More Students To Enter Fall HBS Class

This fall, Harvard Business School (HBS) will see its largest influx of new MBA students in several years, according to HBS spokesperson Loretto Crane.

The increased class size is the result of a change in admissions procedure announced last May.

HBS officials said they would admit students only in September of each school year, breaking with their six-year-long practice of admitting students in two separate cohorts--one in September and one in January.

Under the previous system, students who began school in January would study for four consecutive terms--including a three-month summer semester--and graduate a year and a half later. Students admitted in September would take a summer break, finishing in two years.

About two thirds of the student body chose to enter in September, while one third entered in January.

The old system was replaced because its benefits no longer warranted the added cost to the school and its faculty. The entire first-year program had to be run twice a year and tied up resources, The Crimson reported last spring.

The MBA class size has grown by about 90 students under the new system, which accounts for the large numbers slated to enter HBS this fall, Crane said.

Harbus, the HBS student newspaper, reported Monday that the size of the class on campus next fall will mark more than a 50 percent jump over the number of students who have entered the school each fall for the past six years.

But Crane said the story was misleading.

She said that while students may see the increase as a significant change, for administrators it is merely a "return to the norm."

"Students have no institutional memory," Crane said. "But most of the administration is used to class sizes like this. It'll be business as usual."

--Staff writer Daniela J. Lamas can be reached at lamas@fas.harvard.edu.