More women than ever are considering pursuing an MBA, which has led to some unexpected pipeline trends revealed by the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) in this month’s Graduate Management News.

GMAC has reported that the number of GMAT tests taken by women surpassed 100,000 for the first time ever last year. Exams taken by women in the testing year ending June 30, 2009 represented 39.5% of all exams taken, a figure that has changed only one percentage point in 10 years.

However, Lamia Walker, GMAC regional director for Europe, Middle East and Asia,  points out some major shifts by region, age, and career intent. “When we break down gender distribution by regional citizenship, we find a wide range – from 56.1 percent of exams in Eastern Europe to just 24.6 percent in Central Asia,” she says.

(source: Graduate Management Admission Council)

Key findings from the 2010 mba.com Registrants Survey Report indicate that:

Schools need to recruit women sooner. The average woman first considers business school less than two years after finishing her undergraduate degree, almost nine months earlier than the average man. Women also sit for the GMAT exam sooner than men and submit their first business school application more rapidly than male counterparts.

Women typically submit fewer applications. Female applicants considering full-time MBA programs submitted an average of 2.4 applications, compared with 3.0 for men. Women in Central Asia and in Asia Pacific submitted the greatest number of applications on average, 3.7 and 3.3 respectively.

Don’t write off the female quants. Female prospective students are more likely than men to consider MA/MS in Accounting programs, and the average number of submitted applications reported by women to any graduate management education program type is highest among those applying to MA/MS Finance programs (3.2 applications on average in 2009).

The survey report found numerous differences between men and women when it comes to preferred study location, financing plans, information sources, business school preferences and employment outcome, as well as significant differences by gender in the skills that prospective students hope to improve in business school.

Armed with this information, MBA programs should be able to more effectively outreach to talented female applicants.

The B-school application process is in the midst of a transformation of sorts, with earlier deadlines, a growing number of programs accepting the GRE,  and the introduction of audio and video components that help AdCom get a better feel for the person behind the paper.

Francesca Di Meglio’s reporting of this revamp Monday in BusinessWeek singled out University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business and the UCLA Anderson School of Management as the leaders in creating innovative MBA applications.

The PowerPoint presentation, used at Booth for the past few cycles, has enabled applicants to show another side of themselves and demonstrate how they navigate ambiguity through various frameworks and strategies. However, admissions may eliminate such presentations starting with applications for the 2010-2011 academic year.

Rose Martinelli, associate dean of student recruitment and admissions at Booth, told BusinessWeek the PowerPoint slides became rote and entirely too easy to predict. They didn’t showcase the applicant’s personality and help the admissions committee determine who is and isn’t a good fit, she explained.

Today, on her blog The Rose Report, Martinelli further clarified the issue. The admissions committee is in the process of thinking through each of the different application components, and this may be the end of the presentation requirement in its current form, she explains. No final decisions about next year’s application have been made, however.

“Again, our focus is not on creating a clever or ‘gimmicky’ application, but one that provides candidates the opportunity to convey the most relevant information that helps us to assess fit  in our selection process,” Martinelli writes.

Despite it all, she says the PowerPoint presentation has been an incredibly successful part of identifying students who are a great fit for Booth. Stay tuned to see how the program will use innovation to capture an applicant’s essence in next year’s application.

* * * * *

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!

We are on Facebook – join the Stacy Blackman Consulting group, or become a friend of Stacy Blackman.

I am on Twitter too…click to follow me on Twitter! www.twitter.com/stacyblackman

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.

* * * * *

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!

We are on Facebook – join the Stacy Blackman Consulting group, or become a friend of Stacy Blackman.

I am on Twitter too…click to follow me on Twitter! www.twitter.com/stacyblackman

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.

* * * * *

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!

We are on Facebook – join the Stacy Blackman Consulting group, or become a friend of Stacy Blackman.

I am on Twitter too…click to follow me on Twitter! www.twitter.com/stacyblackman