Published: January 21, 2015
Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business Innovates Its Approach to Admissions
Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business wants applicants to the school to walk away feeling good about their experience, regardless of whether they gain acceptance or ultimately enroll. To this end, the school’s admissions team, led by Associate Dean of MBA Admissions Shari Hubert, launched an innovative initiative last spring to understand the applicant’s entire journey through the admissions process—from the moment they begin to research schools right up to their arrival on campus (for those who are admitted and enroll). Their findings have already begun to reshape the Georgetown McDonough admissions process—for the better, Hubert hopes.
Hubert joined Georgetown McDonough in December 2012, coming from a career in campus recruiting for the Peace Corps, Citigroup and General Electric. “I saw a need for us as an admissions office to be more connected to our customers—prospective applicants—to understand what they were going through and how they experience us as they apply to business school,” Hubert says. An MBA applicant herself once (she holds a degree from Harvard Business School), she remembers how daunting the experience can be. “I wanted to engender goodwill no matter what the outcome,” she says. “I wanted them to walk away saying Georgetown is a wonderful institution that lives its [Jesuit] values.” Of course, she also hoped that by creating a more positive experience for applicants, the school would increase its yield.
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