Does AICTE Recognize Laptops or iPads that may be used by MBA Students?

The AICTE Approval Process Handbook doesn't seem to give any idea about whether Laptop or iPads could be used by MBA students in AICTE approved Institutions running MBA/PGDM programs.

The APH (approval process handbook) is probably common for all programs irrespective of the specific requirements of different programs. This itself speaks volumes about AICTE's (mis)understanding and improvement strategies for MBA/PGDM programs - which are treated with a standard set of directions and expectations similar to Engineering and other technical programs.

One can understand the requirement for a central computer lab for other technical programs, wherein the usage of computers/PCs or related work with computers have a certain pattern. For B-school pedagogy, things are very different and expecting students to go to a central common place to engage with PCs is remarkably wrong.

Laptops were in use since the 1990s in a lot of b-schools and still are a very intrinsic part of the DNA of b-school pedagogy and personal learning system amongst students. iPads (an Apple Product) probably will take over from Laptops very soon due to a host of factors, while providing the same (or better) kind of computing power and utilities required by an MBA student.

Even in organizations, there aren't any existing central computer labs wherein people are made to sit on PCs and complete their work (yeah..probably some Insurance companies have such PCs for their junior staff, but they aren't MBAs for sure).

So if I satisfy all norms and then design a very modern infrastructure for usage of laptops/iPads for delivering learning content or for students to use them for creating content as a part of the academic process, will I not get an approval without having a "1:2 capacity computer center"?

Why is there a standard operating handbook that needs to be followed by all programs who don't share many common strains in their DNA?

When will regulatory bodies like AICTE wake up to systems and processes that are world-class and modern and that are followed across the world (US, UK, China,etc)?

Why is it so difficult to have separate and updated guidelines and norms from regulatory bodies to keep pace with the requirements of current times and technological advancements?

This is just one such thing that struck me as out of place when one looks at the APH. I am sure more such disparities and gaps would be available for AICTE to address and solve those for a better future of our b-schools.

So how will Placements 2015 look like: Assuming CAT takers of 2012

Each year, over 200,000 aspirants in India take up the Common-entrance-test or CAT to be eligible for applying to some of the best management institutions in the country.

What have been the trends that are important and related to the growth of management education in India?

- More IIMs: there are 13 of them and probably more would open soon

- All IITs, NITs, and FMS - institutions that were taking other/own entrance tests are now taking scores from CAT for selection purposes

- Multiple campuses of other private institutions (IMT, NMIMS, IMI, etc) and increase in the intake of other b-schools like S.P Jain

- Maturity of the market forces, wherein MBA is now a more focused and proper decision and not any longer the natural step after engineering or graduation

I would like to separately mention another factor adding to the above list - that of the economic conditions and its relevant effects in businesses and organizations who used to be the star recruiters in many b-school campuses.

A sound mind will always ask a question - Is there something wrong with management education model as a whole, and how can we look at forecasting whats probably going to happen for all the passing-out grads in the coming years?

The answer to whether the MBA education model is passe now is - NO. Definitely it no longer represents the growth story of education sector in India any more, but it still re-produces some good talent into the corporate sphere, contributing to the sustainable growth in various sectors. There has been a obvious change of perception and people taking up management education have now accepted the hard realities - that one doesn't come out of an MBA college and buy a Ferrari. Is there a better option other than MBA for creating industry ready professionals? I don't think the outdated undergrad programs are anywhere near to answer that question/problem.

So can we forecast atleast, to ensure that we know what would happen to the grads passing out of MBA/management institutions in the coming years? How will placements 2015 be if we consider profile of people taking up CAT 2012? The following math attempts to answer these questions

Let us consider that in the present economic scenario, it will take more than 8-10 years to see brilliant growth across the world economies (even that's a big Bet and being nonsensically bullish), not much will change in the next 5-7 years, in terms of job opportunities and job-designs available for MBA grads (I am not only taking the top 10 or 20 b-schools, but also the major chunk of good b-schools in India)

To calculate the probabilities, I will be using the Bayes theorem (for multiple probabilities attached in this case)

Formula:
P(A1 | B) = [P(A1)* P(B|A1)]/[[P(A1)*P(B|A1)] x [P(A2)*P(B|A2)]]

Let's define each probability:

P(A1) - Probability of more freshers getting offers

P(A2) - Probability of more work-exp people getting offers

P(B|A1) - Probability of Economic Slowdown/Job-Market Slowdown when there is a probability of more freshers getting jobs

P(B|A2) - Probability of Eco-slowdown when there is a probability of more job offers for people with prior work-ex

The rough segmentation of Freshers:Work-ex for CAT 2011 was about 30:70

Which also would be the representation across the better b-schools around the country.

