Background
Shaping future leaders at Ireland's leading business school
The UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School is a Financial Times top 100 business school offering a unique Irish experience. In addition to the Smurfit MBA, the Business School offers more than twenty specialized master's programs including an MSc in Finance. Each year, this program attracts a diverse mix of domestic and international applicants eager to become the business leaders of the future.
Challenge
The missing piece in a holistic review: Effectively assessing fit
As part of their commitment to holistic review, Smurfit's admission team wanted to evaluate their applicants on a deeper level. While they loved the idea of interviewing every applicant in-person to assess their potential for fit and success, it simply wasn’t possible given the high number of applicants relative to the size of their team. They needed to find an effective middle ground.
“Our team has found Kira very useful. There’s no other way of saying it — it’s exactly what we thought it would be. It adds a whole new layer to understanding an applicant’s motivations.”
- Richard Murphy, Admissions ManagerSolution
Using Kira to gain a deeper understanding of applicants
In 2017, Smurfit saw Kira Talent as a unique product that didn’t seem to exist elsewhere. After speaking with multiple peer schools who were already using Kira, they felt confident the platform would help solve their challenge of getting to know more applicants in a meaningful way.
Results
Smurfit screens in their best-fit students to build high calibre cohorts
Over the past two cycles, the MSc Finance program has seen a 6.5% increase in offers to applicants and an 8.2% increase in acceptances. As one element of Smurfit’s holistic admissions process, Kira has enabled their team to gain a deeper understanding of who their applicants are and how they might fit into the program. The MSc Finance program has also seen a 27% increase in applications. With Kira in place, the admissions team has been able to efficiently manage and review those applicants, resulting in considerable time saved.
