The latest episode of the Poets & Quants “Business Casual” podcast features a fascinating discussion with Andrew Walker from the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), offering a deep dive into the trends shaping the landscape of business education in 2025, with predictions for 2026. Joined by hosts John Byrne, Maria Wich-Vila, and Caroline Diarte Edwards, Andrew shares insights that are crucial for current and prospective MBA candidates.

One standout revelation is the resurgence of interest in full-time, in-person MBA programs. Despite the rise of hybrid and online modalities in recent years, 2025 saw a significant shift back to traditional classroom settings. This move suggests a growing appreciation among candidates for the immersive experience and networking opportunities that full-time programs provide. Alongside this, Andrew highlights consistent corporate confidence in business graduates, underscoring the enduring value of MBA degrees in navigating the evolving business landscape.

Another intriguing trend is the shift in international applications. While applications to traditional English-speaking hubs like the US, UK, and Canada have declined, the overall number of international MBA applications remains stable, merely redirecting to new destinations. This suggests a dynamic and adaptable international applicant pool, likely exploring emerging markets and diversified educational offerings. For MBA hopefuls, understanding these trends is key to navigating the competitive landscape and making informed decisions about their educational paths.

Episode Transcript

Note: This transcript was generated by AI and may contain minor inaccuracies.

[00:00:06] – John

Well, hello, everyone. This is John Byrne with Poets & Quants. Welcome to business Casual, our weekly podcast with my co-host, Maria Wigvilla and Caroline Diarte Edwards. Today, we have a special guest from the Graduate Management Admission Council. As you know, that organization is the administrator of the GMAT, which remains to predominant test for elite and selective graduate management programs. Our guest is Andrew Walker, who’s Director of Research, Analysis, and Communications for GMAC.

[00:00:42] – Andrew

Andrew, welcome. Thank you. Hello. Great to be here.

[00:00:45] – John

So obviously, you have your hands in a lot of data. I mean, one of the things that I’ve always liked about GMAC is the fact that it does a lot of deep dive research into business education, particularly graduate management education. And you have some really good information on everything from application volumes to career outcomes to the aspirations of a new generation of students coming in. And I wonder, looking back at 2025, how would you sum up the year for graduate management education? Was it a good year? Was it a bad year? Did we go sideways? What’s your perspective based on all the research GMAC has done?

[00:01:28] – Andrew

Yeah. No, I I would say, first of all, thank you again for having me. It is always a great chance to talk about GMAT research. We’re, of course, known for the GMAT exam, but we have lots of different ways that we try to connect candidates and business schools. With those types of opportunities, research being a critical one. Like you mentioned, we’re talking to prospective students, we’re talking to corporate recruiters, what do they want folks to be doing in business school, and then we’re also looking at the application trends, talking to business school. Across all of that survey research, I do think it was a good year for business schools. I think on the prospective student and application trend side, we saw an increase in applications across the industry, but there were some changes that I thought were really interesting around the types of degrees and modalities that candidates were interested in. But along all of that, we always see a lot of consistency from employers saying, Hey, I still really value graduate management education, and I really think these business schools are churning out talent that are going to be successful in my organization. In fact, it’s growing even more relevant the more changes that we have in organizations with new technology and adopting these hybrid environments.

[00:02:40] – Andrew

There are changes, yes, but there’s always in the research stuff that stays really similar. I think that corporate confidence is something that is a through line for our research.

[00:02:52] – John

Was it one big surprise for you in the year?

[00:02:55] – Andrew

There are a couple of surprises, I would say. I think one of the things that actually did surprise me was around this interest in full-time in-person learning, really rebounding. We saw it in a couple of our surveys. I would say in our prospective student survey, we asked, How do you prefer to study? Do you want to be in a hybrid program? Do you want to be online? Do you want to be full-time in-person? And full-time in-person programs are still extremely popular. But over the past couple of years, they’ve been declining a bit in candidate preference as preference for these hybrid programs, for these more flexible programs were growing. But in this past year, we saw a reversal of that. Not a huge reversal, but it was a change in a multi-year trend. When you couple what we’re seeing on the candidate pipeline side, these are candidates who are one, two years away from applying, into what’s actually happening with actual application trends. We also saw that these full-time in-person programs were some of the most successful in terms of gaining more applications this year compared to last year.

