Women Making Progress in Enrollments in MBA Programs

A new report from the Forte Foundation finds that women are making progress in enrollments in MBA programs. The Forte Foundation, headquartered in Austin, Texas, was established in 2001 by a group of multinational corporations, leading business schools, and the Graduate Management Admission Council to address the underrepresentation of women in graduate enrollments at business schools. Today, the foundation has 51 member business schools, 39 in the United States, four in Canada, and eight in Europe.

The report finds that women now make up 37.4 percent of the total enrollments at member schools. This is up from 33.4 percent in 2013. Now there are 14 business schools where women make up at least 40 percent of all enrollments. In 2013, there were only two business schools where women were 40 percent of total enrollments. This year, there are 26 business schools were women were 35 percent or more of the total enrollments. This is up from 12 business schools in 2013.

Leading the list are Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and the George Washington University School of Business, where women make up 45 percent of all business school enrollments.

Member business schools have awarded more than $142 million in scholarships to Forte Fellows since the program’s inception in an effort to improve gender diversity at their institutions. For this year’s entering class, 1,300 women were named Forte Fellows.