For decades, women have been leaders in the classroom as teachers, but more recently they’re forging the way as students.

They are soaring past men when it comes to college enrollment, according to a 2014 report from the Pew Research Center. Women are also filling up more seats than men in graduate degree programs, such as public administration and health sciences, according to the nonprofit research organization American Enterprise Institute.

One area where they’re faltering, though, is business school. Among 338 North American schools reporting data in a recent study for the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, only 38 percent of students in full-time MBA programs were women. Specialized master’s programs, however, are usually more evenly split.

[Find out which MBA programs have the highest percentages of women in attendance.]

“We have a long way to go,” says Jo Mackness, chief strategy and operation officer and senior assistant dean at the University of California–Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. She was one of several school leaders who attended an August summit held by the White House on getting more women to become business leaders and enroll in business school.

Many schools have clubs and events to engage female students and applicants and to make sure business school faculty also have gender diversity.

Prospective female students who want to make sure schools they are considering are committed to helping women become business leaders can ask the following questions.

1. Can I talk to current students? It’s common for admissions staff to connect applicants with current students, but ideally this pairing is carefully done, says Gene Anderson, dean of the business school at University of Miami, who also attended the White House summit. Applicants and the admissions office should discuss the applicant’s interests, career goals and what type of student they want to speak with.

[Strengthen b-school applications by participating in diversity events.]

“It’s important for — really for anybody coming from any background — but I think particularly for women, underrepresented minorities and international students to get matched up with people who really kind of understand things from their point of view,” he says.

If a female applicant is interested in finance, for example, and wants to speak with a female student on this track, it’s a bad sign if a school struggles to find an MBA candidate who fits that description, Anderson says.

2. What proportion of the club leadership positions are held by women? White House summit attendee Soumitra Dutta, dean of the Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University, encourages female applicants to speak with school alumni to learn about how women are treated in student groups.

“The role of women in the club leadership positions is a very good indicator of the role of women overall in the school as a whole,” he says. “Most of these leadership roles are based on peer decisions.”

[Learn how business school can help women refine their leadership skills.]

When women are in these positions, it shows that they feel comfortable enough to lead in that school’s environment, and that students support the idea of women managing student groups, he says.

Applicants should also ask about how many women are in senior leadership positions for the school, says Joyce Russell, vice dean at University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business, who was also a part of the summit.

“People follow role models,” she says. Smith has pledged to make women 50 percent of its MBA students women by 2020. If women students and applicants don’t have role models, she says, “it’s very difficult for them to say, ‘Well, this school understands my issues,'” Russell says.

3. Are you comfortable raising your hand? Some schools have put a new spin on classroom discussions to make sure women feel comfortable sharing their opinions. At Haas, a student might take a class that has a 10-second rule, says Mackness. Once the teacher asks a question, students must wait 10 seconds before raising their hand to answer.

“Women were taking more time to think about their answer, and therefore taking longer to raise their hand,” she says.

Haas’ commitment to gender diversity is one reason Ryann Kopacka decided to attend. She is a part of the school’s Gender Equity Initiative and put together a survey to evaluate the school’s social programming.

The initiative aims to make programs “not only more inclusive to gender, but also more inclusive for families or different races, different sexual orientation,” says Kopacka, who graduates next year.

Before business school, Kopacka, who has an engineering background and worked in consulting, was used to being the only woman in the room. She liked that Haas offered classes such as “The Business Case for Investing in Women in Business.”

In her previous degree programs, “I rarely spoke in class,” she says. But classes such as this one helped her find her voice. “I felt more comfortable sharing my opinions, and I think it’s because I felt like I had a support system of women visibly in the room.”

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Ask These 3 Questions as a Female MBA Applicant originally appeared on usnews.com