AIGAC Blog

Last month, AIGAC hosted its first annual conference in Chicago.  Twenty-six graduate admissions consultants representing 15 companies from six countries gathered to learn from each other, from admissions representatives and from outside experts.

The two-day conference, held on June 18th and 19th, featured panel discussions on a range of topics related to the graduate admissions process and the role of admissions counselors, as well as tours of local business schools, meetings with admissions officers and valuable networking events. The conference was organized by our events committee, led by Graham Richmond.  They did a phenomenal job!

The conference’s first day included campus tours of the University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business in Hyde Park and Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management in Evanston. As part of these visits, AIGAC members also had the opportunity to meet with admissions officers at each school as well as other administrators from areas such as career counseling and marketing. To conclude the day, conference attendees gathered for a fun private dinner at a restaurant in downtown Chicago. 

The conference’s second day featured a packed schedule of three panels, touching on several aspects of admissions consulting.  The first panel introduced several seasoned AIGAC members who fielded questions related to best counseling practices.  The panel explored the most challenging issues that admissions consultants encounter, and examined actual solutions employed in resolving these challenges.  The second panel covered CRM and best practices for using a product such as Salesforce.com to develop a client focused company.  Finally, our third panel was an admissions roundtable with admissions representatives from top-tier business programs such as the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler School of Business, the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, the London Business School and UCLA’s Anderson School of Management.

At a joint cocktail hour hosted by AIGAC at the annual Graduate Management Admissions Council conference, conference attendees also had the opportunity to meet with additional admissions directors including representatives of Michigan Ross, Cornell, Haas, Anderson, Tuck, INSEAD, Yale, Indiana Kelley and Tepper.

Through these many interactions, AIGAC learned that Kellogg’s new facilities are now expected to be ready in four years, that application volume has increased across the board, and that career placement has remained quite strong despite a shaky economy.  We also gained additional insight into the life of an application as it is reviewed, and learned more about the qualities schools are seeking in successful candidates.  AIGAC members were able to answer questions about admissions consulting generated by curious admissions representatives as well.

All attendees agreed: the conference was a terrific event, full of excellent networking and extremely useful information.  It was a great step forward for the industry. Consultants from several firms said they look forward enthusiastically to future years’ conferences, noting that the inaugural event helped them learn more about their profession and their colleagues, including the fact that they face many of the same challenges.