Last week was an exciting week with numerous admits going out for Darden (EA) and Columbia (ED). We also saw interview invitations mailed to Stanford and MIT R1 applicants and continued to receive ‘field reports’ from applicants completing their Wharton and HBS interviews.

Despite all of the activity last week, this week looks to be even more charged with news. As usual, our clients have been updating us with their results. The BusinessWeek discussion forums have also been flooded with noteworthy developments. Yesterday, Tuck (EA) began calling applicants with good news (admit calls will continue to go out through the end of the week). Kellogg also began notifying a handful of R1 applicants who have made the cut. Meanwhile, Stanford interviews continued to trickle out and UNC sent an email to all ‘early action’ applicants reminding them that decisions will be released on December 13th.

On other fronts, several applicants offered their predictions with regards to applicant volume. From our standpoint, despite a slight up-tick in application volume for Wharton’s first round (+2%), we’re betting on declining numbers at several top schools before the season is over. With GMAT test-taker volume lagging last year’s figures, this seems inevitable.

Speaking of Wharton, for those of you anxiously awaiting the December 23rd R1 notification date, there is a slight chance that you won’t have to wait that long. In prior years, the school has often pushed up the notification date (sometimes by as much as one week). If this happens, the adcom will typically notify everyone of the change via the student2student discussion forums. If we had to guess on an ‘early release’ date, we’d go with the 16th or the 21st of December…

Hang in there everyone! More news to come…

This is certainly an exciting time of the year for admissions officers and applicants alike. Over the course of this young admissions season, we’ve seen more and more evidence of schools reaching out to applicants. Before we examine some of the new marketing developments at top MBA programs, let’s look at the data that appears to be driving these initiatives:

-HBS had 10,382 applications in 2001-2002, vs. 7,139 last season (a 31% drop)
-Wharton had 8,371 applications in 2001-2002, vs. 5,622 last season (a 32% drop)
-Stanford had 5,864 in 2001-2002, vs. 4,697 last season (a 20% decline)

It’s clear that the last two years have been a bit lean, although the volume reported last season is not terribly far from data in the late 90′s (suggesting a return to pre-bubble footing). Needless to say, evidence is mounting that the schools are back on the marketing offensive as they compete for a smaller group of elite applicants:

Harvard
Traditionally, the Harvard admissions process has been described as a ‘black box’, where only a small team of admissions officers call the shots ‘behind closed doors’. This year, in somewhat of a break with tradition, HBS organized a “Round 1 Conference Call” for applicants. The conference call featured admissions officers and HBS students, sharing data about interview invitations and answering questions about the program. During the conference call, the admissions team offered the following statistics: 250 R1 interviews have been conducted thus far, 700 R1 interviews will be offered in total. The school will interview roughly 1500 applicants across all three rounds, resulting in roughly 1000 offers of admission (i.e. 66% of those interviewed will get in). This sort of marketing activity is great news for applicants, since it allows everyone to get a better sense of the process (and takes some of the mystery/anxiety out of the waiting game).

Wharton
The Wharton school is the clear leader when it comes to using creative marketing techniques in the admissions office. The school’s policy of ‘admissions transparency’, coupled with lightning fast decision notification has sent somewhat of a shock through the system of MBA admissions at the top schools. Wharton applicants discuss the school via moderated discussion forums and read online diaries from current students. The fact that R1 Wharton applicants get their decisions before Christmas (but aren’t forced to decide until the spring) is another unique feature that helps Wharton stand out from other top schools. Of course, all of these initiatives have been on offer for the past two admissions seasons, so the school has been forced to innovate again this season in hopes of maintaining admissions volume. This year, applicants can get the latest tips and information from the Wharton admissions blog.

Stanford
Although Stanford has seen less of a decline in application volume than HBS or Wharton, the school has also made some interesting changes over the past few seasons. These changes include the introduction and expansion of an interviewing initiative (the school had previously skipped the interview process entirely). In addition, the program has introduced the Stanford Admissions Newsletter, offering admissions tips and addressing common questions that many applicants have. The highlight of this monthly newsletter is the Director’s Corner, where Derrick Bolton, Assistant Dean and Director of MBA Admissions, offers his take on subjects like essays and the interview process along with a healthy dose of admissions philosophy.

These kinds of changes are not limited to the schools mentioned above. In fact, Columbia’s ED round is viewed by some as a direct response to competition from peer schools (and a desire to manage yield). Of course, the binding nature of this early decision is always the source of controversy. Stay tuned to this blog for more content on this subject.