The weekly column

Article 27, August 2000

Trends and Techniques in International Student Recruitment

By Cheryl Darrup-Boychuck, International Student Recruitment Counselor

"Too many people in this country cherish the illusion that just any throwing together of humanity will strike off sparks of empathy. This is quite mistaken. The exchange of persons is a delicate matter to be planned for with all our resources of intelligence and imagination." -- Dr. Helen C. White at the Conference on International Student Exchanges held in May 1948 at the University of Michigan.

Dr. White's words of wisdom are particularly relevant today, to post-secondary academic institutions around the world who have jumped on the internet bandwagon in hopes of boosting ESL enrollments. The evolution of the new communication medium is not unlike that of newspaper, radio or television. In the novelty stage, euphoric entrepreneurs attempted to reach the masses: the printing press and eager, commission-only delivery boys, for example, paved the way for wide distribution of the newspaper. Likewise, the low-cost of accessing the internet has made it nearly ubiquitous.

Opportunities arose for a few publications, such as the printed International Herald Tribune or web-based Yahoo! to secure global exposure and build name-brand recognition. At the relatively early stages of development, both print and internet advertising decisions were solely based on volume. What were the verifiable circulation figures for the newspaper? How many click-throughs did a particular website boast? As the newspaper - and the internet - became more pervasive, their respective publishers keyed in to more local, personalized promotional opportunities (i.e., http://local.yahoo.com ). Why? Because the vast majority of organizations do not care to market their goods and services to the world; they have much more focused marketing objectives. Not all international student recruitment counselors have recognized the value of focused marketing objectives based on internal and external research when determining their online marketing strategies. They have overlooked the fundamental question, "Based on what our school has to offer, what kind of students do we want to attract?" Instead, a significant number of universities around the world (in the United States in particular) have haphazardly plowed resources into marketing venues that promise volumes of prospective student inquiries.

Frustration abounds when an online promotional campaign appears to be too successful, in the sense that hundreds - if not thousands - of students inquire via e-mail. Consequently, the international admissions office spends quite a bit of the budget on glossy brochures and overseas postage, only to find that a very small percentage of those inquirers actually enrolled.

Obstacles to admission are wide and varied: lack of financial resources, incompatibility of prior transcripts, visa-related issues, to name a few. But most of those obstacles could have been addressed, if not overcome completely, with a few personal e-mail correspondences before the pricey paper-based correspondence was sent.

Back to the Basics

The objective in international student recruiting is to facilitate interaction between prospective student and advisor - remembering that personal interaction is the basis upon which the admissions decision is still likely to be made. The internet and e-mail communication simply offer yet another interactive avenue.

The key is to effectively filter the student inquiries before they ever reach the admissions office, so universities spend resources on qualified candidates most likely to enroll in their particular program. A number of promotional websites serve as basic directories or "yellow pages" of available academic options. Those venues are appropriate for universities with high name recognition.

For the larger majority of universities without that luxury - and without the budget to respond to every e-inquiry with a $US15 mailer - smaller, more focused sites may provide a more logical solution. A quality, promotional website should feature simple but effective filtering mechanisms.

Simplicity (and near-lowest-common-denominator technology) is still paramount in the business of international student recruitment, as the high-tech bells and whistles of Scandinavia and the U.S. are lost on less developed countries which rely on out-dated computers sold at bargain prices.

After identifying a person - a real, live international student recruitment counselor - with whom you can customize a worldwide web-based promotional campaign, qualified inquiries will begin to trickle into your office. As those numbers grow, consider further filters to facilitate personal communication with the prospective student.

There are a number of very useful tools already embedded in most programs on our computers. Basically, those functions are simple "if-then statements" written by high-tech programmers: "If the incoming message contains <this word> in the subject and <another word> in the body, then forward it to <this e-mail address>." That high-tech secret code has been revealed to the masses via simplified Windows-based programs... and therein lies the beauty of the internet and e-mail communication.

You may want to prioritize the inquiries by categories like when the student expects to enroll, financial backing, or English proficiency test scores. When used properly, these mechanisms can help identify which prospective students need what kind of guidance - ultimately facilitating human interaction.

In any correspondence, be sure to address the inquiring student by name, and respond in simple English to his or her specific requests in the first few sentences. After the first paragraph, you may rely on pre-written templates that you can easily cut-and-paste into your personalized message. Within the template, you may want to include a Frequently Asked Questions section and standard details about your admissions policy. Avoid abbreviations and slang, and direct them to your program's own website for additional information.

Whatever recruitment decision you make, track the effectiveness of your efforts. Fortunately, a number of internet software programs offer superb tracking mechanisms, which are more critical now than ever before because of shrinking budgets on campus. You need to justify the expense of your promotional efforts. You need to arm yourself with statistics like: "This is how much we spent on these recruitment projects; they generated this many inquiries from each of these countries. Of those, this number of students actually enrolled here last year. The annual average per-student expenditure for our state is $__,____. So the total dollar amount generated was $__,____."

It sounds very "calculated," and it is. Perhaps Michael McCarry, Director of the Alliance for International Education and Cultural Exchange, said it best: "We know that in the current climate, the old arguments for the importance of mutual understanding no longer persuade as they once did. Our case will need to be made on the basis of outcomes." (quoted in the International Educator, Summer 1996, page 36). Those outcomes are likely to be much more positive when the input to the strategic development process is focused. It seems much more logical to advertise in the equivalent of the Annual Education Supplement to the New York Times' Asian Edition, rather than any random New York Times' national edition, for example.

"Just any throwing together of humanity" does not guarantee harmony, goodwill or a successful international student recruitment program. Remember that "the exchange of persons is a delicate matter to be planned for with all our resources of intelligence and imagination."

Cheryl Darrup-Boychuck is an international student recruitment counselor and owner/operator of the U.S. Journal of Academics at www.usjournal.com. She is an active member of NAFSA: Association of International Educators, the American Association of Community Colleges, and the Better Business Bureau.

She may be reached by phone at +570-339-4731, or by e-mail at cheryl@usjournal.com

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