I went to take the CISSP (Certified Information Systems Security Professional) today, and there was about 30 test takers at the the Pearson VUE testing center. Out of that number, 75% people were taking GMAT. I chatted a little with other candidates prior the checking into with the exam administrators. Most of them comes from different area of professional include technical and engineering. They are also seeking top schools like Cox at Southern Methodist University, McCombs at University of Texas at Austin, Jones at Rice University, Mays at Texas A&M University at College Station, and etc. So, is business degree/school is what most people need at this point?
I don't think this is a new trend. Often after some years in technology people believe their best next move is technology management, and since that's a very different skill set, going back to school to learn it makes sense.
Additionally many of these folks might be taking part in a corporate development effort where they are being groomed for leadership positions with their MBA tuition fully covered, I have known of some folks who have their class time considered part of their work day and even attended MBA classes in the middle of the day.
The number of Americans taking the GMAT has actually dropped significantly in recent years (although it is not as bad as the decline in the LSAT). Here are the raw numbers for US test takers: 2008-09: 130,508 2009-10: 127,061 2010-11: 116,546 2011-12: 117,511 2012-13: 90,541 So a drop of about 29% over five years. In response, many b-schools have made their applications simpler, and are trying to recruit more international students.
Also a number of grad schools have removed the GMAT requirement, either doing away with it or making it optional. For many undergraduate students it simply isn't a very good predictor of future performance. It may tell us something about innate ability but says nothing about motivation, work ethic, suitability for the field. It reminds me of how the G uses the modified MMPI to screen out future agents (DEA, FBI, etc.) It is an imperfect tool but is cheap. It is much more labor intensive to actually have to get to know your applicants. It also says little about intangibles that are important in professional fields, such as personality, social judgment, etc. I'm glad to see some moving away from it. It's another industry built into higher ed where the tail (or popular magazine ranking) is wagging the dog.
I am an engineer that ended teaching at a business school. Electrical, Computer Engineering and Computer Science are in a crisis, the problem is that these fields change so much that degrees in these fields lose relevancy in very short periods of times. You can have a MS in EE or CS and lose a job over a high school graduate that trained by watching you tube videos. I know quite a few MS EE and CS holders in their 50s that are working in odd jobs as they are practically not employable, if you are laid off in your 50s in these fields it becomes really hard to go back and compete with a 20 something that just graduates and is into social media, mobile apps, etc. I gave up EE and moved into business technology management, I don't need to know technology in so much detail and concentrate more in business development, business analysis, etc. In few words, technical careers are not attractive at all due to massive changes in few year, technology management careers make sense for engineers that want to become employable in the long term so it just makes sense to couple your BS in Engineering with an MBA. Just to give you an idea, I started programming cobol and pascal, then VLSI and embedded, then moved then into Novell administration, then into C++, then into Windows programming, then E-commerce and Finally security and networking. I just got tired of all these changes and went into business school and now have a less hectic career.
