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The Best B-Schools November 13, 2008, 5:00PM EST

The Millennials Invade the B-Schools

They're pursuing MBAs to change the world, but first they're forcing business schools to make changes in order to accommodate them

By Geoff Gloeckler

At No. 1 Chicago, multitasking Millen­nials are making their presence felt at the B-school Michael L. Abramson

At Harvard, social enterprise has become the most popular club on campus Porter Gifford

At Wharton, students have the option of majoring in sustainability Jennifer S. Altman

Editor's Note: This is an extended version of a story in the Nov. 24 issue of BusinessWeek.

Sara Hochman, 27, has always been interested in environmental issues, so it wasn't much of a surprise that her first job out of college was as an environmental consultant. But after a few years on the job, she grew frustrated working with clients who didn't have a clue about sustainability and didn't care to learn. "They simply weren't interested," she says. Part of the problem, Hochman concluded, was that she wasn't able to make the business case for sustainability. "I needed to beef up my business skills," she says. So she decided to attend business school, ultimately choosing the University of Chicago. Since enrolling last fall, she has immersed herself in green business activities—including co-chairing the Energy Club and taking a new elective on renewable energy that was added at the urging of Hochman and fellow students.

As a member of Generation Y, Hochman is part of a demographic tsunami that will soon be remaking business schools on a grand scale, and the changes she helped launch at Chicago represent the leading edge of that transformation. Since first appearing in the workforce in 2002, members of this so-called Millennial Generation have been praised and derided in equal measure—for their tech knowhow and idealism, their unrealistic career expectations, and their doting "helicopter" parents, who hover over their kids obsessively. Beginning as a trickle last year, the flow of Millennials into B-schools will become a flood this year and next, as the bulk of Gen Y begins entering the prime B-school age group of 26 to 28. When that happens, B-school will never be the same. Think parents footing the bill for tuition, personalized programs, and office hours held in the virtual world of Second Life.

At the best MBA programs in the nation—including those featured in BusinessWeek's 11th biennial ranking of the Top 30 B-Schools—the changes have already begun, starting with No.1, Chicago's Booth School of Business. There, Hochman found an abundance of features seemingly tailor-made for Millennials, including a leadership position at the B-school's chapter of Net Impact, a nonprofit focused on using business to change the world. Stanford (No. 6) and Yale (No. 24) have introduced new, customizable curriculums that allow MBAs to design their course load based on individual career paths. Chicago recently announced a similar curriculum change. And many schools, including Cornell (No. 11) and Notre Dame (No. 20), have added sustainability electives, case studies even entire sustainability programs.

Bigger Than Boomers

At Harvard Business School (No. 2), professors are experimenting with virtual worlds. The career services department at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management (No. 3) is turning to technology to reach students faster. And at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth (No. 12), small class sizes give students a more personal experience. Cam Marston, an expert in multigenerational relations, says Millennials will be screening business schools for features like these that appeal to their lifestyles and values, and schools that fail to adapt will be left behind. Says Marston: "They are going to make the schools work a lot harder."

Who are the Millennials, exactly? Born between 1980 and 2000 and 78 million strong, they are a generational cohort that's bigger than the baby boomers. Politically galvanized, they are in some ways even more influential, helping propel Barack Obama to the Presidency on Nov. 4. Generalizations about them should, like all generalizations, be applied with caution. But they like personal attention and are used to getting information how they want it, when they want it. They are strong-willed, passionate, optimistic, and eager to work. And, like Chicago's Hochman, they care deeply about the world and its problems. "There is so much potential for this generation," says Marci Armstrong, associate dean of graduate programs at Southern Methodist University's Cox School of Business (No. 18). "They're going to change the world."

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