Methodology for 2012 Application Trends Survey

From early June to late July 2012, the Graduate Management Admission Council[R] (GMAC[R]) conducted the "Application Trends Survey", its annual survey of business school admission professionals worldwide to assess how application volume at MBA and other graduate management programs compared with that from the same period in 2011. This study is the 13th in the series of GMAC surveys that monitor application trends. To represent a cross section of the graduate management industry worldwide, GMAC invited 3,418 graduate business schools and faculties to participate in this year's survey. This included all its member schools--the majority of Graduate Management Admission Test[R] (GMAT[R]) score-receiving schools--plus other institutions that do not use the GMAT exam in their admission process. A total of 359 graduate business schools and faculties participated in this survey and submitted data for 744 graduate management programs, including 527 MBA, 193 specialized master's, and 24 doctoral programs. The MBA is represented by 145 full-time two-year, 98 full-time one-year, 137 part-time or professional, 63 executive, 55 flexible MBA, and 29 online or distance-learning programs. Master's programs are represented by several majors, including Master in Management (33), Master of Finance (39), Master of Accounting (45) programs, Master in IT Management (14), and Master in Marketing/Communication (18). Overall, 492 programs from 229 responding schools were in the United States; 114 programs from 62 schools were in Europe; 50 programs from 27 schools were in the Asia-Pacific region; 34 programs from 18 schools were in Canada; 24 programs from 4 schools were in Latin America; 13 programs from 11 schools were in Central Asia, and 17 programs from 10 responding schools were in Middle East/Africa. Geographically, the survey sample represents 46 countries worldwide and 42 states and the District of Columbia in the United States. Combined, participating programs received more than 484,385 applications during the 2012 application cycle. The survey questionnaire consisted of one main section with 29 questions which respondents were required to complete in order to qualify as a survey participant. All survey questions might not have been applicable to all responding programs. The survey was conducted online. By the response cut-off date, 744 graduate management programs from 359 business schools participated in the survey. Each school or faculty reported, on average, for 2 graduate management programs. All application numbers and trends discussed in this report refer to complete applications that contained all documents needed for making an admission decision, which were received on or about July 27, 2012 for the 2012-2013 incoming class. (Contains 2 tables.)