Let us consider the batch-composition as the ultimate factor to calculate the probabilities of more freshers or work-ex people getting offers.

Therefore,

P(A1) for people who took CAT 2011 will be - 30%

P(A2) will be - 70%

Let us assume that when there are more freshers who get offers, the probability of economic slowdown will be less, and more for the situation wherein the work-ex population get more offers.

Which means,

P(B|A1) - 20%

P(B|A2) - 80%

So, the probability of more freshers jobs when there is a consistent probability of economic slowdown expected over the next 4-5 years, will be denoted by P(A1|B)

Therefore,

P(A1|B) = (0.3*0.2)/[(0.3*0.2) + (0.7*0.8)]

= 9.6%

Case 2:
Let's now consider that for CAT 2011, there were 70% freshers and 30% work-ex aspirants, thereby changing the P(A1) and P(A2) respectively, keeping the probabilities of "B" for A1 and A2 consistent.

So the new P(A1|B) = (0.7*0.2)/[(0.7*0.2)+(0.3*0.8)]

= 38.8%

So the math tells us that there wont be good amount of jobs designed for freshers available to MBA grads in the coming years (About 10% probability), considering that about 70% of CAT applicants will have prior work ex.

The above is only an indicator. There is bound to be argument that this calculation at best throws out only the probability, and hasn't considered other factors like - industry requirements, innovations across certain industry and the speed of the same, technological advancement and its affect on irreversible losses of various job designs, etc. The good thing is that the scope to calculate proper trends and probabilities for this can only improve from here.

The top IIMs - Are they suffering from ELOC?

The IIMs are the high watermark of management/professional education in our country and each year thousands of aspiring applicants (with aspirations to join some of the best organizations in the world) try to get a seat into these coveted institutions, to join the illustrious list of alumnus who have represented Indian Inc across the world.

Amongst the early IIMs, the 3 well established ones are located in Ahmedabad, Bangalore, and Kolkata. Three more were built - Lucknow, Indore and Kozhikode.

Now are you hit with an idea I was - that the first 3 are better than the next 3? Has your brain started to already compartmentalize the institutions into two different categories already based on some bias and perception, which is introduced by means of mere grouping of these into two different sentences?

The IIMs were an initiative by the Govt of India (Min of HRD) to produce professional talent required for the industry and to support the growth of this country in sectors other than agriculture.

Similar requirements also gave birth to the IITs - the respected brand across the whole world. Alumnus of IITs are present in some of the top leadership positions in organizations the world over.

The perceptual issues that have plagued the IIMs since the time there was a huge rush amongst Indian students to get an MBA/PGDM qualification, has (according to me) kind of rubbed into the establishment themselves.

In the last couple of years, the number of IIMs have grown to 13 (7 more added to the already existing 6), and somehow there was well documented resentment and doubts across-the-board when these new ones were launched.

Questions like - "will the IIM 'brand' now fade away?" or "what will be the quality of the person passing out of No1 and No13 when compared by an employer?" started doing the rounds and were lapped up by everyone. Even the applicants who want to get into an "IIM" for a better life (money, status, etc) started magnifying the same issues through discussions, blogging, etc.

So have the first batch IIMs (the first 6) become a victim of "external locus of control" by being forced to compare themselves within their own franchise?

Over the last few decades, B-school Ranking systems have always ranked the fist 3 IIMs (Ahd, Blore, Kol) as Nos.1,2,3 respectively. The rest of the 3 IIMs came in the top ten at most time but not necessarily in the first 6 positions. There were other b-schools that made applicants wonder whether really some magic happens at the top-3 IIMs thats missing in the next 3.

No one asked "why?" is there such a thing existing.

Similarly, when the new IIMs came in, a very similar story unfolded. Various private institutions were ranked way above the new IIMs and these new ones were placed much lower than the first 6.

