B-School Tries Online Game, Scholarship to Spur Interest

Can an online game offering thousands of dollars in prizes reverse the slide in M.B.A. applications?

The University of Rochester certainly hopes so. Starting September 26, potential M.B.A. applicants to Rochester’s William E. Simon Graduate School of Business Administration will begin playing a business simulation game that promises a full scholarship worth more than $70,000 to the winner, plus smaller scholarships for the runners-up. The goal is to attract top-notch applicants who may never have even heard of the Simon School but find the game — and the scholarship money — enticing. "We hope to get a little viral marketing going so that people spread the word that Simon is an innovative place worth taking a look at," says Dean Mark Zupan.

Resorting to contests and prizes shows just how tough times are for full-time M.B.A. programs. The Graduate Management Admission Council reports that 72% of full-time M.B.A. programs experienced an application decline this year as more people opted to keep their jobs and seek a part-time, executive or online M.B.A. degree instead.

The Simon School contest may seem gimmicky, but at least it does measure participants’ business skills. The Nyenrode business school in the Netherlands pulled off a much more blatant publicity stunt last March with an eBay auction for admission to its M.B.A. program.

By Ronald Alsop

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