The education sector in India has been witnessing a cut-throat competition, especially among the business schools, vying for students who have completed their undergraduate studies from various colleges and other educational institutions, and who are seeking admissions in reputed business schools to pursue their MBA program. As the competition has grown, the role of marketing department has increased significantly. One of the important pieces of information that would help the marketing efforts would be the understanding of the factors that determine the preferences towards the business schools. This study examines the business school preference in India. Adaptive conjoint analysis was used to investigate the relative importance of various attributes of business school preference. A descriptive research using stratified random sampling method was undertaken and the study was conducted using both primary and secondary data. Results indicated that the major determinants of business school preference were quality of teaching, infrastructure, reputation of business school, placement activities, distance from home, opinion of family and friends. It was concluded that the combination of factors like “course availability, job prospects, reputation of business school, accreditation, and quality of teaching,” was ranked the highest and combination of factors like “distance from home, opinion of family, and would friends join” was ranked the least.
Keywords: Attributes, Business School, Conjoint Analysis, Level, Preference
