Welcome back from winter break, and welcome to the first IDP partner newsletter of 2011.
We look forward to working with you this year to advance your international recruitment efforts.
Below please find the following 13 topics:
· International recruitment advice from IDPʼs CEO
· Tips for overseas recruitment activities
· Tips for interacting with international students
· Tips for engaging the IDP Network
· An update on IDP student applications
· Congratulating the University of Bridgeport on an impressive accomplishment
· IDPʼs February conference attendance
· Offer of assistance for conference presentations and proposal submissions
· Call to host IDP counselors on campus
· IDPʼs expansion into the United Kingdom and Canada
· An update to IDPʼs Web platform
· IDP remains committed to Australia
· Introducing an IDP India senior counselor
Research Paper on Mirroring Australiaʼs International Success
During a recent international education symposium held jointly by the International Education Association of Australia (IEAA), the Association of International Education Administrators (AIEA), the Forum on Education Abroad, and NAFSA: Association of International Educators, IDPʼs CEO Anthony Pollock led a session focused on advancing U.S.-Australia Cooperation in International Education. Mr. Pollock has since developed a companion paper that advises U.S. colleges and universities on how to adapt Australia’s successful international recruitment strategies for their own efforts.
Some sample tips include:
· Universities are advised to have a single international office, covering marketing and recruitment of students for all divisions, or faculties. This is the best way to ensure that the universityʼs brand is marketed properly and consistently, and that international students will receive the same quality experience across all units and levels.
· Ideally the international office should be funded by a portion of international student tuition income and not be dependent on the annual budget appropriations process.
· New pockets of international students can become easily isolated if not managed well. Particularly in small communities, sudden changes to the population mix can result in a negative impact, particularly when domestic students are not prepared for a shift. Community leaders are key to the successful integration of new populations into existing environments.
William Lacy, president of the Association of International Education Administrators, Vice
Provost for University Outreach and International Programs at the University of California,
Davis, and a contributor to the international education symposium where this topic was presented, had this to say: "The Australian higher education system is at the forefront of successful international recruitment. Australia's outreach policy is an enviable one that many U.S. institutions should consider adopting, and this paper from IDP Education provides an accurate analysis of several of the most effective strategies."
The paper is available online and as a free download at http://bit.ly/htaaFS.
Tips for Road Show and College Fair Participation
As we approach the February 4 start of our Spring Road Show, we want to provide some strategies that proved successful for participants of the fall event. Most of these will be useful in any college fair or overseas tour environment.
· Have a handout and mini banner stand that lists all your programs.
· Have a handout with a map of your location in the United States.
· Have a handout with quick facts oriented to international students, such as:
o School size (including international student numbers)
o Student demographics (including leading countries of origin of international students)
o Testimonials (preferably from international students)
o Alumni success (preferably including international alum)
o Rankings (if applicable)
o Top programs (in general and/or for international students)
o Top employers of international graduates
· Waive application fees (ideally fees are always waived for IDP students, but itʼs particularly important at events).
· Wherever possible, get alumni, faculty or U.S. students currently studying abroad to join you.
· After any good conversation with a student, make a note of what you discussed and hand the note to an IDP counselor at the end of the event. In this way, we can be sure that conversations with counselors can continue exactly where your conversation ended.
· Scan the local papers and advertising outlets to observe how higher education is marketed in the region. Take note of how countries and specific universities are represented in billboards or display ads to understand the type of branding that works in the area.
· Explore the country as much as possible. Your travels will at times be exhausting, but make sure you get out to wander the markets and take in the sights. Interact with locals and indulge in native foods. This will help give you a better feel for the country and its residents, which will prove invaluable when conversing with students and families.
· Be the brand – wear your school colors and logo wear to feel as connected to your school community as possible.
· Interact with your fellow travelers as much as possible – spend extra time with IDP counselors to better understand their process and better inform them of your offerings, but also try to spend time with your fellow travelers to share tips and advice.
We are excited for our second U.S.-focused Road Show. These events are vital opportunities to explore a market, meet prospective students and their families, and interact with and educate IDP counselors. We strongly encourage your institution to participate in order to help spread your brand overseas and help further develop a relationship with IDPʼs Network. Remember that if you arenʼt able to attend, you can also achieve success by involving colleagues, administrators, faculty, study abroad students, alumni from the area, or others with a strong connection to your school.
Tips for Interacting with International Students
Just as student support services for international students must differ from services for domestic students, so too must recruiting efforts be adjusted for international audiences. Here are some tips for interacting with international students:
· International students are typically more interested in the quantitate details than the qualitative. Consider discussing the data points of your institution – minimum entry qualifications, costs, etc. – before describing the unique personality of the campus. Proximity to large cities is also an item to highlight.
· The first priority for most international students is career advancement – make sure you review how your institution can help them get a job upon graduation (either in the United States or abroad). Career services, alumni networks and internship opportunities are key areas to highlight.
· Many students donʼt have a concept of “feel” and “fit” or “reach schools” and “safety schools.” Ask questions about why they think one school is better than another, or why they think rank equals quality. Your role will be to explain why your specific institution is perfect for them, and why a perfect-fitting institution means a greater opportunity for success (IDP counselors also work to stress this concept).
o Overseas, education is “sold” much more than in the United States. Students and families may be considering schools in other countries where higher education is a product that people sell.
