Instead of working on their resumes and interviewing for jobs, hundreds of graduating University of Memphis seniors are applying to various graduate schools.
March and April are the height of the admissions season for students hoping to start their graduate studies in the fall. Hence, many seniors are nervously checking their mail every day, awaiting their admissions decisions from a number of institutions across the country.
An uncertain economic climate has increased the interest level of many undergraduate students in pursuing graduate degrees right out of college. As Amy Nguyen, an applicant to University of North Carolina Law School said, "graduate school is the best place to spend a recession."
Complete statistics on the numbers of applications and admissions will not available until this summer, but many sources point to an increase in the number of applications to graduate schools this year.
Over the past year, the number of test takers for the GMAT (a standardized test used in business school admissions) has increased by 25 percent, while the number of test takers for the GRE (a standardized test used in law school admissions) has increased by 17 percent. Generally, when more people take admissions tests, more people apply to graduate schools.
Alex Brown, the associate dean of admissions at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business, said applications at his school are trending slightly above last year, when a record number of applications were received.
As more applicants apply for a fixed number of slots, the percentage of applicants accepted drops and fewer than one in eight applicants are expected to be admitted to the program Brown oversees.
Students, too, have been abuzz with talk of more competition for slots in graduate school. Many students still in school see competition from recent graduates whose once-hot jobs at dot-com companies have turned sour.
Senior U of M student Tasha Clark said she was accepted to the University of Texas at Austin.
"I am excited about going to pursue a graduate degree next fall," Clark said. "Not all of my school friends have been able to get into the graduate programs they have wanted. It's tough out there with so many applicants who already have work experience."
The interest is particularly strong in business and law. Several years ago, with record high job and salary growth, law and business schools saw a substantial drop in the number of applications received. This year the trend is reversing.
Apparently, however, the increase in applicant interest in graduate schools may not fully have made its way to The U of M.
"I've been in this field for many years, and based on my experience, it is usually the case that a downturn in the economy brings a lot more people to the doors of business schools," said Felicia Hartfield, an admissions officer at the Fogelman College of Business at The U of M. "However, applications at the Fogelman School have been down this year, both for the full-time and the evening programs. Perhaps we have not felt the full brunt of the economic downturn yet, and we will see many more applicants next fall."
The U of M School of Law is the most competitive of all graduate programs, with approximately 900 applicants each year for 150 slots in the entering class. Other graduate schools have considerably higher admission rates and are generally favorable to all students with satisfactory grades and admissions test scores.
