Helping Students Navigate the MBA Admissions Process

A major obstacle for prospective students can be the complex MBA admissions process for most programs. It often requires the completion of several involved and, at times, stressful tasks that include researching programs, studying for and taking the GMAT, crafting well-written and compelling personal statements, collecting letters of recommendation, and more. Of course, there are good reasons why much is required—it conveys to prospective students the investment in time, resources, and effort necessary to succeed in an MBA program—but there are still ways to make this process easier for them. 

We’ve detailed three ways you can help prospective students navigate the MBA admissions process, which can in turn help your program stand out from the pack and lead to increased enrollment.

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Make Yourself Available and Willing to Help

The more you can add a personal touch to prospective students’ interaction with your MBA program, the more they will be able to make positive associations with your school. There are a number of ways to do this: You can offer free professional development sessions geared at helping students work on their applications, encourage students to reach out to a counselor or current student, feature in-person or online events to detail the benefits of your program, offer a casual coffee hour with faculty and/or admission staff, and more. 

Santa Clara University not only does a good job of offering various relation-based opportunities to learn more about its program (MBA info sessions, webinars, coffee chats with admissions, etc.), but it also makes it easy to view all of its available opportunities. By crafting an easy-to-navigate calendar that notifies prospective students of upcoming events, the university relays to prospective students a host of relation-based opportunities in a format that makes scheduling to attend simple and convenient.

UC Davis’ MBA program offers something similar for class visits. Recognizing that a valuable way to help students get a sense of what life will be like in their program is to have them “try it on for size” by sitting in on a class or two, the staff encourage students to find available classes and schedule a time to visit in a convenient format online. When students interact with real people at your school, your program transitions from an abstract entity (like many of the other programs vying for MBA students) into a particular place and group of people who want to help students meet their professional goals.

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Offer Explicit Guidance and Insight

Another way to help ease the MBA admissions process for prospective students is to offer guidance, tips, and valuable resources to prospective MBA students (also known as “content marketing”). This can come in the form of an ebook detailing how to make prospective MBA students’ application shine or a 30-minute phone session explaining the best way to write a personal statement. It can be done quite simply, such as through a few emails about what not to do in your application résumé, or it can be more with more complexity through a free test prep course. There are a range of ways to come up alongside students as a helpful guide.

The University of Texas offers valuable information through its MBA Insider blog. By featuring articles about the MBA admissions interview and how to highlight work experience, the university helps prospective students ease through and complete the MBA admissions process. And this is a tactic that doesn’t require a huge amount of resources to implement. You can recruit admission counselors, faculty, alumni, or even current MBA students to contribute to the blog and, with a little bit of planning, create a great resource for prospective students.

Another effective, though much more resource-heavy tactic is to offer GMAT and GRE test prep courses to prospective students. This is exactly what UT-Dallas’ program does, which it details on its website. It’s worth noting that these courses cost money and are therefore aimed at prospective MBA students who are more committed to attending a program. (If students are willing to spend money on a course, then it’s safe to say that they are willing to both take the test and apply to programs.) This is a great way to develop a pool of very qualified leads to whom you can market both during and after they take your course. 

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Another strategy would be to offer free test prep courses, which would allow you to cast a wider net to prospective students. However, those who sign up for a free course may be less committed to applying to a program. While this requires a substantial investment (a paid instructor, course materials, etc.), gaining just a couple of enrolled students from a free course can certainly be worth it.

Maximize User Experience on Your Website

One of the easiest ways to remove your MBA program from contention is to make it difficult to achieve what they need to on your website: learn about the benefits of your program, contact a counselor, or complete the application. In other words, if your user experience (UX) is poor, prospective students will get a bad taste in their mouths and become less likely to return to your site and take that critical next step in the buyer journey.

Vanderbilt University has taken this to heart. Right on its business school homepage, it offers the chance either to read about an alumnus story or apply (depending on where the visitor is on his or her buyer journey). One of the most frustrating things a website can do is make it difficult to find a link to actually apply to the program (you would be surprised by how many schools struggle with this basic UX requirement…). Vanderbilt, on the other hand, makes the link clear and easy to find. The school also provides user-directed questions to help push prospective MBA students along the buyer journey, asking them to indicate whether they are a “working professional” or someone “looking to develop leaders” in their organization. This conversational approach helps point visitors in the right direction as opposed to expecting them to navigate the site on their own. Overall, the school makes for a pleasant UX experience with clean and compelling design and photography along with clear and instructive copy.

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Carnegie Mellon University provides another good example of a website that is easy to navigate and encouraging throughout the buyer journey. For example, its simple and well-designed application checklist gives a high-level overview of what is expected from students in order to apply. Below this are links to learn more about important things like dates and deadlines, essays, recommendations, and interviews. While there is nothing fancy about the website, the school demonstrates a clear understanding of the types of things prospective students care about in this stage of the journey. It’s simple, but prospective MBA students can surely appreciate the straightforwardness of the website and how easily they can find answers to their questions, especially as they get ready to actually apply to the program.