Which meant two things:
- Perception of these IIMs suffered as they were new and therefore definitely couldn't produce the same pedagogical strength of the first 6
- There is nothing called as the IIM brand as there are clear divisions amongst the early 6 and the latest 7 institutions

I believe that the ELOC is something that has hurt the IIMs badly and definitely the governing bodies of these places are responsible for the same. A system like the IIMs exist in a place like India and not the US, that has representations from IIM faculty or research collaborations at all times. In those Universities (like Harvard, Univ of Penn, etc), there is a clear sense of belonging to the top school, which isn't present for the very stakeholders at the top IIMs. They actually represent a system or a franchise, and that's something that creates a dissonance.

The whole system of ranking IIMs against each other, perceptual difference amongst alumnus and students, etc have created the kind of environment wherein this identity-crisis has flourished. Over the next decade, this can worsen if left to the whims and fancies of people who would love to have the status-quo maintained.

There is no reason for IIMs to be ranked or be worried about who is No.2 or No.10. The trouble is that the current selection procedures also point towards bias in selection of the IIMs by applicants through the present system. What's the future for the new IIMs? Will they be always branded as the also-rans who didn't have the might and power to be counted amongst the established elite? Are the first 6 IIMs elite and not to be touched? Why can't they look at making this a collaborative system and make "IIM" an actual brand (and not "IIMA" or "IIMC" as separate brand names)?

It has to begin with breaking away from the status-quo that's been forced upon them by us (who else?), and then they need to figure out ways to collaborate so that the same pedagogy, the same kind of standards, the same kind of research, faculty, and value is added to each student who joins any IIM. Even the 14th one, if and when its inaugurated.

The Curious case of bad-spiral in B-school's existence

Ever wondered why so many b-schools who are languishing will not be able to become better anytime soon?

I keep interacting with most of them (obviously alongside the best in the domain) in order to figure out whether any of these struggling schools have any thought or understanding of the reasons as to why they are in a downward spiral and if there is a remedy for such a sorry state.

One of the major issues that these b-schools probably have never thought of - is the negative word-of-mouth publicity that is implemented by their own students, which snowballs into very strong negative perception affecting their admission numbers, placements etc each year.

Let us understand what really happens:

1. B-school starts operations and pushes the Marketing/Admission team to get applications for the MBA/PGDM program

2. Marketing/Admission team resorts to tried and tested and failed methodologies right away (these are not some of the best talents in India anyways). They buy databases, call people without permissions, visit cities for education tours and flash GD-PI selection processes, dole out "discounts" in the name of scholarships to "non-scholars", and care a damn while trying to get the seats filled

3. Since the failed methods are used, the perception of the b-school starts on a negative as some of the better students (or students aspiring for a good program) view this as another program started by some X person , thereby quality applications never show up on the radar.

4. While application numbers from the entrance tests databases don't show up, the b-school gets restless and then goes to some of the most remotest areas in India (places like the North-eastern states, Bihar, J&K, Jharkhand, East UP, etc). The "rags to riches" story through something called as MBA is doled out with additional spice. These places generally have dormant decision making kids, and more active parents. So somehow parents are convinced that their sons and daughters will do good (with "city" jobs).

5. These students are then the representation of majority in such b-schools and somehow the fees are collected and batch begins


Other than external ecological factors that will take the wind off the sail for such b-schools in due time, the following happens in the 2 years after these students get admission:

A) They are trained by the B-school in "written" and "spoken" English. Special classes dedicated to personality development are conducted (sometimes in regional languages so that these kids understand)

B) They are trained on using Internet and all technological advancements that are related to the Internet. At the end of these sessions and (armed with the Laptop) at the end two years, these kids are now empowered to use Social network, identify forums for MBA, etc.

C) When placements season arrives, these kids don't get placed through the internal process (mostly due to them being un-employable in any good starting role available to other grads from other MBA programs), and all of a sudden these kids realize that they will never have that dream life which was told to them during the "Admission Seminar" at their respective places

D) Armed with access to internet and filled with disgust, these kids then take on the cyber world, writing some of the most demeaning things about their b-school- the lies, the vacant promises, the bad faculty, no placements, etc. across social networking websites, MBA forums, chat sites, and wherever they feel they can vent their anger

Due to this, in the next admission season, the college again fails to get any response through the normal procedure (through notifications, etc) and resorts to visiting some new places for "fishing".
Since the cyber-world will be filled with amazing negative feedback about the college, people with access to broadband will definitely get to read those while they Google the college. So the only hope will rest on people who don't have broadband access and have no understanding of a career etc.

