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How Top Business Schools Are Boosting International Graduate Student Recruiting

Kristi Ryujin

Recruiting international students is one of the most important steps universities can take to help foster the diverse learning environment needed to better prepare future leaders for today’s global marketplace. At business schools in particular, these students bring diverse perspectives and new ideas to the table that can often translate into better solutions when working in teams in and out of the classroom.

Unfortunately, in recent years international enrollment at U.S. universities has been trending , increasing the need for schools to get creative with their international recruitment efforts. Business schools, however, are already gaining ground in this space, creating new programs that speak to what employers want and will attract international talent to their schools.

The Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado Boulder recently created a new MBA/MS STEM dual degree that can be focused in either Business Analytics or Supply Chain Management. This allows students to develop a valuable business toolkit—including leadership, critical thinking and communication skills—and specialized knowledge in one of those two STEM-designated areas.

USC’s Marshall School of Business also launched a in fall of 2019, in which students can pursue a STEM certified Management Science specialization to gain critical data analytics skills in addition to building deep business fundamentals. The Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame created a STEM-designated dual degree that allows students to further specialize an MBA degree with data analytics knowledge. Other schools who have launched similar programs recently include: University of Wisconsin, UCON and Purdue, Iowa State, University of Delaware, and University of Virginia.

We sat down with Leeds Associate Dean of Graduate Programs Kristi Ryujin to get an inside look into Leeds’ new MBA/MS STEM dual degree and find more about the school’s approach to international recruiting.

Can you tell me about the new MBA/MS STEM dual degree and how it will support Leeds’ efforts to recruit international students?

An MBA/MS STEM program allows for international students to gain a solid business foundation and leadership training offered by an MBA program along with advanced specialized skills in Supply Chain Management or Business Analytics. There is so much interest in the technical areas of supply chain and business analytics right now, and our corporate partners are really emphasizing the need for those skills.

Last year, we worked closely with our faculty and corporate partners to create a more robust MBA program, one that really meets the needs of our business community. So bringing that together with these two master’s programs allows us to deliver an even stronger high-quality business experience for both domestic and international students.

Additionally, with a STEM-designated degree, international students may take advantage of up to three-years of , which allows them to work in the U.S. while they obtain hands-on work experience in conjunction with, or immediately after, their academic studies. The ability to stay and work for up to three years also gives these students a much higher chance at securing a job with a domestic employer and gaining critical skills through western business experience. The Leeds School is currently the only business school in the state and the region with this type of dual degree.

What else is Leeds doing to drive international graduate student recruiting?

We’ve been in China, India and other areas of Asia recruiting students. We’re involved with national organizations that are recruiting from international student populations, utilizing the information they provide to us about students abroad and circulating information about our students to them.

We also are working to create a summer program that would bring international students to Boulder and give them of sense of what Colorado is like while highlighting our business education—with the hope that they will join one of our programs later on. We also have partners in Asia who help us recruit, and we’re working with an Asian business school to develop a pipeline to our MBA and MS programs as their students consider opportunities for graduate studies in the U.S.

What we’re trying to showcase in our programs is our high-quality business education, and many of our international students are interested in entrepreneurship—in which we are a leader. We believe all of those things will help students understand that this is the place to advance their career and create connections in Boulder and Denver to help support their long-term goals.

What advice do you have for other business schools who want to improve their international recruiting efforts?

  • Be present in those communities.
  • Form relationships with sister schools who can see the benefit of the partnership.
  • Create programs that help support the interests of international student communities. For example: entrepreneurship is a very serious interest of our international students, so making sure that our programs at Leeds are robust, interesting and have connections for students to make has been incredibly important in drawing students here.
  • It’s important that you have a critical mass of international students. These individuals want to know that they’re coming to a school that has other international students. So by forging those relationships and supporting your students’ success, they’re going to be your best ambassadors.

Any final thoughts?

International students want to know that when they get into the classroom they will be accepted and valued. Everyone does. But for international students specifically, that’s something that all schools are going to have to think about: How do we create a sense of belonging for our students? How do we make sure that their peers respect what they bring to the table? If you really think about it, having someone who has global experience on your team is an asset. But we need to make sure students understand that and take advantage of the opportunity to work with someone different than themselves.