Universities Weblog

In a move meant to deliver that message, the Harvard Business School last week unveiled a deferred admissions program that allows applicants to be considered while they are still undergraduates. Rising college seniors who are admitted through the 2+2 program, as it is called, will enroll in Harvard's M.B.A. program after working for two years at a company or organization that has agreed to participate.

"Our message is apply when you think you're ready," said Carl Kester, deputy dean for academic affairs and a professor of finance at Harvard Business School. "We are concerned that interesting and outstanding students are being fast tracked at jobs and are not considering business school until reaching a certain point in their careers. We said, 'What if we opened up a channel to resolve that uncertainty?' "

The program, part of an early-career initiative begun by the business school several years ago to attract younger applicants, is taking aim at students who might not otherwise consider a business school education - such as those who major in fields that aren't business school feeders, Kester said. While the school wants more diversity of age and experience, it isn't expressly addressing race or gender with its new program.

While it's rare for Harvard Business School to admit students straight out of college, already about a third of its entering class consists of students who are 25 and under and most likely have three years or fewer of work experience. The expectation is for up to 10 percent of the school's incoming class of 900 students to be admitted through the deferred track. The first round of applications will come next summer, and the first class will begin the program two years from now.

Google and Teach for America are among the employers that have already signed on as recruiting partners, and Harvard is looking to make arrangements with roughly 100 businesses, including a mix of consulting firms, banks and technology companies. Students can choose their employer but still need to arrange an interview and formally apply (and be hired) for a job.

During the summer between the first and second year of work, Harvard is organizing an orientation and business skills program for the admitted students. A career coach also will be assigned and have light contact with students during their two years of employment.

The idea of courting motivated students to business school through a deferred admissions program isn't entirely new. In an effort to increase diversity among its M.B.A. student pool, the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin already has a similar arrangement in which six corporations agree to take on admitted students for three years after they graduate college, after which time the students start school.

David A. Wilson, president and chief executive officer of the Graduate Management Admission Council, said he applauds Harvard's effort to bring more diversity to its business school class, in part because it shows that the school is willing to bet on students who are clear on their career goals.

"Master's programs are the most obvious targets of opportunity," said George L. Mehaffy, a vice president of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. "The degrees are in high demand, and this is an optimal time to enter or expand the market."

For students, the degrees are often expensive; at private universities, many students take out $50,000 in loans for every year of school. And scholarships and fellowships are rare, unlike doctoral programs, which are usually fully financed by universities.

Still, many say the price is worth it. In his two-year master's program in science technology and environmental policy from the University of Minnesota Craig Nelson had $35,000 in loans. Now, he works in regulatory affairs at the 3M Company.

"Without the degree, I wouldn't have the job," he said. "So even though I'll be paying the loan for 10 years, it was a good move for me."

Getting into the business of offering these degrees can be a good move for universities, too, with some that have traditionally focused only on undergraduate students now entering the master's market. The California State University system, for example, has introduced many new applied master's degrees and is expanding its master's of business administration programs.

Part of the mystique is that what they do goes on behind closed doors. Mitchell L. Stevens has a book out this month about getting behind those doors. The admissions office at an elite liberal arts college that he doesn't name (but we will, later) allowed Mitchell, currently an associate professor of education and sociology at New York University, to work there for 18 months. He helped organize trips to high schools, tours of the campus, answered calls from applicants, shoveled snow, and sat in as the college decided whom to admit. In Creating a Class: College Admissions and the Education of Elites, from Harvard University Press, Stevens shares what he saw.

The admissions officers described (all with pseudonyms) come across sympathetically. Stevens returns again and again to the theme that they care deeply about students and the college, want to help as many students as they can (within a limited budget), and are conscious of the importance to applicants and their families of the decisions made. The admissions officers are seen doing plenty of agonizing, really weighing decisions and worrying about their impact. In an interview, asked what reforms he would make of admissions, he said that the biggest reforms needed in education aren't in admissions.

"I would say that we need to stop expecting so much of the selective college admissions process," he said. "If we are really interested in educational opportunity, we should be looking elsewhere. One problem with our public conversation on educational opportunity is that we focus too much on the admissions process and not on the systems that deliver young people to the system."

She said she doesn't really notice the age gap between herself and her 17- and 18-year-old peers - and neither do they.

"I didn't tell people right off the bat that I was 15," Exline said. "A lot of people were pretty surprised."

Exline grew up in Colorado Springs, Colo., where at 8 years she was already in sixth grade. By 13 she had finished high school math. She turned 15 in February and graduated a few months later.

She's not preoccupied with how unique her accomplishments are.

"I wouldn't even really realize that if people didn't tell me," she said.

She excels at math and science and is really interested in politics, so she enrolled in a Penn program that will award her degrees from both the engineering and liberal arts schools when she graduates in 2011.

But her resume also includes years of dancing and singing and a couple of teen pageant titles.