[00:03:55] – John

That’s great. Of course, we also saw a decline in internet international applicants, and schools have become increasingly dependent on that population for programs. In fact, many of the specialty master’s degrees are predominantly populated by international students. What do you make of that? And do you think that that is going to continue into the new year?

[00:04:19] – Andrew

No, I think the trends around geographic mobility were one of the other things that I think were a really big characteristic of 2025. But in terms of international applications declining, it depends who you ask and where. We saw in a lot of these English-speaking traditional hubs of graduate management education, certainly Canada, the UK, to a lesser extent, the US, but I think we’re on the early side of the trend, we did see international applications decline. But that doesn’t mean that there are fewer international applications going out. It was actually pretty steady in terms of the numbers. They were actually just moving to other places. A lot of international application growth to programs in other parts of Europe as well as in Asia. And so that’s certainly something that I’m going to be looking into into 2026.

[00:05:09] – Caroline

And Andrew, what do you see as regards the impact of AI, given that many schools have really done a huge effort to integrate that and revamp their curricula around AI? How do you see that playing out? And what impact do you see that having also on recruitment? And then given some of the concerns about recruitment, do you think that actually business schools are doing enough or not?

[00:05:35] – Andrew

No, it’s a great question. Ai, obviously, is everywhere, but we see actually a lot of consistency across all of our surveys. Employers, candidates, we have seen over the years, they say they want students to be learning about AI in business education. But business schools have been responding in kind. They also, compared to last year, they’re reporting even more levels of integrating AI into their academic experience globally. I think it was 84% of programs have some integration into the classroom. But it’s not just the part that I think is the most interesting. It’s not just AI for the sake of AI because everyone’s talking about AI. In all of our surveys, we ask, Well, what do you want students to be able to do with it? Then for business schools, how are you teaching it? There’s a lot of alignment there. There is this emphasis on these hands-on experiences that are not using AI in and of itself or even for content generation. It’s as a tool to develop the same skills that business schools have long been developing, that candidates have long been saying that they want an employer saying that they want from business schools as well.

[00:06:46] – Andrew

It’s using AI as a tool in decision making and as an aid in your critical thinking and your problem solving. We are seeing that that’s how business schools are integrating it, and employers are telling us that’s how they want them to be integrating it, and candidates are saying that’s what they want to be learning about. I think business schools are very much on track, at least as 2025 goes. I think we’re all going to be a bit more mature about AI next year and in the years ahead, and I think business schools will have to keep up the pace, but I think they’re on a good trajectory.

[00:07:21] – Caroline

That’s encouraging. Do you have any thoughts about how the recruitment market is going to evolve over the next 12 months and beyond?

[00:07:29] – Andrew

Sure. I mean, there’s a lot going on in the world, right? In our corporate recruiter survey, which ran, our most recent version ran from January to March of 2025. Obviously, a lot has changed since then as well. Employers were pretty optimistic about their hiring plans, but we wanted to check back in. In September to October, we were talking to US MBA recruiters and some career services professionals just saying, Hey, how hiring as it’s gone compared to what you thought it was going to look like in 2025. I don’t think you’ll be surprised to hear that most of them thought that it was not as favorable as they were hoping it would be at the beginning of the year. We ask why, and it’s a lot of the macro conditions that are affecting all of us and affecting business schools. They’re worried about these recession risks and what country leaders are going to be doing, but also their own organizations financial status. We are seeing, I think, this softening a bit of these hiring outcomes. But like I said, it’s paired with this enduring confidence that employers still have in business schools. It’s along lots of different dimensions.

[00:08:49] – Andrew

It’s our folks who work in your organization with a business degree, do they earn more or do they fast track to leadership? We always see the answer to this question being yes, and that I think even in this tough environment, that remains true. It’s a matter of maintaining this employer confidence while also recognizing the reality of something that’s affecting all of us, every industry.

[00:09:14] – Speaker

You guys put out this annual Application Trend survey that I recommend everyone listening. Once you’re done listening to this podcast, of course, that you go and you find it. There is so much fascinating data here. One of the things that jumped out at is that you mentioned a little bit earlier that the overall volumes are increasing, even if those volumes are shifting perhaps away from the US to some other markets. One of the places of growth that I was particularly interested in was the growth in Asia and India. In fact- Me too. Yeah, it’s really fascinating to me. I was wondering, I have some more detailed follow-up questions there, but overall, what do you think is behind that? Is it maybe people seeing the opportunities in Asian economies, thinking about the growth in those regions? Or do you guys have a sense or even you personally have a gut feel of what’s behind that?

