Recruitment and Selection of Health Administration Graduate Students: Opportunities and Strategies

摘要

At the beginning of the 21st century, health administration programs are faced with increasing accountability for delivering to the practice community newly minted graduates capable of assuming management and leadership roles in complex healthcare organizations. In response to the growing demand for more accountability and better educational outcomes, there has been a strengthening of curricula, development and adoption of competency models, evaluation criteria, and revised accreditation standards. At the same time, program leaders are faced with challenges to recruit and select the most qualified students. This has become increasingly more difficult because applicants' needs are changing and the way they make decisions are based more on rankings, location, style of educational product delivery (distance, traditional, weekend, full-time day, part-time), and the best financial package. The most competitive students "shop" for the highest ranked programs, largely with the aid of the internet. A major challenge to program direction is recruitment and selection of a diverse student body (Griffith, 2001). The purpose of this paper is to describe the changing environment, possible strategies and solutions, and the experience of one program in developing and fine-tuning a recruitment and selection process to met changing demands.