By Jessica Kehr
We need women, women and more women.
MBA programs all over the country are making a plea in recruiting and seemingly falling all over themselves for more women to join their programs.
BYU”s Marriott School is no different, with women making up 15 percent of this year”s class, according to U.S. News and World Report.
The J. Reuben Clark Law School at BYU is registered with U.S. News and World report as having 32 percent of its class women.
“Any graduate school will take as many women as they can get,” said Debbie Ruse, director of Admissions for the Marriott School”s MBA program. “They are always looking for more women.”
As the need for women in these graduate programs increase, so do the incentives for women to go on in school.
“With an MBA and two years of job experience, I had more professional choices. My work could be molded around my personal life with fewer sacrifices,” said Kimberlee Pearson, class of 1993, vice president of technical services, in a brochure provided by the Marriott School, “Women and the MBA.”
Ruse went on to list more advantages for women to get their MBA. She said the degree would make women more marketable, they would have more flexible hours and they would receive higher salaries.
Some women may not have the time or desire to continue on in school. Work experience is required for two years after getting a bachelor”s degree and some women may not want to wait that long.
“The window of opportunity is different for women,” Ruse said. “This gets harder because the majority of them at this point want to get married and they don”t want to go back to the MBA program because they want to be with their family.”
For this reason, women may not dominate BYU”s MBA program, but they continue to be recruited and promised more benefits in their professional life if they participate in the program.
“MBA students at BYU are in a better position to understand other cultures and nations than any set of students I have encountered. Recruiters see BYU as the place to find leadership talent with a vital global perspective,” said Ned C. Hill, dean of the Marriott School in the “Women and the MBA” brochure.