Thanks to "India Shining!" (sarcasm), there are still areas that fit the description for a good market for such b-schools. Areas that are still pretty backward, and will give anything for a career in the cities.

However, the same story plays out post the admission of this batch as well.

The b-school has now successfully invested and contributed to their very own, home-grown army of students and alumni who are proactively bad-mouthing the college across every possible medium.


What happens in the corresponding year?

The enrolments drop. All of a sudden I get to hear b-schools running a batch of 120 with about 20
enrolments. Given that their yearly budgets on admission activities/scholarships will be driven by the numbers of previous year (again a huge mistake, but will take this topic later), one doesn't need to be a rocket scientist to figure out the way things will go from here. Downward Spiral!!

Two years back, I had predicted that over 1500 b-schools will close in India. To a certain extent, they have. The others have still survived due to the way they got admissions from rural India and kept on the working capital intact. But things are changing faster. Accessibility of broadband and usage of mobile internet will be comparatively growing faster in the coming 3-5 years. With that being the premise, where will these b-schools go??

Is there a way out for them?

Definitely. But that includes things that they wont listen to or even do. They will need to close down their current programs. Re-establish everything from scratch. Get large funding, excellent faculty, use the best mediums available to communicate and interact with the best applicants in India, select only the best, get accreditation that matters, design pedagogy that will be world-class, and then see magic happen in about 5-7 years. Every b-school has gone through stages in their growth process.

Imagine a Hit Bollywood movie. Do we go for a 3rd category production house, with no stars, amazing music, and no special effects? We don't. Because we know that the quality of everything in a movie matters, and therefore people are ready to pay a premium and watch these movies in Multiplexes (and spend more on pop-corns than the movie tickets).

So if 3 hour movie experience needs to be world-class, then what about a 2yr program that will lead to someone start an excellent career??

Don't b-schools think anything on this line? Is surviving another day a part of their DNA now? How do they feel to know that their very investments are their biggest detractors and enemies?

WAKE-UP, and CHANGE.

The Case of inertia and insolvent b-schools in Management Education

There are many concerns of MBA/Management institutions in India who are classified under the 2nd or 3rd categories - going by the way they fail to measure up to any standard of perceived quality or their inability to get students for their programs.

The Biggest problem for these institutions is - PERCEPTION.

It's something like a shadow for these colleges - they can't shake it off anytime easily and it will always stick around.

So how is it even possible to help these institutions get better or top-grade themselves??

In the past 2-3 years that I have been interacting with these institutions, there are a few things that I have noticed as the bottlenecks which stopped them to do anything "good":

- Lack of vision: The top team or the owner have no vision to become better, while missing out the point that only by being better will they survive and earn more money/revenues

- Blindly copying others: This is the "herd" behavior that keeps things like "education tours" alive. Surprisingly, they are yet to figure out that by copying activities that others do, they "place" themselves into the same herd or group as others, and run into the same cliches every year

- Underestimating the ecology: Cocooned inside their own institutions and geographies, they have this self-defeating idea that everything will work out if they manage to get more local students interested in their college, and sometimes they believe that like some other bschools, they will easily get to convince people with less knowledge on MBA, jobs after MBA, life after MBA, etc.

- No measurement of what works for them and what not: There is a very famous saying by a person which goes as - "I know that I have wasted half my money this year that I invested in marketing, but the trouble is I don't know which half". This is the exact situation for these b-schools. They don't know what really worked and what didn't. They don't know if 10 visits to a city yielded anything in the short-term as well as long-term. Will the visits-to-be-made be lesser next year since they made 10 visits; or will that remain the same?

- They don't have a plan for their batch improvement: Every year, their batch needs to be profiled like every other b-school. The trouble is that the profiling never happens correctly. There are no answers to questions like - What are the contribution %ages of CAT/MAT/XAT/Other exams in your batch, and what are the ranges of each of these scores? Also, what are the new regional representations in your batch this year, and have you lost out on any specific representation from last year?(Diversity)

It is a fact that the ecology of the domain and the trends in related fields will affect the survival of the b-schools.

Some questions that these b-schools need to seriously attempt to answer are:

What happens if CAT is conducted for more than 2 months? What happens if CMAT is conducted all round the year?

What happens if the state gets more broadband access in home PCs, mobiles, and internet cafes?

What will be the impact of the usage improvement amongst local population who can now search and find better colleges and information of life after MBA?

