• More Flexibility and Making it Work
Naturally, there is still space for improvement. An enduring problem at business schools is a lack of coursework and case study material featuring women leaders. Also, there’s an absence of female professors on the academic scene.

Aside from these enduring issues, business schools continue to tackle the particular issues women face. Are these still not sure it's for you? The next starting age can be a turn-off. But here are new options and opportunities to consider.

If you are harassed from trying to have it all and have written off getting an MBA, new early-initiative programs might make you pause and reconsider your decision. Stanford and Harvard have developed an early career track that aims to minimize the importance of the biological clock in a prospective applicant's decision to pursue an MBA. But other schools are probable to follow suit.

The fast career track offers a key that is as simple as it is practical: admit women and men to the MBA program either straight out of college or with just a few years of work experience. There is a hope that this spurs more women to come to Harvard Business School when they realize they can attain this degree earlier. This offers them a bigger window in which to achieve their professional and personal goals. One may dispute that at a younger age, you have fewer ties. While you go further into your career, by nature of many things, you loose that flexibility.

A business career beginning earlier eliminates the immediate problem of timing. But what may happen down the road? At the same time as it helps to remove one timing issue, it can't indefinitely postpone the balancing act that shadows many women's careers. It is tough to rationalize the opportunity costs of the MBA knowing the investment might be forsaken when tough choices have to be made.

Business schools blame misconceptions about the utility of the MBA. They believe that many women underestimate the broad reach of the degree. The MBA isn’t only for hard-core careers like banking and finance, but also for not-for-profit work, less high-stress industries such as consumer goods, and leadership positions in a wide range of fields.

There’s an incredible amount of flexibility in a general management degree. To make an impact wherever you fall at different points in your life, the MBA positions you much more effectively. It provides you with the tools and framework to apply those skills at different levels and in different intensities. Women, for some case, can rise to a partner level or a senior leadership position and then scale back to a different role within the organization. Moreover, they may scale back to part-time work. Therefore, the investment doesn't have to be forsaken, it might instead be redirected.

There is undoubtedly the return on investment for the MBA is high. Sign-on bonuses and six-figure salaries that pay you back your MBA tuition are hard to beat, and unlike medical, veterinary, and law school grads, you won't have malpractice premiums eating into your take-home pay. Paradoxically, the cost of getting to this point has, thus far, simply been too high for women. But times are changing. Once you've thought business school might be right for you, keep investigating - you might be right.