When you get a chance to breathe in between meetings, deadlines and e-mails, do you contemplate going to business school? In many ways, there's never been a better time to consider adding an MBA to your list of accomplishments.

Applications to business schools are down, making competition for admission less fierce. Plus, the top business schools are aggressively courting women. Today, only about 30 percent of students at the top business schools are women, according to a joint study by Catalyst, the University of Michigan Business School and the Center for the Education of Women at the University of Michigan. The study, Women and the MBA: Gateway to Opportunity, found that many women don't pursue an MBA because of the lack of female role models, incompatibility of business careers with personal life, lack of confidence in math skills and a lack of encouragement by employer.

Also, an MBA is less defined than other advanced degrees. "You don't need an MBA to practice business the way you need a degree to practice law or medicine," says Nedda Gilbert, author of Business School Essays That Made a Difference (The Princeton Review).

But if the dot-com era did nothing else, it taught us the value of good business skills. Businesses are not Chia pets. They don't take off and grow without clear goals and strategies.

If you decide an MBA will boost your career without exacting too much of a toll on your personal life, consider which school will best suit your needs. Gilbert believes it's important for women to get into the best business school they can. "At the top schools, recruiters actively look for you," says Gilbert. "The discourse is stimulating and the networking is awesome."

According to The Princeton Review, the starting salaries for graduates from the five top-ranked business schools - Columbia Business School, Harvard Business School, New York University Stern School of Business, Stanford Graduate School of Business and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania - are in the six figures. Starting salaries for grads from most other business schools are typically about $50,000. But even if you don't attend one of the top schools, research shows that business school pays off. Most companies see real value in hiring employees with an MBA.

If you decide to go for your MBA, keep in mind that not all business schools have the same strengths. The West Coast schools, such as Stanford and the University of California at Berkeley Haas School of Business, probably have the closest ties to technology. Columbia, NYU and Wharton take their lead from their close proximity to Wall Street. You might want to consider Claremont Graduate University if you're interested in management or Babson College's MBA program if you want to focus on marketing.

Women already have many of the skills required to be successful in business, including effective communication, and the ability to multitask and work by consensus. But women need to be in business schools in equal numbers if they are going to be equally represented in the business world.

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