The mba.com Prospective Students Survey—the largest data resource of its kind available to the graduate management education community—provides business schools around the world with reliable survey data to inform their understanding of candidate demand.

Every month, the survey polls a sample of mba.com registrants to collect data on prospective student motivations, preferences, program choices, needs, behaviors, and opinions.

This week GMAC Research made available the 2018 mba.com Prospective Students Survey Interactive Data Research Tool, which enables school professionals to explore the survey question-by-question and filter the data by a variety of geographic, demographic, and psychographic characteristics of prospective business school students. The 2018 edition of the tool presents the combined results of the monthly online surveys completed between February and December 2017. The survey responses of 9,471 unique individuals are reflected in the tool.

Access to the interactive data research tool is limited to school professionals at GMAT-accepting institutions. GMAC.com login is required.

New groups available in the configuration menu in this year’s data research tool include:

• GMAC global candidate segments: Filter the survey results by GMAC global candidate segment. Learn more about the segments in our segmentation white paper.
• 12 US Metro areas: Filter the survey results by US metro area by selecting ‘location,’ ‘country,’ and ‘United States.’
• Regions of Canada, India, and China: Filter the survey results by region of these three country markets by selecting ‘location,’ ‘country’, and then either ‘Canada’, ‘India,’ or ‘China,’.

New survey topics covered in this year’s data research tool include:

• Influencers: Prospective students indicate who influenced their decision to pursue a graduate business degree.
• Alternatives to business school: Prospective students indicate which options they considered doing instead of pursuing business school to fulfill their goals.
• Desired skill and knowledge development: Prospective students indicate the skills they want to develop in business school.
• Desired program curriculum: Prospective students indicate the curriculum they would consider a must-have in their ideal business program.
• Media behavior: Prospective students share details of their social media use, media consumption habits, and what specific media content they follow.
• Psychographic profile: A new series of questions details prospective students’ satisfaction with various aspects of their lives (e.g., career, personal financial situation, social, family, and overall).

Visit the mba.com Prospective Students Survey homepage at gmac.com/prospectivestudents to find more information and view past mba.com Prospective Students Survey summary reports.