(Corrects name of company where Crystal Ma will be interning this summer.)
Gail Hu first considered an MBA degree in the U.S. while a student at Fudan University in Shanghai. After three years as a bank trader, she entered the Stanford Graduate School of Business to gain international exposure so that she can help Chinese companies grow.
"I'll have an edge," Hu, 26, said in an interview.
Hu is part of a wave of women from China, Taiwan, and Vietnam pursuing U.S. MBAs, and their numbers are driving up the overall number of women in such programs, according to the Graduate Management Admission Council, the Reston (Va.)-based group that administers the GMAT test for business school applicants. Last year, a record 105,900 women took the exam, or 40 percent of all test takers. Women now outnumber men in East Asia taking the test, according to a council report.
"Countries are investing more intensively in women, and business schools are making efforts to make it easier for women to think about their programs," said Michelle Sparkman-Renz, GMAC's director of research communications. "That really continues to turn the spigot so that more and more women are coming through the pipeline."
At Stanford University (Stanford Full-Time MBA Profile), near Palo Alto, Calif., women made up 39 percent of this year's entering MBA class, said Lisa Giannangeli, director of graduate business admissions. For the past few years, the school has hosted a conference for female applicants to learn about the program. This year's event attracted women from China, Japan, Peru, Spain, and Russia, Giannangeli said.
Women from mainland China are helping boost female enrollment in U.S. MBA programs, said Elissa Ellis-Sangster, director of the Forte Foundation, a group of 36 business schools working to increase the number of women MBAs. Members include Harvard Business School (Harvard Full-Time MBA Profile), University of Chicago Booth School of Business (Booth Full-Time MBA Profile), and University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School (Wharton Full-Time MBA Profile).
In an April survey, 13 of 14 Forte member schools said China or India accounted for the largest number of overseas women in their classes, Ellis-Sangster said.
"The companies that we work with are very interested in seeing more of these Chinese women in MBA programs because they want to ultimately have them return to their home countries and work for the conglomerates and large multinationals," Ellis-Sangster said.
China's gross domestic product expanded 9.7 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier and the World Bank last week raised its forecast for China, predicting full-year growth of 9.3 percent.
Many Chinese women considering business school aspire to top jobs, according to The Battle for Female Talent in China, a study released in March by the Center for Work-Life Policy, a New York nonprofit group. The report was based on interviews with more than 1,000 college-educated women. Bloomberg LP, which owns Bloomberg Businessweek, was a corporate sponsor of the study.
About 76 percent of Chinese women aspire to a top job, compared with 52 percent of American women, the study found. China's 1979 one-child policy has led women to pursue education in greater numbers, with parents often encouraging graduate degrees, said Ripa Rashid, an executive vice-president at the center.
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