Nov. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Refugees from the worst financial crisis since the Depression are stampeding the gates of the top graduate schools for business, swelling an already huge crowd.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Georgetown University, Dartmouth College and the University of Michigan say increased requests for tours and interviews herald the busiest year ever for their business schools. Registrations for the Graduate Management Admission Test, used to help winnow candidates, have risen 12 percent this year, to 223,159, sure to beat the record set in the recession year 2001.

Shruti Malik, 24, held a financial job until last month at Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., which filed the biggest bankruptcy in history on Sept. 15. Malik, who grew up in India, said she sped up plans to apply to six business schools, including Harvard's.

``I wasn't planning on applying,'' Malik said in a telephone interview. ``I wasn't sure if I was going to do it this year, but now I have more time'' and will do so.

Before Lehman's operations were sold, Malik said, she took advantage of a GMAT-preparation course, offered by Washington Post Co.'s Kaplan Inc. unit and subsidized by her employer.

The rush of applicants with Wall Street experience is forcing each to try harder to appear distinctive. To increase his odds of acceptance, Benjamin Koren toiled 40 hours on an admissions application, only to chuck it and start anew.

``Everything I hear is that tons of people are applying right now,'' Koren, 24, said in a telephone interview from Sao Paulo, where he speaks English, Portuguese and Spanish in his job with an investment boutique. ``I'm trying to differentiate myself. I am not the same as all the Wall Street kids.''

375 Spots

Competition already was fierce last year at MIT's Sloan School of Management, one of the top institutions. More than 3,000 people vied for about 375 spots in the class that entered in September, said David Schmittlein, dean of the Cambridge, Massachusetts, school.

Even institutions below the top tier are likely to see an increase in applications, according to David Wilson, president of the Graduate Management Admission Council, the McLean, Virginia-based publisher of the GMAT, used by 1,800 institutions.

``It will be a banner year for schools to attract good students,'' Wilson said in an interview. Typically, the schools take applications until next March, and all acceptances are finished in May. The school year usually begins in September.

Hard Times

Surges in applications are as cyclical as the economy, Wilson said. A September study for the council found that the last four U.S. economic contractions recognized by the National Bureau of Economic Research, a nonprofit organization in Cambridge, Massachusetts, corresponded with rises in applicants. Those events occurred in 1980, 1981-1982, 1990-1991, and 2001.

There's a reason. When companies downsize, some applicants decide that attending classes may be a better use of time than seeking a job, Wilson said. Others hope a master's degree in business administration will make them more marketable, he said.

Law school may become an attractive move as well. The number of people taking the Law School Admissions Test rose 15 percent in June from a year earlier, although not to a record, according to the Law School Admission Council, based in Newtown, Pennsylvania.

The U.S. business schools aren't expanding class sizes to accommodate the crush, and those who make it may struggle even harder to pay tuition and fees.

Candidates for admission must work to distinguish themselves, said Scott Shrum, co-author of ``Your MBA Game Plan: Proven Strategies for Getting into the Top Business Schools'' (Career Press, 2007) and the director of MBA research at Veritas LLC, an admissions-consulting company in Malibu, California.

Danger From Lookalikes

``Schools never admit to having hard quotas, but in reality, they don't want a school 100 percent full of bankers,'' Shrum said in a telephone interview. ``Your toughest, most direct competition comes from the people who look most like you.''

That's where David Rider may have a leg up. He works for a nonprofit company in Washington, not a bank. His biggest worry may be how to finance his studies.

``Definitely my thinking has changed on it in the last year,'' Rider, 32, said in a telephone interview from Washington. Contrary to his thoughts before, he will seek scholarships, fellowships and grants rather than depend on loans.

Top business schools, including those at Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, already charge more than $100,000 in tuition and fees for two years of classes. Room-and-board will swell the total cost to as much as $160,000.

`Uncharted Territory'

Loans, at the same time, are becoming scarcer. Citigroup Inc., based in New York, has suspended some programs that allowed international students at MIT, and at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business in Ann Arbor, to take out as much as $150,000 without a co-signer.

``It seems that we are in uncharted territory, and that in itself makes me nervous,'' said Koren, a U.S. citizen, who plans to finance his education through loans and scholarships.

Add to the mix an influx of applicants from China and India, the two fastest-growing major economies. China's currency has gained more than 6 percent against the dollar this year. That makes the cost of attending a U.S. school lower than otherwise, said Peter von Loesecke, chief executive officer of the MBA Tour. The Concord, Massachusetts, company arranges recruiting events to link prospective students and the schools.

``The decline of the dollar has a significant effect,'' and attendance has grown 40 percent in China in events arranged by the company, he said.

To contact the reporters on this story: Julie Ziegler in Boston at jziegler@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: November 14, 2008 00:00 EST