Practical Tips for Managing AACSB PRT Visits

• Before the PRT arrives, preparations include not only briefing faculty and creating a comprehensive run sheet, but also incorporating enough flexibility into the planning so that the school can adjust to unexpected developments.
• While the PRT is on campus, a key priority for the accreditation team is to closely manage participants’ schedules to ensure the presence of essential stakeholders—and have last-minute backups in mind if any cannot attend.
• Once the visit is over, the team should engage in a structured review of the PRT’s feedback before undertaking continuous improvement activities.

 
For a school pursuing initial AACSB accreditation, a defining milestone is receiving the confirmation email for the peer review team (PRT) visit. It marks the moment when—after years of planning, continuous improvement, and progress reporting—a school has the opportunity to tell its own story about its successes, challenges, and aspirations. For a school already within the accreditation system, a similar sense of anticipation accompanies a continuous improvement review (CIR) visit.

To ensure that they are ready to make presentations on the institution’s processes, achievements, culture of quality, and strategies for continuous improvement, members of the school’s accreditation team must plan well in advance. And a key component of this advance planning is creating a detailed schedule of events that takes advantage of the PRT’s limited time on campus—three days for initial visits, two days for CIR visits. During that short time, PRTs will need to attend meetings, view presentations, tour the campus, and interact with a wide range of stakeholders.

Schools can prevent a packed schedule from becoming hectic by making small, operational decisions based on clear coordination, well-planned logistics, and streamlined communication. Here, four business schools share the practical approaches they have taken to manage PRT visits with confidence and describe what other schools can expect before, during, and after this important milestone.

Before the PRT Arrives

During the pre-visit phase, it’s essential for the school’s accreditation team to maintain clear and timely communication with the PRT to align expectations, finalize logistics, and develop the schedule. The accreditation coordinator should take five steps in particular:

Prepare the meeting spaces. Some schools designate one room as the central hub of activities; others set aside one room for interviews and another one as the base room where PRT members can conduct their work and write their reports.

In either case, these spaces should be equipped with essential amenities, according to a senior accreditation representative from a school in the Middle East. These might include “reliable Wi-Fi, charging facilities, refreshments, printing support, and easy access to the evidence repository so reviewers can work efficiently between meetings.” In addition, the room should hold plenty of printed copies of the visit schedule so reviewers can refer to the itinerary throughout the visit.

Hold faculty briefings. Schools can strengthen faculty alignment and build collective ownership of the accreditation process by engaging faculty before the visit. Particularly when they are interacting with the PRT for the first time, faculty can feel apprehensive answering questions about areas where the school’s continuous improvement efforts have not yet achieved the desired outcomes. But if they’ve been briefed on what steps are being taken to improve these areas, faculty can respond to the PRT’s questions confidently and transparently.

Briefing sessions also ensure that both faculty and members of the accreditation team will be ready to discuss any topics that could arise during the PRT visit, including some that might not have been addressed in detail in the self-evaluation report. For instance, Standard 2 requires schools to conduct a risk analysis, but the PRT might dig deeper, asking how global uncertainties could affect the school’s ability to achieve its strategic objectives. With advance preparation, school representatives will be able to discuss how they have identified and plan to mitigate potential risks.

At IBA Karachi’s School of Business Studies in Pakistan, faculty engagement was intensified during the months before the initial accreditation visit in February 2025, says Sana Tauseef, chair of the accreditation committee. Structured sessions were conducted by the dean, the head of research, the accreditation team, and program directors. Sessions covered the school’s policies, its areas of continuous improvement, and its response to changing industry and academic expectations. These discussions not only revived faculty’s understanding of the school’s policies but also led to productive discussions around them, says Tauseef.

“Faculty and staff became genuinely invested in the process, and the PRT visit felt like an opportunity to showcase our collective progress,” she says. “More importantly, the sense of unity and shared purpose that emerged during the preparation process did not end with the visit. If anything, the experience strengthened our commitment to continuous improvement and reinforced a culture of collaboration that continues today.”

Schools can hold briefing sessions before the PRT visit to ensure that faculty members can confidently and transparently discuss any topics that could arise.

The accreditation coordinator at the other Middle Eastern school mentioned earlier highlighted how important it is to maintain consistent messaging. This institution developed a briefing guide to ensure that faculty members would be familiar with the contents of the AACSB report and could confidently discuss the school’s initiatives.

“The guide contained around 100 likely PRT questions with suggested discussion points linked to the submitted report,” the coordinator says. “This helped faculty understand the evidence and respond consistently while keeping conversations natural.”

Develop a run sheet. To ensure that the events of the PRT visit run smoothly, the school should create a comprehensive timeline of planned events that captures session titles, times, locations, participants, and other information.

“The run sheet should detail essential logistics, such as PRT arrival and departure times and means, room setup and turnover, table tent management, catering deliveries, technology support, and primary contacts,” explains Jennifer Jordan, senior accreditation coordinator at the University of Melbourne’s Faculty of Business and Economics and Melbourne Business School in Australia. “It should also include basic wayfinding guidance.”

In addition, the run sheet should specify staff call times and identify which dedicated staff members are assigned to which tasks, such as acting as PRT escorts or setting up and breaking down the meeting rooms. By providing real-time information about people and events, the run sheet allows “event managers to quickly redeploy staff, respond to PRT requests, and address emerging issues with confidence and efficiency,” adds Jordan.