[00:10:12] – Andrew

Sure, yeah. I mean, there are certainly, I’m sure, a couple of different things. I would say I think there are some push factors that are moving folks away from some places that they may have… It’s harder to get a student visa in Canada and Australia and the UK Okay, to an extent and the US than it was. I think that’s making people rethink some of that. But it’s also a trend that we’ve been seeing before any of these visa changes had been happening. In our perspective, student survey, over the past couple of years, we’re increasingly seeing candidates, especially in India, saying, I want to study closer to home. Affordability is that much more important to me now than it had been before. That’s causing folks to want to study closer to home, especially in India, where there are so many candidates seeking out management education. Their influence on this flow of talent is so important. That’s really one of the things that I’m going to be looking at in 2026, not just the global realignment of talent, but where are Indian candidates going in particular? I’ll be curious to see.

[00:11:14] – Speaker

But even looking at candidates going into India, your report shows that 43% of international candidates going to India are from the United States, which was really eye-opening for me. Are these perhaps second or third generation children of the diaspora, the non-resident Indian diaspora? Or are you also seeing perhaps people who don’t have a family tie to India? Also, again, I can’t help but think about, Okay, where are the opportunities going to be economically in the next 5, 10, 20 years. I don’t know if you have that level of granularity or if you’ve got any thoughts on why the US is the number one feeder in India. I was surprised by that.

[00:11:57] – Andrew

No, I think that was our hypothesis as well. I will qualify because I would love to have that level of granularity. But the way we ask the question is, what is your top source of international talent? We had 43% of these Indian programs said that their top source was the US. But I think the other ones were also interesting. I think Argentina was on the list. That’s something we had heard anecdotally as well, some of these candidates from Latin America coming into India. I think where Indian programs challenge is going to be, and this was Something that came up in the discussion that we had at our Asia conference in November is the post-graduation work visas. I think India is well placed to retain their domestic talent and even attract talent from within the region and beyond. But if those folks aren’t seeing positive employment outcomes because it’s challenging for them to get a work visa, I think there’s something that’s going to have to give there.

[00:12:56] – John

In addition to AI, the other burning topic, it it seems to me that many in this generation is interested in is sustainability. And yet we have an administration that is in denial about climate change. But yet we also have many schools that have almost doubled down on sustainability. What’s your take on that? Is this interest among prospective students likely to grow or stay the same? Or in light of the current administration, are we going to see decline in interest by that generation in these programs?

[00:13:34] – Andrew

I think it’s hard to predict based on the data that we have in terms of prospective student interest. I will say it’s a relatively new question that we added that over the past couple of years has been pretty durable. The latest finding was two-thirds, roughly, of candidates say sustainability is important to them in their academic experience. These are global figures. Then among that two-thirds, another third of them say, I’m not even going to consider a program that’s not prioritizing sustainability. I definitely do think there is candidate interest there, and candidates are making decisions based on how business schools are approaching sustainability. I also think there’s a business imperative there. Organizations have to contend with supply chain and climate change and how those things affect each other. There’s very much a business school perspective on that. I think there’s an awareness there, I think.

[00:14:23] – Speaker

Another thing that jumped out at me from this report is when you’re looking at the relative year-to-year application changes to MBA programs, it’s true that the full-time two-year MBAs, as we talked about before, that’s growing. But the biggest decrease was, I think, 64% of part-time MBA programs reported a decrease. And is that because… I don’t know. Again, I’m dying to have a level of granularity that I realized might be unrealistic, given the constraints of any survey. But what are the theories as to why the part-time MBA would see such It’s one thing to say, Well, the full-time is seeing an increase because more people want the benefits. But I also did not necessarily expect that to come with such a sharp decrease at the same time to the part-time MBA.

[00:15:11] – Andrew

Yeah, no, I think me too. I think the best evidence is actually in our prospective student survey. We did see a similar… I think business masters programs are having a moment. We saw a resurgence in popularity of those. But when we broke it out, we broke it out a bunch of different ways in our analysis. But The most compelling one to me was by age. When you looked at last year and this year, the cohort 23 to 24 and then 24 to 25, not much change in their preference for MBA. Still very high, really similar year over year. Where you saw the declining interest in the MBA in favor of these other business masters programs was in these pre-experienced 22 and younger candidates who are still in their undergraduate studies, as well as actually some older candidates older than 30, which if you’re a business school, those are your target audience. These business masters programs are designed for folks who are pre-experienced. Then these MBA programs are for folks who have a couple of years under the belt, if not more. When you translate that to applications, you see this increasing interest in the full-time two-year MBA and the decline with these more flexible MBAs and the growth in applications to business masters programs, the who of it, I think, is really interesting.

