入学申请量持续下滑，沃顿商学院高层地震

    虽然沃顿商学院去年的入学申请人数持续减少，但今年秋入学的MBA班级的GMAT平均分却达到了创纪录的725分，比之前一年高出了7分。

    库马尔于2009年加入沃顿商学院的招生团队，担任高级副主任。对她而言，这也是一段动荡不安的经历。过去五年，沃顿商学院MBA入学申请人数减少了17.2%。库马尔曾将这种状况归因于亚洲和欧洲商学院的竞争。虽然许多竞争对手也出现了申请人数下滑的情况，但情况都没有沃顿那么严重。去年，许多商学院的申请人数都有所回升。但沃顿商学院却依然下滑了5.8%。竞争对手芝加哥布斯商学院的入学申请人数增加了10%。收入方面的竞争对手、著名的哥伦比亚商学院（Columbia Business School）增加了7%，哈佛商学院（Harvard）也增加了4%。

    更重要的是，近几年沃顿商学院招生办公室出现了一系列的失误。2010年，沃顿商学院机密的面试官指导材料以及行为面试问题泄露，一些入学咨询公司将这些资料出售给了申请者。被泄密的幻灯片中包括六个问题，跟进的提问建议，以如何对申请者的回答进行打分的详细标准。泄密事件后果是：愿意花钱接受培训的申请者将从这些顾问那里获得内幕信息，从而大大提高面试成功的可能性。而面试是横亘在申请者面前的最后一道录取障碍。

    在库马尔的影响下，沃顿商学院决定不再由二年级学生进行MBA申请的第一轮面试，此举被许多学生认为，是剥夺了他们参与录取过程的权利。据称，去年沃顿商学院对招生政策进行了大规模改革，结果是由创新副院长卡尔•T•乌尔里希、而不是库马尔公布的。此次改革在录取过程中增加了新颖的小组讨论部分，将以英语为第二语言的申请者拒之门外，或许是导致商学院申请人数下滑的原因之一。

    也有申请者私下抱怨称，新的考试要求他们在预定日期和时间返回沃顿商学院，这为远隔千里的申请者们带来了诸多不便。今年，针对申请者的问答题目招致了许多MBA入学咨询公司的讥讽。HBSGuru.com的桑迪•克瑞斯伯格形容这些题目“无聊乏味，混乱不堪。”

    他说：“即使你对客户解释了第一个问题是希望你回答，沃顿商学院在职业与个人方面能给你做些什么，第二个问题是希望你谈谈自己能给沃顿商学院带来什么，可他们还是会打趣道：‘两者有什么区别？’他们是对的，所有这些泛泛而谈的问题都在吹毛求疵，缺乏想象力，完全以沃顿商学院为中心（以不好的方式），不可能从申请者那里获取任何新鲜有趣的信息。”

    许多入学顾问认为，库马尔的辞职表明这家商学院内部存在更深层次的问题，也表明了它在全球顶尖MBA课程中的地位。沃顿商学院曾经的支柱行业是投资银行和投资管理，可如今在这些领域找到工作的学生越来越少。库马尔并不是近几年离职的唯一一位高管。去年6月份，耶鲁大学管理学院（Yale University's School of Management）挖走了沃顿一位德高望重的领导人恩贾尼•贾恩。这是沃顿的一大损失：贾恩在沃顿工作了超过26年，担任负责MBA课程的副院长已有10年时间，在学院的最后两年担任高管MBA课程副院长。

    And though applications continued to decline this past year, the MBA class that entered this fall boasts record GMAT scores -- an average of 725, up seven points from the previous year.

    Still, for Kumar, who joined Wharton's admissions staff as senior associate director in 2009, it has been a turbulent ride. In the past five years, applications to Wharton's MBA program have fallen by 17.2%. Kumar had earlier attributed the decline to new competition from B-schools in Europe and Asia. But while many rival schools also suffered declines, the falloffs have not been nearly as steep, and in the past year, applications to many peer schools have turned around. Not at Wharton, where the school had a 5.8% drop in applications. Rival Chicago Booth reported a 10% increase. Finance rival and powerhouse Columbia Business School had a 7% rise, and Harvard was also up, by a more modest 4%.

    More importantly, perhaps, there have been a series of miscues by the school's admissions office in recent years. In 2010, Wharton's confidential instructions to its alumni interviewers -- along with the behavioral interview questions -- had been leaked and were being sold to applicants by some admissions consultants. The leaked slideshow included all six questions, suggestions for follow-ups, as well as detailed guidelines for how to grade the applicants' answers. The upshot: applicants who were willing to pay for help were getting inside information that made it far more likely they would do well in the crucial interview session, the final hurdle to an acceptance.

    It was under Kumar that Wharton decided to no longer use second-year students as first readers on MBA applications, a move that some students felt disenfranchised them from the admissions process. It was telling, too, that a major change in admissions policy last year was announced not by Kumar but Karl T. Ulrich, Wharton's vice dean for innovation. That change, the introduction of a novel team-based discussion component to the admissions process, may have led to at least part of the fall in this past year's applications to Wharton, turning off applicants who speak English as a second language.

    Some applicants also privately groused that the new test required that they return to Wharton on set dates and times that were often inconvenient for them when traveling from afar. And this year, essay questions for applicants drew ridicule from some MBA admission consultants. Sandy Kreisberg of HBSGuru.com called them "dullsville made worse by confusion."

    "Even after you explain to clients that the first question wants you to talk about what Wharton can do for you, both professionally and personally, and the second one wants you to talk about what you can contribute to Wharton, they still gag and say 'what is the difference?'" he said. "They are right, of course, in the grand scheme of all possible questions, this is hairsplitting, unimaginative, Wharton-centric (in a bad way) and not likely to capture any new or interesting information about applicants."

    Some consultants believe that Kumar's departure signals deeper issues for the school and its place among the world's elite MBA programs. Fewer students are taking jobs in fields that were once Wharton's mainstay -- investment banking and investment management. And Kumar isn't the only top official to leave in recent years. In June of last year, Yale University's School of Management hired away a highly admired long-time leader at Wharton, Anjani Jain. For Wharton, it was a major loss: Jain had a career at Wharton for over 26 years, spending 10 years as vice dean of the MBA program and his final two years there as the vice dean of the MBA program for executives.