The one-year, full-time MBA programme, standard at most business schools in Europe, is starting to become a more prevalent offering in the US as American institutions strive to court a different target market.

Applications to MBA programmes are historically counter-cyclical to economic conditions: applications rise in bad times and fall in good. But the recent global economic downturn has been a different story. According to a survey by the Graduate Management Admission Council, applications to two-year, full-time MBA programmes declined in 2011 for the third consecutive year.

As a result, some schools are accelerating their offerings to try to draw a broader clientele. But some in the industry worry that the depth of a one-year programme versus a two-year programme is not the same.