[00:16:27] – Andrew

I would say at least I think everyone’s getting what they want to want there. These folks who are interested in these specialized master’s programs are going to get the experience that’s right for them, that folks interested in the MBA program are getting the experience that’s right for them. And increasingly, they want to be in person. Whether that’s related to return to office mandates It’s folks, as flexible work was growing in popularity, so was flexible education. Maybe we’re just seeing a regression on both trends. It’s one hypothesis we have. But I think hopefully that gets to some of your level of granularity of who some of these folks are.

[00:17:02] – Caroline

And what related to that, Andrew, what about the drop in executive MBA? So it looks like about a 15% drop in application volume to executive MBA programs. So is that perhaps because of the cost of those programs, which is typically very high and reduced volume of employers who are willing to foot the bill for that? Or what trend is driving that decline?

[00:17:28] – Andrew

That is a great question. I have less of a good line of sight into what might be driving that. I think there is a bit more volatility that we see year to year in executive MBAs in terms of their application changes. I think some of it has to do with scale, both in terms of the scale of people applying to a full-time MBA versus executive MBAs. There’s more of the latter. Then that gets to our sample size as well. When you have fewer, you’re going to see more of those swings. I do want acknowledge the limitations of even our own research, where our line of sight into some programs is better than others. I think that is one influence. But I think your hypothesis, I think they’re fair. We, in our corporate recruiter survey, do ask about these non-salary benefits, and tuition assistance is something that we ask about. It’s been steady-ish coming down a bit. Nothing like a huge change, but I certainly think It’s fair to assume that that’s a factor.

[00:18:32] – John

Looking into the new year, let’s play a game, Andrew.

[00:18:36] – Andrew

I like it.

[00:18:36] – John

We’re going to make you dean of the day. All right. We’re going to say you are the dean of a comprehensive business school with undergraduate programs, a full portfolio of graduate programs, what do you do for next year? What are the big bets? What are your priorities? You have three priorities as dean of this business school. Will you shrink some programs? If programs are dependent on international applicants, might you close them? What new programs might you launch? Where do you place your bets in 2026 as a dean?

[00:19:13] – Andrew

It’s a good question. I had to get my notebook out to organize some ideas. I’m looking at where international talent is flowing next year. I think that’s one of the biggest 2026 trends that I’ll be looking at. If I’m a dean, there is a lot… If I’m a dean in a US program, should I assume, I’m really shoring up my domestic pipeline. I think that’s going to be incredibly important. Even in our application trend survey this year, in Canada, US, UK, where international applications were down, domestic applications were up, and it just wasn’t enough quite to offset the declines that we were seeing among international students. Really thinking about how am I serving that market I think is going to be really critically important. Then where I’m looking internationally, like I said, I think where Indian students go is going to be critically important, and supporting them in this policy environment in a more specific way, I think, will be really important. But then that’s not just India, Southeast Asia. There’s a ton of talent in Indonesia, Vietnam, I think Latin America as well, a lot of recruitment pipeline. Then I would say in Africa, obviously, folks think about Nigeria, Ghana, where there had been a lot of currency challenges that were really already financial aid and financing is a consideration when you’re recruiting from the continent.

[00:20:51] – Andrew

But it had been even more challenging the past couple of years. But I think economically, getting to be on the other side of these currency challenges in Nigeria and Ghana. I think there are a lot of places to find international talent who still definitely want to study in US programs. I think where you’re recruiting from domestically, internationally, that’s one thing I’m thinking about. In terms of programs, another thing that I’ll be looking at in 2026 is around these specialized master’s degrees and these business master’s degrees, because I think they had a really good year in 2025. Application were up across a lot of the ones that we measure, so accounting, finance, management, marketing, not business analytics, which I think is interesting, but I think it’s interesting in a lesson that can be learned. We’re seeing programs roll out more of these specialized master’s programs, master of climate finance, and we’re seeing prospective students are growing more interested in them. But when you have so many of these in your portfolio, they are going to be going after the same candidates. As schools are thinking about a master of artificial intelligence, is that also going to be pooling from your of master of business analytics programs or your master of accounting programs?

