Business is bad on Wall Street, and business schools across the country are bracing for the impact: A surge in applications this year to their full-time M.B.A. programs.

With financial markets in turmoil, the economy slowing down and Wall Street undergoing a profound structural change, many people are deciding that now is a good time to head back to school. Some would-be students are the victim of layoffs roiling the financial industry. Others think their jobs could disappear soon. Even some applicants whose jobs are currently stable are deciding that it makes sense to go for a graduate degree now -- since promotions and new opportunities could be hard to find in the next few years.

Schools don't have application tallies yet -- as deadlines for the first round of admissions are in mid-October for most top-tier schools -- but many already are reporting big increases in interest.

New York University Stern School of Business reports a 30% increase in attendance at off-site information sessions this year. Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management has had a 22% increase in applications so far. University of Chicago Graduate School of Business says it is seeing significant increases in inquiries online and attendance at information sessions. And University of Michigan Ross School of Business says that campus visits by prospective students have more than doubled.

People are also registering for the Graduate Management Admission Test in greater numbers this year. According to the Graduate Management Admission Council, a McLean, Va.-based membership organization of 165 graduate business schools, U.S. GMAT registration volume for the first nine months of this year totaled 129,902, up 5.1% from the same period last year. Veritas Prep, a test preparation and graduate-admissions consulting company, says its GMAT test-preparation registration has gone up 50% since June.

The numbers underscore a trend that has occurred in previous economic downturns. Graduate admissions are countercyclical -- meaning that they move in the opposite direction of the economic cycle, business schools and economists say. 'When you look back over the last several decades, there is a strong correlation between changes in graduate-school enrollment and changes in the unemployment rate,' says Linda Barrington, research director and labor economist at the Conference Board, a New York business research group. The unemployment rate stayed flat at 6.1% in September from August.

But the severity of the financial crisis and the demise and consolidation of financial powerhouses that in previous years have nabbed top talent at schools across the country make this year's flight to business school different. When this year's M.B.A. applicants graduate, they will enter a dramatically different Wall Street and potentially smaller job market that has been altered by the ripple effects of the credit crunch.

'The demand for managing money and the demand for banking skills, that's going to be here,' says Stacey Kole, deputy dean for the full-time M.B.A. program at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. But 'it may migrate to different firms.' Ms. Kole says the school is seeing more boutique firms recruit on campus, as well as employers in other sectors recruiting for finance jobs. 'People who may have gone to Wall Street will go to Main Street in a finance role,' she says.

This year's newly minted graduates already encountered a tougher job market. At the University of Chicago, the percentage of 2008 graduates that either had offers or had already accepted them dropped roughly three percentage points from the previous year, Ms. Kole says.

Indeed, schools say not knowing what the job market will look like upon graduation could deter some prospective applicants who have stable jobs from applying. 'If you are in a good position and you are not confident of how the picture is going to look two years from now, you may stay in that position,' says Peter Johnson, executive director of admissions for the full-time M.B.A. program at the University of California Berkeley Haas School of Business.

Some applicants are taking their chances. Scott Valins, a former residential-mortgage-company owner, started thinking about business school when the credit crunch worsened in late 2007. Now, he wants to get a job in capital markets at an asset-management firm after graduating. 'I might have to be patient after school and take a slightly more indirect path to get to my goal, but I have faith in the overall system,' he says.

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Other graduate schools are also expecting increases in applicants. There were 28,939 Law School Admission Tests, or LSATs, administered last June, up 15.3% from a year ago, according to the Law School Admission Council, a membership association of 212 law schools. Kaplan Test Prep & Admissions is seeing an increase this year in registration for practice LSAT and Graduate Record Examination tests, as well as graduate-admissions seminars and workshops.

Some people in finance jobs have left for degrees in other fields. Manal Dia, 24, had deferred admission to Massachusetts Institute of Technology's electrical-engineering and computer-science Master's program for two years to work as an analyst in the fixed-income-research division at Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. This year was her last chance to enroll without having to apply again. She quit her job to attend MIT just a couple of weeks before Lehman's September bankruptcy filing. 'I left the company having felt that this is not the best of years to be in finance and that it was a good year to go get a degree,' Ms. Dia says.

Also a factor for students to consider this year: The credit crunch has roiled the market for student loans. In the past year, 144 education lenders have suspended private and federal loans, according to Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of FinAid.org, who has been following the developments.

