1) NC State was not included in the rankings because we had an insufficient response rate to the online survey BW conducted of recent graduates and soon-to-be graduates. An open plea to our MBA students and alums: please make sure the MBA program office has an email address that you check regularly. With our growing full-time program, we are likely to be eligible for more rankings (e.g., Business Week full-time).
2) Part-time programs across the country are having difficulty attracting students due to decreased employer support for educational expenditures. The BW article also notes that part-time students at most schools are frustrated because they do not have access to career services and on-campus recruiting. Unlike most part-time programs, NC State's working professional MBAs take MBA 500 just like the full-timers and also have full access to information sessions and on campus recruiting.
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The students of the NCSU MBA program understand the importance of the BW rankings, and the majority of us are happy to help get NCSU into these rankings. I think the issue is, the survey itself looks a lot like a spam note/email and is most likely ignored by MBA students used to getting hundreds of similar "take a survey on XYZ".
ReplyDeleteI suggest the following recommendations to increase participation.
1.) Promote participation in the survey by more than just email. Post the availability and a link to it on the easel in Nelson/RTP campus, on the MBA online calendar, on the facebook page, twitter page, etc.
2.) Have all MBA professors open every class during ranking season with an announcement or
3.) Dedicate first 10 minutes of class to participate in the BW survey.
4.) Offer some form of incentive for participation (ie. if you show the confirmation print screen - the you get a t-shirt/sticker/binder
5.) Maybe the Admin is not aware of when the survey goes out - so find a student ranking promoter (Ill volunteer) - who is responsible for informing other students that the ranking email went out - and promote everyone participates
6.) Should it not be the MBA office's responsibility to have valid email addresses for students and alum, and not solely on the student/alum to keep the office updated.
7. These are just a few off-the-top ideas, and I am sure there are a lot of other smart marketing teachers and students who have additional ideas to increase participation.
We all want to see the national recognition and ranking of the NCSU MBA program increase and reflect the quality of education we are receiving. But I think it is more constructive to think of ways to increase participation by engaging with students, rather than outline the reasons why we were not ranked.
Cordially,
Sean M White
swhite@redhat.com
MBA Candidate 2010
Sean:
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your thoughts. BW actually tightly regulates all communication between COM and students about the survey. But getting faculty on board with announcements might be allowable.
Dean Allen
Regarding #2, those services are still mainly geared toward the full-time MBA students. The jobs all seem to be more appropriate for less-experienced people. Do recruiters know that they have access to an experienced pool of candidates?
ReplyDelete