Veritas Prep Releases Its Latest White Paper: Social Media in MBA Admissions

The use of social media has exploded in the worlds of graduate school marketing and admissions, so much so that an applicant's information-gathering process has become a lot easier than it was ten years ago... Or has it? We've surveyed the social media landscape in MBA admissions, and have put our findings into a new white paper titled Social Media in MBA Admissions.

We spent the last two months collecting information on how schools use social media, interviewing admissions officers, and observing how applicants interact with top MBA programs. Now that so many business schools are on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube -- and have blogs, message boards, chat rooms, and other ways to communicate -- it seems natural that applicants would have an easy time researching the schools that interest them most. However, our research shows that, in many cases, school are simply broadcasting the same message in multiple channels. Even worse, they're communicating different messages in different channels, making applicants' jobs that much harder.

Another interesting finding: Despite all the buzz in the past year about Facebook and Twitter, good old-fashioned blogs still seem to be the most preferred method for communication, with more than 60% of the top 50 U.S. business schools maintaining a regular blog presence. And it's not just the admissions offices that contribute to these blogs: Half of the schools surveyed have blogs penned by current students. More than one admissions officer called this a scary" proposition for institutions that want to carefully control their messaging, but they all acknowledge that this type of less carefully managed communication is an inevitability.

We also interviewed three of the more progressive admissions directors in the business school space: Soojin Kwon Koh at Ross, Peter Johnson at Haas, and Rose Martinelli at Chicago Booth. From them we gathered these best practices that schools should consider when planning how to use social media in MBA admissions:

1. Communicate from an authentic voice. Leave the brochure-speak for the brochures. Students have enough places to find marketing messages. They want to hear the real dirt, and they want to get it straight from the source. As Peter Johnson explains, "Although print publications still have a place in the mix, we reach more applicants with more targeted information by reaching out on a variety of platforms."


2. Implement a push/pull communication philosophy. Many school approach social media as they do all forms of media: as a way to push out their messages to their intended audience. However, that's only half of the potential of thee channels. The "pull" approach invites applicants to talk back, getting their questions answered and giving instant feedback to the school, as well as helping the admissions office learned more about the individual applicants. As Martinelli explains, "We learn more about our applicant needs which helps us to design better communications. Plus, these exchanges provide us with valuable content that helps us in the evaluation process."


3. Think integrated. Amazingly, almost half of the top 50 business schools' web sites don't link to their Twitter feeds or Facebook pages. And, in many cases, when schools do promote their other information channels, those channels simply regurgitate the information found on the web site. Ross approaches it a little differently, as Soojin Kwon Koh explains. Her team has adopted a deliberate, proactive approach that involves maintaining updated, meaningful admissions information from credible sources across third-party and homegrown social media platforms.

We hope that our new white paper proves to be a useful resource for both applicants and MBA admissions officers. You can download it here!

For personalized, one-on-one help in the MBA admissions process, give the Veritas Prep team a call at (800) 925-7737. And, as always, be sure to follow us on Twitter!