A growing percentage of students are forgoing the nation's top business schools in favor of working on their own Internet start-ups. Observers say it appears they want to stake their claim to Internet businesses in the next two years, before it's too late.

• In the past year, applications to Stanford, M.I.T., Dartmouth, Michigan and the University of California at Berkeley have dropped as much as 11 percent -- and other less prestigious universities have seen steep declines.

• The number of Americans taking the standardized admissions test for business school has fallen 17 percent in the last four years.

• Until last spring, applications increased at virtually every elite school throughout the decade.

• But now, some view the two years necessary to obtain an M.B.A. as a delay which will close the door to their participation in the Internet start-up gold rush.

School administrators are reportedly wringing their hands over the departures and some have started adding more Internet courses and even creating majors devoted to the subject.

Source: David Leonhardt, "M.B.A. Boom Fades As Candidates Seek Rewards of Internet," New York Times, November 28, 1999.