FAQ for Administrators
Must students report to one location on Friday, April 9th (the date that the case study is distributed by the school contact to the student participants)?
Live presence during the case distribution is not necessary. Student teams will be emailed a username/password combination from their school contact person at 9:00 am on Friday, April 9th. This username/password combination will give each student access to the case study and supplemental materials on the Case Competition's official website: www.AspenCaseCompetition.org. You might suggest that the student teams arrange a meeting that morning with laptops and internet handy so you can get started on brainstorming and the division of labor together right away.
When do students need to present their analyses to our on-campus judges?
There is no live presentation requirement in Round One; all judging is done based on the written responses. Some participating schools choose to include a presentation in their process in order to enhance the experience?and that's fantastic. Additionally, some schools choose to host a reception for all participating students at which the Round One first place team is announced. Again, this is optional, but adds to the student experience.
How does the weekend of April 9th work for the case competition?
Please see the process page of this website for a detailed description. In a nutshell, this is the weekend in which students will compete in an on-campus competition to determine the first place on-campus team that will compete in Round Two. Student teams will receive access to this year's case study on the morning of Friday, April 9th, and must return their responses to a campus point person by the morning of Monday, April 12th. On-campus judging should then immediately take place and each school should report their first place team, along with that team's written analysis, to Aspen by 5:00 pm local time on Friday, April 16th.
What sort of student information does Aspen request at the conclusion of the Competition?
At the end of the Competition, we ask for a master spreadsheet of all the student teams on your campus. This helps us know the total reach of our program, so that we may tailor the Competition's structure in the future, and also provides us with the information needed to send thank you emails to each of the students who participated. Please include in this spreadsheet the students' first and last names, email addresses, whether they are a first or second year MBA student, part-time or full-time student, and MBA or other (and please let us know the name of the degree if 'other') degree student. Thank you!
How many teams are chosen as finalists?
All twenty-five schools submit the written analyses of their first place on-campus team to Round Two (see process). Of those twenty-five teams, five will be chosen to present at The Finals in New York City on April 30th.
Our country's native language is not English. May we use our native language for Round One of the competition?
Yes! However, when submitting your on-campus first place team's written analysis to the Aspen Institute for Round Two of the competition, the team's work must be translated into English. Also, looking ahead, all Round Three presentations must be in English.
I work closely with another school that wishes to participate in this case competition--can their students join at this point?
We have limited the number of participating schools this year to twenty-five, but may revisit this number for the 2011 competition. Unfortunately, a waitlist already exists for this year's competition and we are unable to add any more institutions at this time.