To use MBA Pathfinder® Data Warehouse effectively, please consult the sections below. Contact us at pathfinder@gmac.com if you have any questions or concerns.
You can also download this entire document as a Word document if you prefer.
New MBA Pathfinder Participants
First, enter and submit the required elements in the School and Program Offerings sections. This will make your program available for search results in the mba.com school search service.
Then, enter and submit the rest of the data for the Program Offerings and Admissions sections. You may also enter your Class Profile data or employment data, but neither can be submitted until your Dean has agreed to the MBA Reporting Criteria Adoption Statement.
Data you enter in the MBA Pathfinder Data Warehouse will be cross-posted on the MBA Career Services Council’s website (mba.csc.org) and vice versa.
For current definitions of terms used in the MBA Pathfinder Data Warehouse, refer to the MBA Reporting Criteria.
Returning MBA Pathfinder Participants
First, review the School, Program Offerings, and Admissions sections for incomplete data. Pay particular attention to those elements (indicated by a bright “D” icon) that are displayed in the mba.com School Search Service.
Data does not exist in the MBA Pathfinder Data Warehouse for two kinds of elements: those which did not exist in the previous version of the MBA Pathfinder Data Warehouse, and those which could not be converted from the previous version. The Data Conversion section below covers these issues in detail.
MBA Pathfinder Elements
STRUCTURE
MBA Pathfinder data is divided into sections, each of which has a number of data entry pages associated with it. The five sections are:
Section A: School
These data entry pages contain elements related to a school (as opposed to a program), such as Accreditation and Faculty Information. These pages can be updated at any time.
Section B: Program Offerings
General information about a specific program, such as Program Type, Academics and Joint Degrees. These pages can be updated at any time.
Section C: Admissions
Data related to the admissions process, such as Start Dates, Required Application Elements and Financial Aid Information. Most Admissions pages can be updated at any time.
Section D: Class Profile
Attributes of the entering class, including as Applications, Offers, Matriculants, Citizenship and Work Experience. These pages can be submitted only once per 12-month reporting period, but can be accessed any time in read-only mode.
Section E: Career
Employment data for the graduating class, such as the number of graduates seeking and accepting offers. These pages can be accessed only once per 12-month reporting period, but can be accessed in read-only mode until the end of the current reporting period.
In addition to the data entry pages, there is an MBA Pathfinder Administration section that contains functionality not related to data entry.
NAVIGATION
You can access almost any MBA Pathfinder page from almost any other page—a navigation menu is always present on the left side of your screen.
The top of the menu contains links to pages related to what you are currently working on (e.g., all the data entry pages associated with a specific program). The bottom of the menu contains links to other sections, such as the School data section, another program’s page, or the Administrative section.
Clicking a section heading expands or closes the menu for that section. (You must click the Introduction link under the heading to move to the first page of the section.)
The last page of each section is the Summary page. If there are no errors on the Summary page, you may proceed to the section Submit page.
ERRORS AND WARNINGS
Data entry error messages are displayed in red; warning messages are displayed in gold. You may not save data when errors are present and you may not proceed to the Submit page if errors are present on the Summary page. You may save and submit data if warnings are present.
If warning messages are displayed when you click Save and you wish to proceed without changing the data, click Save again. You will see the warning again on the section Summary page.
PREVIEW MBA.COM DISPLAY
At the top of each Summary page in the Program section, you can click a link to preview the mba.com display of your saved data. This preview does NOT reflect what is currently displayed in the mba.com school search service (unless you have made no changes to your data since it was last submitted); it reflects the data you have saved, but may not have submitted.
Note that there is no preview link on the School Summary page; the mba.com School Search Service shows information at the program level, so the preview must be accessed from within the program screens.
MBA REPORTING CRITERIA
The MBA Reporting Criteria was revised in 2006 to include definitions of new elements and updated definitions of some existing elements.
Data Conversion
In 2006, some MBA Pathfinder elements changed and much of the previous data has been converted to the new format. We recommend that you re-enter any data which was not converted from the previous versions in the new structure. (A conversion is available in the Getting Started Word document.)