Some of the best of the B-schools team up to recruit
If you're seriously considering pursuing an M.B.A. degree and want the convenience of meeting representatives from top business schools in a single location, attending several M.B.A. fairs is more than a great place to start—it is almost a required activity. Now, some of the best schools are making it a little easier.
S7 Partnership
Seven top business schools have joined forces to jointly recruit in key markets throughout the U.S. and abroad. Calling themselves the S7 partnership, the schools create their own recruiting events--more than 25 this year--replacing more expensive, individual events the schools traditionally ran on their own.
The S7 schools include: University of California, Berkeley’s Haas School of Business; the Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University; New York University’s Stern School of Business; Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, Yale, Darden and Ross. Notably absent from the group are Harvard, Princeton, Stanford and Wharton.
Host their own events
The S7 schools attend fewer of the large scale MBA admissions fairs, choosing more strategically where to invest their time and effort, and instead have agreed to each host an event of its own, inviting all the other S7 schools. In this way they create an affordable method for all of the schools to reach a broad swath of potential students.
MBA Applications have nosedived
Full-time MBA applications have nose-dived at more than a dozen of the top ranked business schools, due to competition from part-time, online and second-tier programs. In response, the S7 school began testing the idea about three years ago, jointly holding information events in large American cities and in Europe. The recruiting events have become an excellent opportunity for prospective MBA students to meet with representatives from the school’s office of admissions and learn about the S7 school’s programs.
Robert Namar is CEO of NAMARketing News, and a Wall Street veteran consulting for a number of financial services firms
