Tuck School of Business admitted a record-high number of female applicants for the Class of 2017, Tuck Dean Paul Danos said.
Thirty-five percent of the applicants admitted so far are female, though the admissions process is ongoing, Danos said. He added that he expects the number to increase to about 38 percent when the admissions process ends.
Tuck admissions director Dawna Clarke said that, in addition to the increase in accepted female applicants, there was an increase in the total number of female applicants.
Of the 281 students currently enrolled in the Tuck Class of 2016, 32 percent are women, which is significantly lower than at most peer business schools. Of the top 10 business schools in the U.S. News and World Report graduate school 2016 rankings, Tuck — ranked ninth — ties with 10th-ranked University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business for the lowest percentage of women.
Forty percent of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business’ Class of 2016 are women, while 42 percent at Stanford Business School and 41 percent at Harvard Business School are women.
Danos said that there is a growing interest in business schools among women, which may be one of the factors for this increase.
He added that though not drastic, the increase in the number of accepted female applicants testifies to Tuck’s recent efforts to promote gender diversity.
“I think it’s something that is just imperative — everybody wants to learn from a diverse student body, especially at a place like Tuck,” Danos said. “Everybody interacts so much and learns from each other.”
Lindsey Windham Tu’15 said that she is excited to have more qualified female students at Tuck next year.
Elliot Gillerman Tu’15 said that it is empirically proven that diversity leads to better decision-making and therefore, he is glad that Tuck is moving in the right direction.
“I think it’s important for the future of business, for America and for the rest of the world that women have a great path to [the] workforce,” he said. “Tuck could play a very powerful role in that.”
Clarke said that Tuck created a counseling program to attract a higher number of qualified women to apply.
The admissions office also co-hosts an annual conference for female prospective students each fall in conjunction with Women in Business, a student-run organization at Tuck.
At the conference, prospective students learn about the academic and social atmosphere at Tuck, as well as life in Hanover, and interact with Tuck alumni, Windham said.
Windham said that she decided to commit to Tuck after attending the conference as a prospective student. “I had a couple of other schools to choose from, but Tuck, to me, was a really special academic community where I would have personal attention from faculty, a really tight group of classmates and access to [an] incredibly loyal network of alumni,” Windham said.
Windham, a member of Women in Business, said that the organization is dedicated to helping students prepare for careers in business by assisting with interview preparation, sharing information and hosting social events to establish a community amongst female Tuck students.
Furthermore, she added that students facilitate panel sessions on the various issues that women can face in the workplace, ranging from unequal pay to the balance between personal life and career.
Both male and female students exchange their insights on these issues at the panel discussions. Windham emphasized that these support groups and initiatives take place in addition to the broader support system that Tuck already has for students of all genders.
She added that she has never felt as if she were at a disadvantage because of her gender.
“The culture of Tuck is very inclusive,” she said. “And there is a lot of diversity here that’s just not gender diversity.”
Danos said that the increased number of female students will have a gradual impact on the student body’s learning experience at Tuck, though the effects might not be apparent at first.
He said that through interaction and collaboration with students from more diverse backgrounds in both academic and social settings, Tuck students will have a broader outlook by the time they graduate.
Angelica Gutierrez, a business management professor at Loyola Marymount University’s College of Business Administration, said that the diversification of managers and leaders in the workplace is crucial to making companies more productive and competitive.
“This is why it is absolutely critical to diversify student population at business schools,” she said. “Because we do need a lot more women in executive positions, and one of the best ways to ensure is that they are fully prepared academically, which may entail obtaining an MBA.”
In order to further foster gender diversity in the student body, Gutierrez said that business schools must convey that their academic atmosphere is welcoming and open to women.
“There are studies on gender biases that [show that] in business schools, women’s opinions and perspectives tend to be undermined and they also tend to be questioned more extensively than their male counterpart,” she said.
These inherent biases that affect the ways in which women are perceived and perform in business schools, she said, makes it more important that female students are encouraged to continue their education so that they may enter higher levels of management.
“And it’s important for us to convey to them that there are possibilities for them to contribute to the classroom and that it is critical for them to pursue an MBA.”
Windham suggested that Tuck analyze the reasons that some accepted female applicants decline to enroll. Understanding these reasons, she said, will enable Tuck to become more competitive with other top business schools.
Gillerman said that he thinks strategizing where and whom to look for in the admission process will allow Tuck to further increase student diversity.