When the University of Melbourne prepared for its PRT visit, Jordan says, members of the accreditation team collaborated to refine session details, participant logistics, briefing requirements, and contingency planning. Institutional leaders provided oversight when key decisions or changes were required. “This collective approach ensured that the run sheet was both comprehensive and practical, reflecting the needs of all stakeholders involved in the visit,” she says. “It was designed as a living document, capable of adapting to changes while remaining easy for both organizers and participants to navigate.”

Build in flexibility. While the run sheet may show a packed schedule, accreditation coordinators note that it’s essential to incorporate short buffer breaks between meetings. These intervals will support smooth transitions between participant groups, allow attendees brief opportunities to recharge with coffee or light refreshments, and help sustain energy levels during extended days of discussions. They also will allow the school to accommodate the pace of discussions, the preferences of the PRT, and last-minute changes.

Prepare for contingencies. Schools should be ready to respond promptly when the PRT visit leads to unexpected discussions that require the accreditation team to revisit certain aspects of the standards or provide supplemental documentation. Members of the accreditation team, in addition to faculty and department heads, should remain available throughout the visit to address such issues. To ensure that attention and resources remain fully focused on supporting the accreditation process, school leaders might consider scheduling any nonessential administrative activities for after the PRT visit.

Once the Visit Starts

When the PRT team arrives, the focus shifts to real-time execution of carefully designed logistics. Schools offer three pieces of advice for ensuring this phase runs smoothly:

Employ coordination tools. The University of Melbourne prepared for a site visit by creating a Kanban board “to track activities, monitor progress against accreditation requirements, allocate responsibilities, and identify potential bottlenecks early,” says Jordan. The school also relied on enterprise SharePoint environments to collect resources and allow collaboration.

“The SharePoint site enabled proactive gathering of supporting evidence, by standard, over a multiyear period, that could be finalized and deployed as an online document repository, accessible to the peer review team through a SharePoint Comms site front end,” Jordan adds. Because collaborative links to documents were stored on the enterprise site rather than being circulated via email, the school enabled real-time collaboration and maintained version control of materials.

It’s important to involve a variety of stakeholders in PRT sessions, because each group provides a different perspective on the school’s impact and community engagement.

Set up a green room. A secondary support room can serve as a place for faculty to gather in advance of sessions to meet the accreditation team, ask questions, and have refreshments.

Leeds University Business School offered such a space in March 2025 when it hosted a PRT team for a reaccreditation visit. “This helped reduce pressure and ensured sessions felt confident, natural, and well-paced,” says Tom Laughton, accreditation and rankings manager at the U.K. school.

“A well-organized secondary hub enables efficient coordination, clear communication, and seamless transitions, particularly with the increased pacing of concurrent or back-to-back sessions,” says Jordan of the University of Melbourne. “A shared gathering space also encourages early engagement, helping participants feel prepared, connected, and at ease before entering sessions.” She recommends appointing a dedicated coordinator for these secondary rooms to ensure consistent oversight across the schedule.

Manage the attendance of participants. It’s important for schools to involve a variety of stakeholders in PRT sessions, because each group provides a different perspective on the school’s impact and community engagement. For example, alumni can offer insights into the long-term value of their educational experiences, while employers can comment on graduates’ preparedness and the school’s responsiveness to evolving industry needs.

However, it can be challenging to bring these stakeholders together, and many of them—particularly alumni and employers—will have last-minute commitments that derail their planned participation.

To make it more likely that external stakeholders will be able to attend, accreditation coordinators suggest planning interactions well in advance so events are on participants’ calendars. Closer to the date, confirm attendance and send reminders, issuing calendar invitations that specify arrival times that are 15 minutes early. To ensure that meetings start on time, place supporting information and name cards at the front of the room so participants can find them easily and get seated promptly.

Just as important: Have backup participants available in case some confirmed attendees can’t make the event.

After the PRT Departs

The post-visit phase allows schools to take a well-earned pause. However, the conclusion of the accreditation visit should not be considered an endpoint but a time for the school to renew its commitment to continuous improvement.

The success of a PRT visit will depend on how well the school prepares materials, coordinates activities, and encourages collective institutional engagement.

At this point, it is essential for internal stakeholders to engage in structured reflection on what they’ve learned from the visit. They should share notes, document observations, consolidate feedback, review key recommendations for making programmatic improvements, and outline actions to take for the future.

The accreditation team also should consider which aspects of the visit went well and which ones could be refined before the next PRT arrives. Such reflections will enhance the school’s readiness and effectiveness for future visits.

A Journey of Continuous Improvement

The success of a PRT visit will depend on how well the school prepares materials, coordinates activities, and encourages collective institutional engagement. While a school should invest in formal structures and documentation, it also should pay attention to participants’ needs, communicate clearly, and manage operational details.

As the experiences of accreditation coordinators suggest, all three phases of a PRT visit reflect consistent themes: the value of well-orchestrated logistics; the need for environments that enable open, confident, and meaningful dialogue; and the importance of early and transparent engagement with stakeholders. As Tauseef of IBA Karachi says, “Accreditation is most successful when the entire school feels a sense of ownership of the journey.”

The ultimate goal of a PRT is to provide sincere and productive guidance to the school. Therefore, it’s essential for accreditation coordinators to maintain open and clear communication throughout the visit and to reflect upon and evaluate PRT feedback once the team is gone. As schools commit to continuous improvement, they will reinforce a culture of quality that will continue to evolve long after the visit concludes.