UCLA and MIT Now Evaluate Admissions Candidates on the iPad

Matchbox has announced that five Admissions Offices at the MIT Sloan School of Management and the MBA program at the UCLA Anderson School of Management are the first six university programs in the world to use the iPad-centric Matchbox solution that re-thinks the admissions process so that universities can focus on recruiting the best students.

Available as a free 30-day trial with pricing that starts at $200 per user/per month, the Matchbox iPad app and cloud-based infrastructure is said to be the next step in modernizing today’s Admissions Offices, by reducing the time it takes to review and process applications by up to 75 percent.

The solution, as the creators put it, empowers admissions teams to “shift their focus toward recruiting high caliber students rather than managing reams of paperwork.”

They say college admissions programs are receiving more applications than ever before, citing data recently released by the Department of Education.

In other words, the need for a solution like Matchbox has never been grater.

In fact, the company says that colleges have spent a record $11.7B in 2009 on salaries and payroll related to recruitment, as the need to hired more personnel to manage this influx has grown.

According to Stephen Marcus, founder and CEO of Matchbox, “Admissions professionals have traditionally lived by the 70/30 rule – spending 70 percent of their time on logistics related to application review, and 30 percent of their time recruiting candidates.”

“Matchbox is the first software application to help schools flip this equation, enabling admissions to spend much more time on enrolling students. We understand the issues admissions professionals face because our team has roots in Admissions. I built the first version of AdmitPad to help me deal with my own application reviews as an alumni member of the MIT Sloan Admissions Committee. The pain in this market is palpable and extends into many other areas of recruitment that we are determined to solve,” added Marcus.

To apply for the free trial or to begin using Matchbox on iPad, visit the company here.