120 MBA Scholarships Up For Grabs at Arizona State

By offering a free route into a reputable MBA program (the full-time ASU MBA ranks just outside the top 50 in North America in QS’s regional MBA rankings and just inside the top 50 when looking to the US alone) the school is, of course, hoping to enhance its appeal among talented prospective students in what is an increasingly competitive business school market in the US.

However, it also wants to bring in students with backgrounds and career aspirations that are more likely to be hindered by the cost of an MBA, such as people looking to launch a startup or those with their sights set on working in the nonprofit sector.

“We’re very hopeful that we’ll get more high-quality applicants as a result of this program, and the kinds of people who might think they can’t pursue a top MBA program,” said the W. P. Carey School’s dean, Amy Hillman.

Tuition fees for those entering the full-time ASU MBA this year ranged from US$54,000 for in-state residents of Arizona to US$90,000 for international students. The class of 2017, incidentally, is 24% international and 30% female. Its acceptance rate this year was 31%, with those who ultimately enrolled holding an average of around five years’ prior work experience and an average GMAT score of 672. It will be interesting to see how much this level of competition might change if the prospect of MBA scholarships for all brings in a greater volume of applications than the 443 seen this year.

Alongside the scholarship initiative, the W.P. Carey School has also announced changes to the full-time MBA curriculum. Four new courses will be added to supplement the core requirements of an MBA, beginning with the fully-funded cohort that will enter the school next fall.

These courses aim to make the MBA more relevant to the real world of business. They include a mentoring component provided by the school’s ‘executives-in-residence’ as well as project work that will see ASU MBAs teamed up with non-business master’s students at the university to see if they can work together effectively. 

The curriculum redesign and MBA scholarships come with the name Forward Focus, the funding for which, according to the school, stems primarily from the US$50 million received from the now late real-estate investor William Polk Carey – for whom the W. P. Carey School is named – back in 2003.

Hillman said that those receiving next year’s MBA scholarships would be encouraged to follow the example of the school’s benefactor and to form part of a new culture of giving at ASU as they progress in their careers:

“What we’re hoping to engender in the students is that this is like an ‘angel investor’ who has invested in them as opposed to an enterprise, and as they go out to be successful in whatever walks of life, they will make this opportunity available to those students who come behind them.”