[00:22:05] – Andrew

Because we see accounting and business analytics are typically on opposite paths because they’re typically talking to the same types of folks. If you’re looking at your full portfolio I think being careful about the competition among it, especially in your business master’s portfolio, is going to be critically important as well. Then I think AI, I think we really need to stay on top of it. I think I’m really encouraged how much alignment we’re seeing across our core constituencies that we survey. Pleasantly surprised, to be honest. I think business schools are often the first movers within a university, but it’s still higher education. We’re trying to stay on top of it. But I think business schools have really risen to the occasion. Staying on top of the folks that their recruiters want and the employers that a lot of their students are going to after they graduate, I think staying on top their needs, particularly around AI, is important without over-correcting. Candidates, students, employers, they are going to business school to learn about problem solving and critical thinking. Those are really the core things across all of our surveys over the many, many years that we run them that are really the enduring value of graduate management education.

[00:23:22] – Andrew

How do we adapt to serve those things? That would be the third thing I’m thinking about as dean for the day.

[00:23:29] – John

Do you see AI taking jobs away from graduates or undergraduates or not at all?

[00:23:37] – Andrew

I don’t think we know yet. I mean, research-wise, we’ll be looking at it. We’ll be adding questions to our corporate recruiter survey to try and get to it. But I just, and this is my personal opinion as a guy who has a job, I don’t know how you get mid-level talent without training them at the entry level. I just think that’s a really macro sense challenge that hopefully we don’t, again, overcorrect in the AI consideration in business school, in organizations or otherwise.

[00:24:14] – John

Caroline and Maria, any other thoughts about 2026 to ask Andrew about?

[00:24:19] – Caroline

What about the GRE, Andrew? We’ve seen that increase over the years. When I was Director of Admissions at INSEAD, we were one of the late to come as to the game of accepting the GRE because, of course, the GMAT has been designed for business school, and we always saw a very strong correlation between the GMAT and how people did academically on the MBA program. But nevertheless, GRE has gained market share as a test for business schools. And so what are your thoughts about how that is going to play out over the next year or so?

[00:24:56] – Andrew

Yeah, I mean, fair question. I won’t overstep my my own role in GMAC either. I’m very much on the research side of things, so I can answer it from the research side, at least, which is we updated the test to focus more on data insights, and that comes from something that we know employers are looking for. This is just one example of how we at GMAC try to keep the GMAT exam most relevant to not just how you’ll succeed in business school, but the types of skills that are going to serve you long term. When you look at our corporate recruiter survey, you see current importance of data analysis and interpretation. When you ask employers what’s going to be important five years from now, it’s still really important there. We try to adapt to stay current. I think that’s one of the most important ways, but don’t want to overstep my colleagues in any way either.

[00:25:48] – Speaker

Yeah. No, thank you so much for this, again, for all of this information that you guys compile and analyze and put out. I think there were certainly a lot of surprises for me. I think looking ahead to 2026, there’s bound to be even more of them. So thank you guys for the work that you do.

[00:26:06] – Andrew

Thank you.

[00:26:06] – John

Indeed. Now, I’m assuming you’re bullish about 2026. Despite the economic uncertainty, despite all the chaos in public policy, despite international applicants worried about coming to the US, increased talk of a potential recession. You’re still bullish on business education, I am.

[00:26:31] – Andrew

I think at the end of the day, business school is about returning your investment. We, in our research, on the employer side, yes, but also on the candidate side, what candidates are looking for from business school, of course, is career advancement and greater salaries. But I’m always surprised by how multidimensional it is. It is such a whole life to get an MBA or a master’s degree. You’re also going to develop personally in that. You’re going to make your family proud, and you’re going to make yourself proud, and you’re going to reach a certain threshold of career stability that you’re interested in. These aren’t things that I’m making up. These appear in our research as reasons why people overwhelmingly want to go to business school. I think as long as business schools are returning on the things that people are looking for to get out of it, I will always be bullish on its value.

[00:27:33] – John

And we agree with you. Great. Anabashed supporters of graduate education and lovers of the MBA degree and its multiple paths of career that it opens up to you. You wouldn’t find better advocates for GME than us, to be honest. So, Andrew, thank you for joining us. We really appreciate it. For all of you out there, thanks for listening. We’ve been talking to Andrew Walker, the Director of Research, Analysis, and Communications for the Graduate Management Admission Council, the administrator of the GMAT, John Berne Boatsquants. Bye-bye.