changing admissions equations, many schools have reduced the number of deferrals they grant. Marci Armstrong, associate dean for graduate programs at Southern Methodist University's Cox School of Business (SMU Cox Full-Time MBA Profile), says the program has made a "concerted effort" to scale back this year and will continue the policy for the class of 2012."Gone are the days where it's just an auto-deferral," Armstrong says.Arizona State University's Carey School of Business (ASU Carey Full-Time MBA Profile) and Duke University's Fuqua School of Business (Fuqua Full-Time MBA Profile), are taking it a step further. Both will aim next year to offer no deferrals at all.

A Numbers Game

At Cox, Armstrong says the full-time program granted delayed admission to five applicants in the fall of 2007. It scaled back in 2008, granting just three, and granted another three in 2009. While the actual number of deferrals hasn't registered much change, the percentage of successful requests has been falling. On the whole, inquiries and requests have been on the rise, Armstrong says, though the school does not track the exact numbers. It's a similar story at many programs. Vanderbilt University's Owen Graduate School of Management (Owen Full-Time MBA Profile) saw a marked uptick in requests, and even the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School (Wharton Full-Time MBA Profile) saw a modest increase from last year.

Many of the requests are related to the financial crisis and the considerable price tag of the MBA degree. At Vanderbilt, Director of MBA Admissions John Roeder says the decision of whether students are able to attend depends on whether they can secure funds, or for out-of-state students, sell their house. There also seems to have been a move away from students deferring in order to pick between different schools, says Fuqua's Associate Dean for Admissions Liz Riley Hargrove—instead they're deciding whether to attend school at all.

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