Bringing Rigor To Admissions - National Management University

This case is set in the education industry. The President of National Management University (NMU), a fictional university in Singapore, has asked a professor to assume the role of the Dean of Graduate Studies with a mandate to reverse the trend of declining enrollments at the university. The 20-year-old university was among the top five in the nation and had been offering graduate programs for a decade. It had begun to witness a decline in enrollments that was concerning from both a financial sustainability perspective and in view of the lofty growth targets set by the university board. To assist him in getting to the root of the current problem and finding a solution, the new Dean has asked for, and received, a large amount of information on the university's marketing and promotion activities and expenditures, its choice of media and venue for its spends, the speed of student enrollment and the effectiveness of its campaigns. He hopes the data will provide potential answers as to how to better spend university resources to increase student recruitment and achieve the growth targets.