1. Excepting Israel, business schools in the Middle East are receiving increased percentages of applications from students living in the region, which is in line with the worldwide trend of more applicants seeking acceptance from schools located in the region in which the students live.
2. The percentage of students in the Middle East that chooses to apply to the United States for graduate management education is lower than in other world regions. Instead, Middle Eastern students tend to seek acceptance in countries like the United Kingdom, Spain, and the Netherlands.

Does this say anything larger about the state of openness within and outside the region? Or does it rather suggest that the Middle East, like the rest of the world, is simply moving toward more regionally-based education? At the moment, we cannot be certain. Future statistics may shed more light on these questions.

Overall, two out of every three applicants to PhD programs in Business are international students. The impressive breadth and diversity of the applicant pool increases the difficulty of acceptance into these highly competitive programs. In 2007, the average acceptance rate to doctoral business programs was 13%, making these programs the most difficult business management program to get into.

However, the PhD programs are the only exception from all the graduate management programs in terms of application volumes in 2007 – they have not experienced the same strong growth as witnessed by all other programs. In short, the percentage of PhD applicants among all business management program applicants is decreasing. This can be evidenced by the marked increase in applications to part-time MBA, EMBA and flexibleMBA programs which are particularly attractive to foreign nationals.

Let us take a look at the 2007 statistics released by the GMAC in reference to gender representation. In part-time MBA programs, women represent 37% of the total. In full-time MBA programs, just 27% of MBA students are women. In EMBA programs, a meager 22% of students are women. Though women represent a larger percentage of the student body in non-MBA management education including undergraduate and master’s programs, it is still the case that in all categories women represent a minority of applicants.

Though overall far fewer women than men pursue Graduate Management Education, numbers of women applicants are on the rise. In 2007, applications from women increased overall. These increases are in large part due to greater recruitment efforts. 56% of full-time MBA and 78% of EMBA programs are actively recruiting among women. Such recruitment seems to have a direct correlation to increases in the volume of women applicants.