Women’s MBA Enrollment Rises to 38% in 2018 — First U.S. Business School Reaches Gender Parity Milestone, Forté Foundation Finds

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On Average, U.S. Schools Have Higher Percentage of Women MBAs, But Enrollment Abroad Declines

(Austin, TX, November 14, 2018) – Forté Foundation announced women’s enrollment in full-time MBA programs at its member schools – which represent the top business schools in the US and abroad continued to climb in 2018 to almost 38% on average, with one school reaching gender parity this year.

• In the last five years, women’s enrollment at Forté Foundation member schools has steadily gained each year, on average. In one sign of progress, this fall, more than one third of schools (19 of 52 schools surveyed) had 40% or more women enrolled, up from only three schools that reached this milestone in the fall of 2014.
• The University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business led the group and achieved gender parity this year (52%) – the first Forté Foundation member school to do so. Three additional schools got close: Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management (46%), Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business (45%) and Imperial College Business School (45%).
• Also, more than half (29 schools) are at 35% or more women enrolled, more than double from 14schools in 2014.
• On average, women’s enrollment increased year over year at U.S. schools by close to 1% (38.7% in 2018 up from 37.8% in 2017). The opposite is true for Forté Foundation member schools abroad, which saw a decline (from 36.2% last fall, to 35.1% this fall). This reverses a trend Forté reported last year, which saw greater gains in women’s enrollment at schools abroad (almost 3.5%) than in the U.S. (less than 1%) from 2016 to 2017.
• In the last five years, women’s enrollment at business schools both in the U.S. and abroad combined increased to 37.8%, on average, in the fall of 2018 up 4.2% from 33.6% five years ago in the fall of 2014. In the last year, women’s enrollment inched up slightly (less than 1%) from 37.4% last year.

“While the number of Fortune 500 women CEOs has declined in the last year, it’s heartening to see women’s enrollment in business school continues to increase, albeit at a slower pace than last year,” said Elissa Sangster, Forté Foundation CEO. “We continue to aim for 40% women’s enrollment by 2020 at our member schools as an MBA provides an economic mobility engine for women, and helps build the pipeline of women leaders. And countless research shows that having more women in senior leadership improves corporate financial performance.” Forté Foundation is a non-profit consortium of leading multinational corporations, top business schools in the US and abroad, and the Graduate Management Admission Council. It was called to action by a landmark research study, Women and the MBA: Gateway to Opportunity, that looked at why women are underrepresented in top business schools compared with medical or law schools. Forté Foundation was launched in 2001 to address this inequity and its impact on the business landscape, and grew to 25 member schools in 2005 in the US. Today it includes 53 member schools: 39 in the US, four in Canada and 11 in Europe. (IMD, which just joined Forté Foundation, was not included in this year’s survey.) Forté Foundation has introduced numerous initiatives since its launch 17 years ago to close the gender gap in pursuing careers in business and an MBA. Examples include the Forté MBA Women’s Leadership Conference, attended by hundreds of women MBAs and top companies annually, and the Forté College to Business Leadership Conference, designed for undergraduate freshmen and sophomore women to introduce them to career opportunities and top companies that offer summer internships and entry level opportunities for college graduates. Scholarships awarded to Forté Fellows have also been key to increasing the number of women MBAs, climbing from 33 scholarships in 2003 to over 1,500 scholarships for the incoming class of 2018 and another 1,300 scholarships for second year students. Since 2003, Forté Foundation sponsor schools have awarded over $180 million in scholarships to Forté Fellows. In recent years, Forté Foundation has also introduced new initiatives to help build the female MBA and business leadership pipelines and enhance diversity and inclusiveness of women in business:

• Forté launched the Men As Allies Initiative in late 2016 to help male students benefit from, and get involved in, enhancing gender equity on business school campuses and to take that experience back to the business world.
• Its “Rising Star” pilot initiative, launched on 10 US undergraduate campuses in September 2015 has expanded to now include 30 schools, and is designed to help undergraduate women become well informed about their many career options, including in business, and to compete for top jobs.
• The Forté College Fast Track to Finance Conference was launched in 2015, benefitting women specifically interested in exploring financial careers.
• Another signature effort is its MBALaunch, a hands-on 10-month program that provides guidance, resources and ongoing feedback on the business school application process, including monthly webinars, peer group meetings and feedback from experienced advisors.

