Kirk Henckels remembers his father was taken aback when he announced he was going into the residential real-estate business in Manhattan -- after having graduated from Harvard Business School with a master's degree in business administration.

"My father always laughs that he spent all this money on private schools, on sending me to Stanford and Harvard&.and I'm a real-estate broker," says Mr. Henckels, senior vice president and director of private brokerage at Stribling & Associates Ltd., New York.

Indeed, his father's surprise wasn't misplaced. Most newly minted business-school graduates enter fields such as general management, management information systems, accounting, finance, marketing, or manufacturing production, according to the St. Louis-based Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business.

But amid one of the worst recruiting seasons for M.B.A.s in years, more are starting to consider careers in residential real estate, one of the few industries still healthy in the current economy. While the number entering the field is "too small to be statistically significant," according to a Graduate Management Admissions Council spokeswoman, even elite schools report that recent graduates have more interest in it.

More prestigious b-schools traditionally have promoted careers at Fortune 1,000 firms. Yet eight graduates of the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business's class of 2002 accepted positions in real estate, up from two in 2001, says Allan Friedman, executive director of communications.

More students at the Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Va., are entering its School of Business with a real-estate major in mind, says Frances E. Altman, a spokeswoman for the school. "We had our first freshman declare for it from the beginning" this past fall, she says. Virginia Commonwealth alumni in the real-estate business are helping fuel student interest. Alumni in the field provide around $60,000 annually in scholarships, says Ms. Altman.

Program Options

Unlike the elite schools, some smaller M.B.A. programs are emphasizing real estate as a career option. Georgia State University's Robinson College of Business "has extremely close ties to the real-estate community," says spokeswoman Tammy DeMeal, including "quite an active alumni club" that networks with individuals in the real-estate business.

Some schools even make residential real-estate training a part of their curriculum. At the University of Michigan, M.B.A. students at the Zell Lurie Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies last fall secured $12,500 from the school's venture-capital fund to create a small firm, Wolverine Real Estate Investments, a development corporation "committed to improving and restoring urban and university properties in southeastern Michigan."

An Impressive Credential

Chris Harding graduated with an M.B.A. from Westchester University of Pennsylvania about 10 years ago and sells real estate as an associate at Coldwell Banker, Yardley, Pa. He says his degree has served him well, and he touts it in his marketing and advertising literature.

Not so many years ago, many entered real estate because their family was in the business, because they liked selling, and because, at least in residential real estate, it could be an attractive part-time job for housewives and retirees. Even though real-estate professionals earn a good deal of their income from commissions, not straight salaries, some M.B.A.s say that their knowledge of finance, economics and statistics can provide a leg up on the competition and help close more lucrative deals more often.

Complex Deals

"Selling in Manhattan, especially selling cooperatives, requires a lot of financial analysis," says Mr. Henckels. Cooperatives emerged in New York City early in the last century as a unique real-estate form, designed as nonprofit corporations to own apartment buildings cooperatively for wealthy apartment owners. Cooperative boards have approval over the prospective buyer and may impose quite demanding standards on a buyer's individual financial ability.

Thus, a co-op purchase can be complicated. "You've got the building's financials. You've got the structure of the co-op. And then you have to be able to present the buyer's financials in a way in which the board can understand them," Mr. Henckels says.

Generally, his clientele on New York City's Upper East Side earn $1.5 million per year and purchase a cooperative apartment worth about $4.5 million. Buying a co-op "can be extremely tricky and quite perilous for the purchaser," says Mr. Henckels.

The real-estate agent must act as a clients advocate, using financial statements as evidence to make a case before the cooperative board. "The financials can often involve as many as 10 or 15 exhibits," says Mr. Henckels. "These are thick packages, and, if you don't know the structure of a balance sheet, particularly dividing up liquid assets from nonliquid assets, and don't clearly present back-up documentation for each asset&you can't close the deal." Or make the commission.