Graduate business and management programs face a host of challenges that would have been hard to fathom even 10 short years ago.
Many colleges and universities are having a hard time attracting and enrolling the international students they once depended on to fill seats. A strong U.S. job market is making it more difficult to lure domestic applicants out of the workforce and into classrooms. Traditional MBA programs are facing new competition from online, part-time and executive MBA programs. And many schools are still struggling to achieve important goals related to diversity and inclusion.
On top of that, limited financial and human resources in admissions offices are restricting the ability of graduate-level business schools to embrace the changes necessary to remain relevant in the eyes of prospective students who have no patience for yesterday’s outdated engagement strategies and application processes.
What can we do about it?
It’s not all bad news. Over the last couple of years, programs across the country have found a better way to recruit, enroll and admit best-fit students quickly and efficiently using BusinessCAS™, the Liaison-powered Centralized Application Service (CAS™) for graduate management education programs. BusinessCAS serves as a single portal for prospective students to apply to multiple programs with just one set of application materials.
Today, more than 31,000 academic programs on over 1,000 campuses are members of a CAS. And Liaison has partnered with more than 30 professional associations to create over 40 discipline-specific iterations of CAS, enabling the associations to better support their members by promoting best practices and the adoption of transformative technology.
The second cycle of BusinessCAS is now complete, and the results are impressive. For example, the number of participating institutions increased 160% from the platform’s first cycle. Applications are coming in from all over the country and around the world. Nearly one in five applicants is African American or Hispanic.
Opening doors to a wider world
“I knew we’d get exposure to a whole new pool of applicants who hadn’t considered our programs before when we joined BusinessCAS, but I didn’t realize it would happen this quickly,” says Loubna Bouamane, PhD, director of admissions at University of Miami Business School. “I’m excited about being part of this initiative!”
Dee Steinle, executive director of MBA and MSB programs at the University of Kansas School of Business, shares that enthusiasm: “With BusinessCAS, schools share a common ‘front door’ where prospective students can research our programs and ultimately send an application,” she says. “When you think about the time and money a student will save on developing a single application instead of several applications, it is clear that BusinessCAS will be a good move for our industry. It is definitely a good move for the KU MBA.”
The results say it all. You owe it to yourself — and your future students — to discover the benefits that BusinessCAS can deliver to your program. Learn more and see a full list of participating programs at businesscas.org.