What will happen to the kids who would join you and then don't get jobs after 2 years? Will you not train them properly enough to empower them for using Internet/social media? Will they then not have the power and the intentions to bad-mouth you everywhere they can? How will you ever stop from that happening? Will that kid be not responsible for making your college lose applications even before they applied?

What will happen to your college's local population when local population start applying to other colleges outside your city and state? How will you handle newer colleges with more money power coming to your state, or worse, multiple campuses of established names in your city/state?

What will happen if there is a steady decline of the representation from CAT/MAT and other exams in your batch along with the %ile scores and you are not aware of it? How will you feel when you will get companies to come and they will go back empty handed without recruiting?


After trying to answer the above, they should then ponder upon the following:

How will you feel if you can place all your students into excellent profiles in good companies through your placements process? Will that not be something great?

How will you like it, when your own students/alumni will contribute to getting more quality admissions and placements? Wont that be a dream come true?

How will you like it, when your college can increase fee to accommodate better faculty, infra, corporate programs, and still you get some of the best people to apply to you year on year?

Over 140,000 applicants in CAT this year will again be of people with work-exp and the availability of seats for them are less - when you compare the number of institutions that they feel are available to them to apply.

Can't they be one of those (perceived) better quality institution for these applicants?

The Math behind a successful MBA Admission Campaign

Every year, as a b-scgool, you are faced with the biggest challenge of strategically choosing communication channels for your Admission purposes, trying to ensure that you get it RIGHT.

I am aware that over 98% of our b-schools get it WRONG every year. There is a reason they repeat their mistakes, sub-consciously at most times.

You measure the results that come from each marketing channel you choose rather than a multi-channel strategy and measurement. You use certain channels incorrectly, without completely understanding the characteristic consumption pattern of your Applicants in that channel. You define usage of channel by the same prejudices that are wrong and need to be corrected.

So,

How will you figure out muti-channel attribution to your Applications each year?

How will you strategize for something that you don't completely understand?

How will you change from a broken system to a correct-system as soon as possible?

How will you improve effectiveness of your Admission campaign and therefore improve application numbers and maintain that for the coming years?

How will you stop random buying and learn to methodically identify channels that work for you, and the integration of such channels?

Consider the following multichannel strategy used by a b-school

 

 

This means that the bschool is using 6 different but integrated channels for its marketing program.

If we consider that Results (Overall Results i.e.) is a function of engagement and action taken, then we can represent it as:

Result = fn(Action, Engagement)

Now, according to integrated marketing assumptions, the action and engagement can happen in two different channels at a given point in time "t".

Which means, that for a result Rt, the set of action and engagement can be (Pagalguy.com, Database Calling); wherein the action happened in PG but the engagement happened over database calling.

Similarly, at a time "t+1", the R(t+1) can be (Database calling, Pagalguy.com); wherein action happened in database calling but engagement happened in Pagalguy.com.

Since it is impossible to attribute specific inputs to specific channels for results, the best can we can predict is the probability of engagement of a particular platform at a certain time for a result "R".

Mathematically, this would mean-

P(PG) = Probability of student engaging with Pagalguy.com

P(C) = Probability of student engaging over a call

R = Result from the overall marketing system

The Probability of a student engaging with a particular platform is directly proportional for the amount of time he spends on that platform, or the "exposure" to that platform. Therefore, lets assume for our calculation's sake that a student spends 40% of his time on Pagalguy.com and the 20% of the time he is exposed to Calls from b-schools.

Then P(PG) = 0.4, and P(C) = 0.2

We want to identify what will be the probability of engagement on Pagalguy, when there is a Result from the marketing system. This can be denoted as - P(PG | R)

To find this probability, we will use the Bayes theorem (since there are multiple events associated with this probability)

Therefore,

P(PG | R) = [P(PG) * P(R | PG)] / [ [P(PG) * P(R | PG)] X [P(C) * P(R | C)] ]

Now,

We will have to calculate: the probability of a result for engagement happening in PG as well as calls.

P(R | PG) = Time x Activity x (1/Total number of options at a given time)

= 4 x 5 x (1/50)  [Considering 4 hours total time, 5 pages viewed each time, and 50 B-schools as option during his visits]

= 0.2

P(R | C) = 0.1 x 10 x (1/100) [Considering 0.1 hours call time, 10 calls, and 100 bschools calling]

= 0.01

Now, 

The P(PG | R) = [0.4 x 0.2] / [ [0.4 x 0.2] + [0.2 x 0.01] ]

= 0.08/0.082

= 0.97

or 97% probability of Pagalguy engagement when Result is "R" from the marketing system.