The following 19 Forté member business schools have 40% or higher women’s enrollment (16 in the US, 2 in Europe, 1 in Canada):

• Arizona State University (W. P. Carey School of Business) – US
• Columbia Business School – US
• Dartmouth College (Tuck School of Business) – US
• Duke University (Fuqua School of Business) - US
• Georgia Tech (Scheller College of Business) - US
• Harvard Business School – US
• Imperial College Business School – UK
• London Business School – UK
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Sloan School of Management) – US
• Northwestern University (Kellogg School of Management) – US
• University of California Berkeley (Haas School of Business) – US
• The University of Chicago (Booth School of Business) – US
• University of Michigan (Ross School of Business) – US
• University of Pennsylvania (Wharton)– US
• University of Southern California (Marshall School of Business) - US
• University of Washington (Foster School of Business) – US
• Washington University in St. Louis (Olin Business School) – US
• Yale School of Management – US
• York University (Schulich School of Business) – Canada

FORTÉ SPONSORS Forté Sponsor Companies: A.T. Kearney; Accenture; Amazon; American Airlines; AT&T; Bank of America Merrill Lynch; Barclays; Bloomberg; Boston Consulting Group; Capital Group; Cargill; CarVal Investors; Chevron; Citi; Cognizant; Credit Suisse; DaVita; Deloitte; Deutsche Bank; The Dow Chemical Company; Eli Lilly and Company; Evercore; ExxonMobil; EY; Goldman Sachs; Google; Greystar; Guggenheim Partners; Hines; IBM Global Business Services; Invesco; JP Morgan; KPMG; Lazard; Liberty Mutual; Macquarie Group; MASCO Corporation; McKinsey & Company; Morgan Stanley; MUFG; PIMCO; The PNC Financial Services Group; Prologis; State Street; T-Mobile; US Cellular; Vanguard; Walmart; Wells Fargo Securities; Whirlpool Corporation Forté Nonprofit Sponsors: 100 Women in Finance; CFA Institute; CFP Board; Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) Forté Business School Sponsors: Alliance Manchester Business School; Arizona State University W.P. Carey School of Business; Babson College (F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business); Carnegie Mellon University (Tepper School of Business); Columbia Business School; Cornell University (SC Johnson College of Business); Dartmouth College (Tuck School of Business); Duke University (The Fuqua School of Business); Emory University (Goizueta Business School); ESADE Business School; Georgetown University (McDonough School of Business); George Washington University School of Business; Georgia Tech (Scheller College of Business); Harvard Business School; HEC-Paris; IE Business School; IESE Business School; IMD; Imperial College Business School; Indiana University - Bloomington (Kelley School of Business); INSEAD; London Business School; Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Sloan); Michigan State University (Broad College of Business); New York University (Stern School of Business); Northwestern University (Kellogg School of Management); Ohio State University Fisher College of Business; Queen’s Smith School of Business; Rice University Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business; Southern Methodist University (Cox School of Business); University of California - Berkeley (Haas School of Business); University of California - Los Angeles (Anderson School of Management); University of Cambridge (Judge Business School); University of Chicago (Booth School of Business); University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (Gies College of Business); University of Maryland Smith School of Business; University of Michigan (Ross School of Business); University of Minnesota - Twin Cities (Carlson School of Management); University of North Carolina (Kenan-Flagler Business School); University of Notre Dame (Mendoza College of Business); University of Oxford (Saïd Business School); University of Pennsylvania (The Wharton School); University of Rochester (Simon School of Business); University of Southern California (Marshall School of Business); University of Texas at Austin (McCombs School of Business); University of Toronto (Rotman School of Management); University of Virginia (Darden School of Business); University of Washington (Foster School of Business); Vanderbilt University Owen Graduate School of Management; Washington University in St. Louis (Olin Business School); Western University (Ivey School of Management); Yale School of Management; York University (Schulich School of Business) ABOUT FORTÉ Forté is a nonprofit organization with the goal of achieving gender parity at all levels of business. Forté works closely with business schools, corporations, and universities to ensure women have access to opportunities at every stage in their careers. Forté offers a wide variety of resources, including MBA prep, professional development, leadership education, and a diverse community of successful women. For more information, visit fortefoundation.org. Media contacts: Michele Vana, BCW Global, michele.vana@bcw-global.com; Katie Stanfield, Forté Foundation, katies@fortefoundation.org Download the PDF