Still, Mr. Kantrowitz says business-school students should be able to find loans. Many lenders, he says, have suspended loans for undergraduate and continuing education students but not graduate loans. For lenders, 'graduate student loans are the most profitable because the loan balances are the highest,' he says. But students may face tighter credit requirements in getting private loans and pay higher interest rates.

M.B.A. applicants will also likely find the competition for spots particularly fierce this year. While the number of applicants is expected to rise, most schools say their number of slots will stay the same. 'I'm going to have to work a lot harder to get into the school I want,' says Kunal Das,louboutin pas cher, 25, a search media strategist at Microsoft Corp. in New York.

Mr. Das is applying to three to five top-tier M.B.A. programs this year. He plans to highlight in his application experience that may help set him apart from financial-services refugees who are applying -- namely his two years in advertising at Microsoft and the businesses he launched in college.

To be sure, business schools say they have seen a rising number of applications for the past few years for a number of reasons other than the job market. They attribute the trend to demographics: according to the Census Bureau, last year, there were an estimated 21 million people ages 25 to 29, up from 18.8 million in 2002. M.B.A. programs are also seeing a rise in international applicants and younger applicants with fewer years of work experience.

Those who applied for business school in response to the 2001 recession caution that applicants should be sure they aren't just doing it because of job-market conditions. 'This is an investment,' says Colin Gallagher, who was laid off from a start-up in late 2001 and attended an accelerated part-time M.B.A. program at Northeastern University in Boston. 'It's a lot of money and a lot of work.'

Things worked out in his favor, he says. In 2004, he found a job through a classmate as a product manager in Hopkinton, Mass. at technology company EMC Corp. 'If you've thought about going to business school, and you've put it off because you don't have the time or energy, now is a good time to go,' Mr. Gallagher says.

眼下的华尔街可谓哀鸿遍野,louboutin pas cher，而美国各地的商学院却因此振奋不已：全日制MBA课程的申请人数在2008年激增。

金融市场一片混乱，美国经济放缓，华尔街正在经受深刻的结构性变化。很多人决定，现在是回学校充电的好时候。考虑迈入校门的人有些是此次金融业大裁员的牺牲品，另一些则觉得他们的饭碗即将不保,moncler。即使目前工作还算稳定的MBA申请者也认为，利用这段时间攻读研究生文凭是个不错的选择－－因为未来几年的升迁和跳槽机会都会比较稀缺。

商学院还没有关于申请人数的统计数字，因为大多数顶尖学校的第一轮招生截止日期是在10月中旬。不过，许多商学院表示，今年咨询MBA课程的人增加了很多。

纽约大学斯特恩商学院称，今年参加其校外MBA推介会的人员增加了30%。西北大学凯洛格管理学院的申请人数目前已增长22%。芝加哥大学工商管理研究生院表示，其网上咨询和推介会参加人数都有显著上升。密西根大学罗斯商学院表示，校园开放日的来访人数翻了一番。

今年，GMAT考试的注册人数也在增加。美国研究生入学管理委员会(Graduate Management Admission Council)位于弗吉尼亚州McLean市，成员包括165家商学院,louboutin pas cher。该机构称，2008年1至9月GMAT考试的注册人数达到129,902人，比去年同期上升5.1%,abercrombie and fitch。一家备考及研究生入学咨询公司Veritas Prep说，其GMAT备考课程的注册人数自6月份起已有50%的增长。

这些数字反映出一种与以往的经济衰退期类似的趋势。商学院和经济学家说，研究生入学人数是反经济周期的，也就是说，它与经济景气程度背道而驰。“回顾过去的几十年来，研究生入学人数的变化与失业率的变化具有很强的相关性。”世界大型企业联合会(Conference Board)研究部主管及就业经济学家琳达•白林顿(Linda Barrington)说。2008年9月的失业率与8月份持平，为6.1%。

以往，华尔街金融巨头一直吸引着全美商学院的顶尖毕业生；然而，当前的金融危机十分严重，金融企业破产或整合，今年赴商学院深造的MBA学员未来将有不同境遇。由于次债风波的连锁反应，这批研究生毕业时，将面对一个完全不同的华尔街，就业市场可能很不乐观。

“社会对财富管理的需求还会存在,doudoune moncler，对银行家的需求也将存在,abercrombie。” 芝加哥大学工商管理学院负责全日制MBA课程的副院长斯泰茜•科尔(Stacey Kole)说，“但不同的金融企业将脱颍而出。”科尔女士说，现在来学校招聘的多为中小金融企业以及其他行业中需要财务人员的企业。“以前MBA毕业生大多去华尔街，今后可能会去传统企业的财务岗位。”

