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| Where are the Women in MBA Programs? | Do you see graduate school in your future? For the duration of these hard times, you may imagine yourself back on campus sooner rather than later. Recessions do have a tendency to fuel grad school applications. Finally, what better place to wait out the economy and avoid the gaping pit of joblessness?
 In some way grad school can be a cure-all for many ills: it can jump-start or re-direct a obstinately off-track career. It can give you a place to hang out while you figure out what you want to be when you grow up, law school, a three-year degree, offers an even longer alternative; and it can transform your personal life as you vault into a new career. Even during uncertain times there is certainty in knowing that after two years in school you can emerge reborn as a professional with a spanking new identity, prescribed career track, and a solid alumni network.
Regardless of the huge appeal of graduate school, be it as an escape from bad times or as your true, chosen path, MBA programs have remained a problematic choice for many women. Female employment at law, medical, and veterinary schools now hovers at, or near, the 50 percent mark. So, raises the question - what's up with business schools? Why did female employment at business schools stagnate around 30 percent?
Even in the best of times, business schools have struggled to attract women. Is it due to the unique challenges women face in building and sustaining their careers over a lifetime of choices, both professional and personal, or is there another reason? Obviously, an MBA presents many opportunities, but, for women, do these opportunities outweigh any potential upset to their already delicate balancing acts?
• Thinking of Family
Start with biology as in biological clocks. Since a requirement for admission to many business programs is prior work experience, business school students typically start a bit older than their law or med school counterparts do. Indeed, the standard starting age for full-time MBA students is 28. Therefore, by the time graduation rolls around, MBA students are heading into their thirties - a prime time for marriage and children. But that timing couldn't be worse for some women.
Fresh MBAs are just starting to gather the rewards of their business school investments by scoring brand new, mid-to-senior level jobs. By means of jobs come ever-greater demands and time pressures. Though, the pressure to have a personal life for many is just as great. Such categories of competing priorities are the very headaches women hope to avoid. MBA jobs at the senior level, making matters worse, can vault women into cultures that may still be dominated by old-school thinking and a culture that, perhaps, may be less tolerant of balancing work commitments with family.
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