Rutgers’ Class of 2016 Makes Interesting Gender Parity Case: MBA News

Rutgers Business School, Newark and New Brunswick last week announced that its full-time MBA class of 2016 was 51% female.

In so doing, the school succeeded in achieving gender parity for its classroom at a time when most other US institutions’ class of 2016 pointed to underwhelming progress in raising female student numbers.

There were some notable exceptions, and an encouraging 40% high recorded in MIT Sloan’s class of 2016 was partially attributed to the school’s ongoing efforts to make talented female professionals see the value of its MBA program.

However, Rutgers Business School had no particular initiative set up to achieve gender parity.

Instead, it seems the school’s relatively small class size might lie behind this year’s figures – with 79 students in its class this year, whereas numbers upwards of 200 are the norm elsewhere.

It is easier to bring an average up among smaller numbers, and perhaps this in itself goes a long way in explaining how a rise from 39% to 51% in Rutgers’ class of 2016 might have been possible. Indeed, the school came close to gender parity as far back as 2007, when it had a 48% female class.

But, Rutgers Business School has suggested that its smaller size helps make it a more attractive proposition for prospective female MBAs.

Rutgers Business School cites supportive atmosphere

Rita Galen, assistant dean and director of graduate admissions at the school told Businessweek that some of the larger elite schools might come across as intimidating to women keen on carving out their own place at business school.  

But, why should female MBAs be any less up for the challenge of competing in a large group of high achievers?

Businessweek suggested that the average GMAT score (646) among the school’s class of 2016 could have been critical. Considerably lower than the oft-cited 700 threshold, this would mean a larger pool of female candidates to select from, it reasoned. However, this lower GMAT requirement must also have been the case in 2013 when only 39% of its students were female.    

What Galen seemed to have meant when talking about class size was that the smaller numbers at Rutgers Business School could be helping the school to be perceived as having a relaxed and friendly campus environment.

"Women can really stand out here. They can be heads of clubs. They can be heads of the teams in case competitions. They can also be leaders in student government,” she said in a press release.

Regardless of the role played by student numbers, Galen believes that Rutgers “is a place where women are respected and supported and it’s a place where they feel like they can compete with men.”

It will be interesting to see if the school does have some kind of magic formula for gender parity, but for this we’ll have to wait and see if it can maintain this year’s female MBA student numbers over a prolonged period of time.