今年即将毕业的研究生已经感受到就业市场的低迷。科尔说，在芝加哥大学，2008年毕业生中找到工作或有公司邀请加盟的人数比去年下降了约3个百分点。

一些商学院表示，由于毕业后的就业前景不确定，因此目前有稳定工作的申请者可能会放弃进入商学院的机会。“如果你现在的工作不错，同时对两年后的就业机会并不看好，那可以再等等。” 加州大学伯克利分校Haas商学院全日制MBA项目招生主任彼得.约翰逊(Peter Johnson)说道。

有些申请者则打算碰碰运气。斯考特•瓦林斯(Scott Valins)曾是一家住房抵押贷款公司的老板，2007年末美国次债危机恶化时，他就开始考虑去商学院充电。现在，他希望毕业后去一家资产管理公司工作。“毕业后，我可能需要曲线救国，逐步实现这个目标，但我对整个金融体系还是有信心的。”斯考特说。

其他研究生院也都预计申请人数会增加。拥有212家法学院会员的法学院录取委员会(Law School Admission Council)称,abercrombie and fitch，2007年6月参加美国法学院入学考试(Law School Admission Tests)人数为28,939人，比2006年同期上升15.3%。Kaplan大学入学考试中心(Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions)表示，今年注册使用其LSAT和GRE模拟题以及参加其研究生入学培训班的人数均有所上升。

一些金融从业人员则选择其他专业领域深造。24岁的曼纳.迪亚(Manal Dia)两年前推迟赴麻省理工学院攻读电气工程及计算机科学硕士学位的计划，去雷曼兄弟公司(Lehman Brothers Holdings)固定收益研究部当一名份析师。今年是她入学的最后一次机会,abercrombie france，否则就得重新申请。就在雷曼9月份申请破产保护几周前，她辞掉工作，去MIT继续学业。“我离开公司，因为觉得这几年金融业不会很景气，现在是上学深造的好时候。” 曼纳说,louboutin。

学员们今年还要考虑另一个问题──次债危机使学生贷款很难申请。一直关注这一领域事态发展的FinAid.org负责人马克•坎特罗维兹(Mark Kantrowitz)称，2007年，有144家民间和政府教育贷款机构暂停了学生贷款。

不过，坎特罗维兹说，商学院的学生应该可以找到贷款，因为很多贷款机构只是对本科生和成人教育学生暂停发放贷款。对这些贷款机构来说，“研究生贷款项目是最有利可图的，因为贷款质量最高。”然而，学生要想获得私人贷款，可能需要提供更多的信用证明，而且贷款利率也会上升。

今年的MBA申请者可能还会发现，入学竞争极其激烈。尽管预计申请人数将有所增加，但大多数学校的招生规模不会变化。“要想进入心仪的学校，我必须更加努力才行。”25岁的库纳尔.达斯(Kunal Das)说，他在微软纽约分部担任搜索媒体策略师。

达斯正在申请3-5所美国顶尖的MBA商学院，他打算在申请中强调他与那些失业的金融业人士的不同之处，即他曾在微软从事两年广告工作，且曾在大学期间创建自己的公司。

商学院表示，过去几年来，MBA的申请人数在不断增加，原因有很多，不只是就业市场的问题。他们将这一趋势归结为人口结构的变化：根据美国人口统计局的数字，2007年25-29岁年龄段的美国人约有2100万，而2002年时是1880万。此外，申请MBA的国际学员人数也在增加，而且工作经验较少的年轻人越来越多。

那些在2001年经济衰退期申请商学院的人警告说，千万不要只因找不到工作就去上学。“这是一种投资，”科林•盖勒夫(Colin Gallagher)说。他在2001年末被一家新兴企业辞退，后来在波士顿的东北大学(Northeastern University)上一个非全日制MBA进修班。“需要投入很多钱，付出很多努力。”

盖勒夫说，他因此得到了回报。2004年，他通过班上的同学找到一份工作，在马萨诸塞州Hopkinton市一家IT公司EMC Corp.当产品经理。“如果你曾经考虑过去商学院深造，而以前没有时间或精力去实现这个目标，那现在是个好时候。” 盖勒夫说道。相关的主题文章：

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