Evidence-Based Innovation Blog

As the sun gets warmer and the grass greener, real estate signs are sprouting up on neighborhood lawns all across America.  It’s the best time of year to show a property and April and May are the peak months for home sales.  For MBA admissions directors, business school information sessions are a lot like a real estate open house – just without the ubiquitous “for sale” sign.  Like prospective home buyers, MBA prospects often conduct multiple searches before deciding on a business school.  Here are six tips toward a successful closing at your next MBA information session.    

Easter is a beloved holiday for springtime enthusiasts with its images of pastel bonnets, confectionary baskets, and garden bunnies.  It is also signals the height of MBA recruitment season for many business school admissions officers.  In today’s highly competitive market, finding the most qualified MBA candidates can seem a lot like hunting for hidden Easter eggs.  Here are five ways to create an MBA referral program so your applications multiply like rabbits.

St. Patrick’s Day is just around the corner heralding the approach of spring and a time of year when thoughts turn to renewal.  As daffodils and cherry blossoms begin to bloom, it’s the ideal opportunity to do some spring cleaning of your business school marketing collateral. Here are four “lucky clover” tips based on this favorite Irish holiday to ensure your MBA marketing communications are sprouting new prospects year round:

There’s plenty of speculation leading up to the Academy Awards. Will the first silent film in 85 years win Best Picture? Will the most photographed actor in the world take home the most recognized trophy in the world? Will the most nominated actress win her first Academy Award since 1982? 

All this anticipation and nail-biting is just like a scene from the higher education equivalent of awards season. Each time a media ranking is published MBA admissions officers take a deep breath and click on that “virtual envelope” in their inbox.

Here are some tips on promoting your media rankings, no matter what the result, that come straight from the red carpet in Hollywood.

The presidential election season is in full swing as contenders travel throughout the country delivering stump speeches and courting voters in anticipation of the general election in November. 

Meanwhile, business schools are embarking on a lengthy campaign of their own. With an eye on enrollment goals, directors and deans are also looking to the fall when they will welcome a new cohort of students to campus. 

But MBA recruitment can be even more challenging than running for office since “election day” (or the first day of classes) occurs not every four years but annually – and more frequently for multiple or part-time programs.  

Here are five lessons from the presidential campaign trail to increase MBA applications.