"It is important in the case environment to have a diversity of gender, ethnicity, college major and other traits because having people come to table with very different perspectives is powerful," Moss says. "When the faculty reflects on what is missing in the classroom, the younger voice is what is missing right now."

Dickinson Professor of Accounting Srikant M. Datar, senior associate dean and director of faculty recruiting, says that he thinks that now is a good time to experiment with the addition of younger students to the classroom.

"My own view is you see a large number of young entrepreneurs today, and certainly we feel that any folks with that kind of experience would enrich the classroom," Datar says.

Harvard is far from alone in its push to attract students sooner after graduation. On Nov. 8, representatives from MIT's Sloan School of Management, Stanford Business School, the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, Northwestern University's Kellogg Graduate School of Management and other business schools will join HBS at an outreach event in Boston for undergraduates. A similar event will be held in Los Angeles the next day.

Despite the fact that having more students at an early stage in their careers will add diversity to the classroom, some current HBS students question the wisdom of attending business school too early.

"It's tough to bring insight into a discussion if you've never worked in the world," current MBA student Brian J. Shortsleeve '95 says. "And there are really two parts to your education at [HBS]--the classroom and building a social network. It's really a lot more difficult to just hang out with people if everyone is five to 10 years older."

Shortsleeve spent four years in the Marine Corps after being in ROTC at the College. He is now beginning his second year at HBS.

Datar says that the kind of experience younger students have can compensate for the amount.