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A little late but still an interesting read. Something at Wharton doesn't add up. Applications to the University of Pennsylvania's business school have declined 12% in the past four years, with the M.B.A. program receiving just 6,036 submissions for the class that started this fall. That was fewer than Stanford Graduate School of Business, with a class half Wharton's size. Wharton says the decline, combined with a stronger applicant pool and a higher percentage of accepted applicants who enroll, proves that the school is doing a better job targeting candidates. But business-school experts and b-school applicants say Wharton has lost its luster as students' interests shift from finance to technology and entrepreneurship. "We're hearing [applicants say] Stanford, Harvard or nothing. It used to be Stanford, Harvard or Wharton," says Jeremy Shinewald , the founder of mbaMission, an admissions advisory firm. Wharton over the past century built its reputation as a training ground for Wall Street titans, but the financial crisis closed off many paths to such careers. The school in the mid-2000s regularly sent more than a quarter of its students to jobs at investment banks and brokerage firms. That figure has slid into the teens. Top institutions—and the Philadelphia-based school is still in that class—responded to the downturn by restructuring their courses and seeking students from less-traditional business backgrounds. Many schools also strengthened their ties to hot technology companies, like Amazon Inc. and Google Inc., and found opportunities for finance jobs at Fortune 500 companies. After four years struggling to attract students, interest in full-time M.B.A. programs – the bread and butter of business schools – is heating up. Melissa Korn reports on the News Hub. The efforts paid off at several schools. Harvard Business School reported a 3.9% increase in applications this year, and Stanford posted a 5.8% gain. But Wharton's applications dropped 5.8%. Columbia Business School reported a 6.6% increase, recovering from a 19% decline last year. And Duke University's Fuqua School of Business stabilized after an 8.4% drop last year. Some admissions advisers and Wharton professors say the school didn't react aggressively enough when the spigot of finance jobs was turned off and that recent moves, such as a rebranding campaign begun in the spring of last year, did little to clarify the school's profile. Ankur Kumar , Wharton's director of M.B.A. admissions and financial aid, says quantity doesn't equal quality. The average score for Wharton applicants on the standardized b-school entrance exam, the GMAT, rose seven points this year, to a record 725 out of 800. "Our focus is on the quality of our applicant population, and that remains as high as ever," Ms. Kumar says. Only those who really want to attend Wharton are applying, she says. The school's yield, the portion of accepted applicants who enroll, rose several percentage points this year to a record, she says, though she declines to disclose the figure. Some education consultants offer a different take. Wharton alumnus Eliot Ingram , the chief executive of admissions-counseling firm Clear Admit, says one client turned down a $70,000 scholarship from Wharton this year to attend Harvard because he felt that school had a stronger global brand. Wharton held the No. 1 spot on BusinessWeek's semiannual Top M.B.A. ranking from 1994 through 2000, at which point Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management displaced Wharton. The University of Chicago Booth School of Business has maintained the crown since 2006. To appeal to new audiences, Ms. Kumar now holds admissions events for students considering entrepreneurship and who are interested in such industries as retail and real estate. The school this month also unveiled a business-and-management satellite-radio channel with Sirius XM Radio Inc. Fiona Fong says she was attracted to Wharton's strong marketing program and data-driven curriculum. She worked in marketing at cosmetics company Estée Lauder Cos. before school and is looking to return to the field. "When you come out of Wharton, you get the reputation that you can handle numbers and analytics," says Ms. Fong, a second-year Wharton student. The year after Ms. Fong applied, Wharton introduced a group discussion to its selection process, requiring candidates to demonstrate leadership and teamwork abilities in front of admissions representatives. "Our guess is that might have made some students reluctant to apply," says Wharton Vice Dean Howard Kaufold. He says he isn't concerned about the application decline and is pleased with the caliber of the school's students. Dan Lee says he briefly considered Wharton but instead focused on schools that he believed had stronger general management training. Wharton is "typecast as the finance school," he says. For Mr. Lee, a first-year student at Dartmouth College's Tuck School of Business, "going to business school was not about going into the financial sector." Virgil Archer says he wanted "a frothy tech scene." Mr. Archer, who is in his first year at the University of California, Los Angeles, Anderson School of Management, says Wharton didn't have the same entrepreneurial atmosphere. Wharton also has lacked continuity. The school has had four admission directors in the past decade. Ms. Kumar's counterparts at Harvard and Stanford have been at their schools for more than a decade. "If you put a baseball team on the field that's new every year, it's going to be tough to get chemistry and an overarching strategy," says former Wharton admissions officer Graham Richmond , the founder of higher-education consulting firm Southwark Consulting. And the aftermath LOL Ankur Kumar , director of M.B.A. admissions and financial aid at University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, is leaving her post effective Friday. The move comes as campus leaders are questioning whether Wharton has done enough to distinguish itself in the marketplace. Wharton's M.B.A. application volume has declined in recent years, even as competitor schools have rebounded from dips caused by the financial crisis and waning Wall Street job opportunities. The Wall Street Journal reported last week that some admissions consultants, applicants and even some professors say Wharton has lost some of its cachet and is no longer perceived as on par with Stanford Graduate School of Business and Harvard Business School. People familiar with the matter said Ms. Kumar told staff of her decision last week. Such departures are rare in the middle of the admissions season—Wharton closed out its first round of applications on Tuesday afternoon. Neither Ms. Kumar nor representatives from the school responded to requests for comment, but in a note to colleagues and friends on Wednesday, Ms. Kumar said that she has been "pursuing several different opportunities in New York City in the past few months" and would have news of a new job soon. Ms. Kumar, who received her M.B.A. from Wharton in 2007, joined the admissions staff in 2009 and took over as director in 2011. Wharton Dean Tom Robertson said in a note to students and faculty that the admissions team will continue to operate under Maryellen Lamb , the school's former careers director who in late August was named deputy vice dean for M.B.A. admissions, financial aid and career management. Ms. Kumar and school officials have said the lower application figures, combined with a higher yield, indicate the school has been better targeting candidates. Applications fell nearly 12% in the past four years. The school doesn't disclose its yield or acceptance rates. To be sure, Wharton students are in great demand in the corporate world. Nearly 98% of job-seeking graduates from the class of 2013 had full-time offers from top companies, including Amazon Inc., McKinsey & Co. Google Inc. andGeneral Mills Inc. There has been a revolving door at Wharton's admissions office in recent years. Rose Martinelli left the school in 2005 to oversee admissions at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Her successor at Wharton, Thomas Caleel , arrived at the office that year after a career in startups, retail and private equity; he left after the class of 2008 graduated. And J.J. Cutler , who came to Wharton in 2009 from a marketing position at Aramark, left two years later to return to the company.