Earlier this week, a piece in the New York Times reported that the job market seems to be stabilizing for business school students. “There’s reason for students to be optimistic,” says Tracy Handler, a spokeswoman for the MBA Career Services Council, an association of business school career advisers.

“Any signs of recovery are modest. But business schools are looking ahead and seeing a light at the end of what is now a pretty short tunnel.”

Business students everywhere are finding banking jobs and internships; the number of banks interviewing at Darden School of Business this year increased 20%, and the number of job offers so far has risen 33%, the school tells the Times. At the Duke Fuqua School of Business, meanwhile, the career office reported last month that the number of students with investment banking internships had doubled compared with last year.

“Ironically, this can be a superb time to enter banking,” Jeff Fischer, the director of career management at UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School, tells the Times. “The MBA population is like the end of a whip. When cycles swing up and down, students are the ones who swing up and down the most in terms of employment.”

It may be premature to predict hiring results, since job offers continue throughout the spring, but the general mood about banking jobs is quite optimistic. Wall Street’s bad rap is slowly fading away, becoming a dream destination for B-school students once more.

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AdCom has completed its review of R2 applicants and admit decisions will post on March 15th, Ross School of Business Director of Admissions, Soojin Kwon Koh, wrote in the Admissions Blog Tuesday.

In the post, Soojin explains a little bit about the decision-making process and debunks the persistent belief that one single component–be it GMAT score, interview or essays–will make or break your chances.

“Part of the reason for my reviewing some applications multiple times is that decisions are made relative to other applicants. We may have initially decided one thing, and then after reviewing more applications, changed the initial decision. It is a very iterative process, and it is, by nature, partly subjective.

My goal in making these decisions is to make sure that the incoming class is not just smart, but is also a good fit at Ross and will bring something unique to our community,” Soojin writes.

Many highly qualified applicants will therefore land on the Ross waitlist, along with those still waitlisted from R1. But admit calls will begin this week, Soojin assures, in an effort to accommodate some of the admitted student events Ross has planned around the world starting next week.

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If you are feeling stumped by your application essays and need some additional guidance, check out our NEW series of essay guides for MBA applications. Columbia, Harvard, Kellogg, Stanford and Wharton available now. They are seriously terrific and we are proud to say that almost every person who has ordered one has come back for more!

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The Round 3 deadline at UCLA Anderson School of Management is just around the corner on March 17th, so if you’d like the opportunity for some virtual “face time” with Mae Jennifer Shores, assistant dean of admissions and financial aid, here’s your chance.

A webinar will take place Thursday, March 11th from 5 to 6 PM (PST). Join in to learn the finer points of the UCLA Anderson MBA program, and get all your last-minute questions answered regarding what admissions officers look for in successful MBA applicants.

Register for the UCLA Anderson online information session here.

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If you are feeling stumped by your application essays and need some additional guidance, check out our NEW series of essay guides for MBA applications. Columbia, Harvard, Kellogg, Stanford and Wharton available now. They are seriously terrific and we are proud to say that almost every person who has ordered one has come back for more!

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Today is the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day, so it’s only fitting to check in on the state of women and the MBA. Ben Lopel’s recent piece in the UK digital media site, Exec Digital, takes a look at two prominent surveys which show that more women than ever see business school and corporate careers as a viable option.

Both the 2009 QS TopMBA.com Applicant Survey and the GMAC Alumni Perspectives Survey 2010 show a marked increase in the number of women applying to and graduating from B-school.

Lopel quotes Ross Geraghty, co-author of the QS TopMBA.com Applicant Report, who said: “The proportion of women attending the QS World MBA Tour annually has increased year on year since records began. These figures are supported by the fact that, for the first time, more than 100,000 GMAT takers in 2009 were women. This proves two things, firstly that business school is more popular than ever before, in general, and that women have become motivated and inspired by their female peers to achieve the same business success.”

MBA.com, the official GMAT website, indicates that 40% of GMAT test takers are women. But despite the numbers, some lingering trends remain. According to MBA.com, admissions officers say there are still many myths which keep women from applying to B-school.

The notion that an MBA is only for those who want to work for a big corporation, or the perception that the business school culture is not supportive of women, are just two mental hurdles today’s women need to overcome.

Zoya Zaitseva, Regional Marketing Director at QS, points out a more serious problem. “Unfortunately, women still continue to believe that they will receive lower salaries than their male colleagues: only 32 percent of women, compared with 43 percent of men, expect to earn more than $100,000 per year after graduation.”

But changes in the educational landscape are afoot. Last month, BusinessWeek’s Alison Damast reported on the growing interest in business programs at women’s colleges. Currently 44 such schools offer a business management curriculum, according to the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB)–viewed by many in the management education world as the gold standard for B-school approval, Damast writes.

“I think women’s colleges, like all other colleges and universities, are looking very closely at a number of market-driven variables and making sure that their programs are reflecting the needs of what today’s students are looking for,” says Susan E. Lennon, executive director of the Women’s College Coalition.

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If you are feeling stumped by your application essays and need some additional guidance, check out our NEW series of essay guides for MBA applications. Columbia, Harvard, Kellogg, Stanford and Wharton available now. They are seriously terrific and we are proud to say that almost every person who has ordered one has come back for more!

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