by Carlotta Mast

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Many business schools are working actively to attract more women and people of color, through outreach programs and scholarships. MBA admissions professionals are also aggressively recruiting students from outside the United States to make their classrooms more diverse.

At Purdue University’s Krannert School of Management, for example, a full-time staff member is assigned to organizing scholarships, mentoring programs, and campus visits for the school’s minority students and prospects. Krannert also offers scholarship opportunities and hosts outreach events for women and international students.

This fall, Cornell’s Johnson School launched a program called Johnson Means Business, through which the school brought in 23 people of color from around the country who showed potential for succeeding in the Johnson MBA program. The prospects had three days to socialize with students, meet faculty members, and bond with the school and one another. Since that weekend, 12 of the students have applied to Johnson, and the school’s admissions office remains in contact with all of the participants via the Internet to answer questions and offer guidance.

Supported by an army of corporations, including Dell, Deloitte Consulting, and Goldman Sachs, the University of Michigan Business School recently created a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing funds and support for women to go to business school. The group plans to offer hundreds of scholarships, host recruiting events throughout the United States, and coordinate summer internship opportunities for female MBA students.

The hope is that these efforts will begin to bring more diversity into the MBA community and, ultimately, the corporate world, where the picture these days is still mostly male and monochromatic.

“There are not enough women or minorities running our Fortune 500 companies or even participating in corporate America,” Cornell’s Noble-Grange says. “The customer base and labor force that we have in this country right now is very diverse. So to be able to sell well to your customers and be good managers to your employees, you need to have diversity throughout the company, including at the very top.” //

Carlotta Mast, a freelance contributor to Selections, has also written for Business Week online and Working Woman magazine. Her article “The Art of Admissions” appears in the spring 2002 issue of Selections.

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