Similarly, we can calculate and attribute different probability scores to different sets of "(Action, Engagement") to check how effective is the engagement of a particular medium and how it plays out for the marketing system.

Since, the college in this case is using 6 different channels, and given that there are two factors, the number of sets will be 6P2 (permutation), giving us about 30 such sets that will contribute to the overall results.

These sets need to be measured if one needs to figure out the Effectiveness of Every Channel used. But this is hard and near impossible due to complexity of the relationships and theimprobability to tag an action to a particular channel. All we know is that together, they form a cohesive system that provides the advantages of an "integrated" marketing system and allows us to measure the integrity of "Communication" that actually affect the efficiency of these 30 sets.

 

Start practicing the the most scientific and right strategies for your Admission campaign design, else you will keep on doing the same ad-hoc usage of communications channel and Measure them incorrectly - leading to bad results.

Fooling a B-school in India

Are b-schools really smart? We can argue this based on certain parameters - and one of them has to be the way majority of our b-schools approach planning for their Admission process.

Majority of our b-schools in India (along with the new ones too) follow a very similar and outdated approach to their admission process. The process involves - buying database, calling and mailing this database, holding special seminars, attending educational tours collecting more databases, calling and mailing these again, and continuing the process to get intent from some of these applicants to join the college's program.

Over 1500 B-schools in India practice this every year, and they haven't done anything different for the past many years. The trouble is that, two important things are happening:
- The number of calls that are ending with no results, are increasing
- Even the conversions after getting an intent, are decreasing

Every year, some people sitting at Rajasthan provide our Indian b-schools with the databases of MBA applicants of that year (collected from various "sources" that are claimed to be anonymous). Given that one can easily quantify the number of applicants who are serious about MBA, most b-schools purchase the entire data from the market anyways - to cold call, mail, sms etc.

"So what are some educational portals selling these b-schools in the name of validated/verified leads? If the total population of MBA applicants is a super-set {E}, then there is no chance of {E+1} anywhere."

Then why do b-schools buy such leads at almost 100 times the price that they have already bought from other offline sources? Why are they paying for redundant leads which are the same as they have already purchased and prospected?

It makes no sense to me to get the number of the same girl who has rejected my proposal to get married from another source. I already know the outcome.

Then why would I pay 100 times more money to that source to figure out that the same girl again gets to hear my pathetic rambling and then decide to hang-up the phone?

B-schools have not had the central-nervous-system to understand a few very important things:

1) The universe of MBA applicants is well defined and is a finite number. It is not like insurance or jobs market, wherein leads pour in everyday, and websites formed to catch those leads sell them as premium

2) Buying more leads from multiple sources will only add to duplicating the database already bought by the b-school from earlier sources

3) No matter how strong the counseling team is, there needs to be an integrated and strong marketing plan implemented to support conversions

4) Online doesn't mean BTL activity and leads

5) It is foolish (sorry, no let-off here) in buying leads that you already have as a part of your universal database. Also, MBA applicants do not fill in leads. If they are interested to APPLY to you, then they will directly call or mail your team. They are smart people - in case you have forgotten

Imagine the following situation:

You have purchased 2,00,000 leads from a source (that includes all entrance tests data of that year), and have started calling these applicants through your counseling team.

Somewhere between 3001 and 3005, you wonder what is happening to the 5th person in the database you spoke to? What did that person do or where all did the person engage with your b-school's brand after that call/mail of yours? Has he been called by more b-schools in this interval? How are you going to arrest his exit from your system?

B-schools have forgotten what it means to have excellent marketing systems. Every year, they measure which particular channel gave them certain inputs/conversions and then spend a large sum of their money on that. The next year some other channel finds favour.

This happens because, b-schools dont bother to understand that marketing success (in this case the conversions) is always attributed to how the overall system functions, integrated by the usage of different channels (BTL as well as ATL).

Stop getting fooled and making a fool of yourselves. Get smarter and improve your team's potential to see, understand and implement important communications strategies that will help in getting more applications, and better branding for your college.

Leads don't give you conversions. They are just the beginning of a larger and complex process.