Eduvantis Introduces New National Business School Student Survey

You already know this a critical moment for higher education, as there will likely be more shifts in market share over the next five years than has occurred during any other five-year period.  Listening carefully to your students will be essential to adapting and thriving.  As such, we are pleased to introduce a new national business school student survey to help business schools gain the information needed to succeed.

Having data-based answers to a variety of key questions, from the market’s perspective, is a critical component to building the optimal enrollment growth strategy, and formulating the best game plan to activate it.  These questions include, among others:

• What drove certain prospective students to enroll at our institution (while others did not)?
• How is our value proposition perceived, relative to how we are trying to position ourselves?
• What attributes were most important when prospects considered our institution?
• How satisfied are our students, relative to those that chose to enroll elsewhere and what were their expectations upon enrollment?

Based on our extensive experience, most institutions don’t have answers to these questions.  We typically receive one of the following responses:

• There is limited/no recent market research that has been conducted due to budgetary restraints; everything we have is anecdotal,
• We know what the trends are by reviewing the national studies that are conducted by AACSB, GMAC, and others, or,
• Here is our brand study that we conducted that we think has a lot of that information,
• We survey our students at the end of every course, but haven’t really looked at them holistically – does that help?

Ultimately these answers mean “no, we don’t have that critical information.”  National studies are informative, but they do not provide guidance for specific institutions based on the particulars of their market, nor do they help a school understand the satisfaction level of its students and the basis for that rating.   Brand studies play an important role in helping define overall brand architecture and differentiation, but they do not provide clarity on how, for example, an institution’s PTMBA should alter its targeting, product or marketing to attract more students based on its value proposition relative to those of alternative options

The new national survey for business school students we’ve created provides essential knowledge for any business school to stay up-to-date on the consumer perspective of its value proposition, the satisfaction of its students, and what aspects of its offer are over/under performing relative to market desire and expectation. And with a price point starting at $10k, it is designed to fit within your budget and ensures a positive ROI.

Through partnering with institutions individually – rather than surveying the market at large – we will be able to provide data on your students benchmarked against national averages and the averages of similar institutions.  We’ll ask timeless questions (some of which we’ve peppered through this post) such as “On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely would you be to recommend your school of to a friend” (Net Promoter Score), as well as time-sensitive questions regarding interest in online versus in-person classes once the consensus is that it is safe to offer both.

Our intent is to make this the largest survey of business school students in the country, and the one that provides the most actionable insights for those who participate.  We’ve priced the survey starting at $10k because we believe that you’d be hard-pressed to have a higher ROI using that $10k any other way – even if it’s pulled from the budget that was earmarked for marketing spend.

The timing of our launch is intentional, as you may have budget still available in FY21, or you’re finalizing the FY22 budget and plan. Our expectation is that those who participate will derive so much value from this survey, that we will conduct it annually so you can track how your student’s desires are changing, and how the changes you’ve made have impacted their perspectives.

We are excited to launch this initiative to help business schools adapt to the changing marketplace.  If you’re interested in participating in this study – in this fiscal year or next – and/or in getting more information, please contact Steve Shriberg at [email protected].