Many top full-time M.B.A. programs saw significant drops in applications for the 2017-18 admissions cycle, Poets & Quants [1] reported. The numbers come at a time when many M.B.A. programs have struggled, but typically most of the drops have been at institutions less competitive than those seeing declines this year. Among the programs cited: Rice University (down 27.7 percent), the University of Texas at Austin (down 19.6 percent), the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (down 18.3 percent) and Georgetown University (down 16.2 percent).