· Whenever you gather leads from overseas, consider handing them over to the local IDP office. Our counselors will have a better chance to follow up and stay in contact, and we will keep you updated on the progress.
Tips for Engaging the IDP Network
The IDP USA team is constantly looking for ways to further connect our university partners
with our overseas offices (the “IDP Network”), to help support your efforts.
A few successful strategies include:
· Recurring newsletters: Many of our partners have developed IDP/agent-specific enewsletters that we distribute to counselors and managers in the Network. Ideally distributed on a quarterly or semester frequency, these newsletters often include brief descriptions of the school, faculty spotlights, student and alumni testimonials, rankings, etc. This format provides our counselors with key information for when they begin discussing institutions with students.
· Email blasts: Every week we distribute an email to the Network on some topic related to U.S. counseling or a spotlight of one of our partners. Feel free to recommend programs or initiatives youʼd like us to highlight, as well as a potential target audience or demographics for the offering.
· Videos: We are in the process of sending videographers to our partnersʼ campuses to create five-to-six-minute-long videos for use by both counselors and prospective students. The idea is that these videos will serve as a substitute for an in-person campus tour. With specific orientation for prospective international students, these videos feature interviews with students, administrators, faculty, and international student support services, and showcase the campus environment, various classrooms and dining halls, etc. This is an entirely free service for all partners and is an incredibly powerful way to speak directly to international prospects.
· Virtual counselor briefings: We will soon restart our popular audio briefings, which are opportunities to present your institution to the Network via an audio interview that will be recorded and made available in an archive. This should be considered a supplement to the presentations you give during office visits or while participating in Road Shows.
· Marketing materials: Please ensure that we have all digital copies of viewbooks, international brochures, fact sheets, student demographics, and any other marketing materials. We convert all of these documents to A4 format (the standard paper size overseas) and place them in an online database available to the Network. If you donʼt have a digital version, please send a print version to us to scan.
To learn more about any of these opportunities, contact our manager of communications,
Matthew Ulmer, at matthew.ulmer@idp.com or 215.282.1885.
Partner Spotlight
Congratulations to the University of Bridgeport. According to the latest Open Doors report,
Bridgeport has the second highest percentage of international students among all U.S. institutions, with 44.1 percent of their 5,103 students coming from other countries.
Bridgeport has been an ardent supporter of the IDP partnership and has been a very successful partner to date. The Bridgeport team travels overseas, participates fully in our Road Shows and responds quickly to student applications which helps better their strong international brand.
At IDP, we believe very strongly in the importance of a widely diverse student body. We commend the University of Bridgeport on these impressive accomplishments.
February Conference Attendance
IDP participates in as many international education conferences as possible, to support the important work of education organizations and to share with and learn from the community. Please let us know your institutionʼs conference schedule, so that we can be sure to make time to meet with you and any of your colleagues.
IDP will participate in at least two events in February. First, we will present a session on the myths and realities of student placement firms at the Mississippi Association of International Education conference in Meridian, Mississippi, February 3 to 4. We presented a similar topic at six NAFSA Regionals in 2010 and look forward to continuing to further the conversation on agents and helping institutions determine when they should or should not consider enlisting outside representatives. This particular event will also see the launch of StudyMississippi, a consortium of Mississippi institutions looking to highlight the benefits of higher education in Mississippi. With two partners in the state, it is a message we intend to support.
We will then join many senior international officers at the Association of International Education Administrators (AIEA) conference in San Francisco, February 20 to 23. We will engage in healthy dialogue on effective recruiting strategies at our booth in the exhibit hall and at a display during the conferenceʼs first ever Showcase of Best Practices session.
We hope to have the opportunity to speak with you at one of these events and others.
Presentation Support
If you are presenting at any upcoming conferences or have plans to submit a presentation proposal, the IDP team is available to assist. We have experience and knowledge in international education, research support and developing winning proposal submissions. We look forward to the opportunity to help or provide guidance wherever it is needed.
Bringing IDP Counselors to Campus
Our second Users Group Workshop is scheduled for June 19 to 21 in Chicago. As has been previously announced, IDP counselors and U.S. champions will be in attendance, and the plan is to have them visit various campuses following the event. If you are interested in hosting a group of four to six counselors for a two-day campus immersion, please let us know as soon as possible.
IDPʼs Expansion into the United Kingdom and Canada
At the end of 2010, IDP officially launched UK operations. Intended to follow the development path of the U.S. branch, the UK team is expected to bring on key institutions in 2011. Heading the UK partner expansion is Arlene Griffiths, who previously led the Education UK partnership for the British Council and served as head of Cardiff Universityʼs International Office. She has recently been busy traveling throughout the IDP Network to become better acquainted with our systems and processes. In addition to Arlene, subject matter experts have been hired to serve as regional champions in the Middle East, South East Asia and India.
Back in North America, IDPʼs Michael Lucci has taken on the role of university account manager for a Canadian expansion. He is joined by new hire Ayanna Brady, and as a team they will look to add Canadian institutions to our portfolio. To date, University of Waterloo, University of Prince Edward Island and Saskatchewan Institute of Applied Science and Technology have joined IDP.
The impact of adding these next two destination countries has been carefully considered, and the investment reflects IDPʼs intent to succeed as a multi-source, multi-destination organization.
The strategic selection of counseling locations is occurring in stages to ensure proper management and control. Look for exciting news as to how this leverage will translate to new opportunities for all IDP partners. In the spirit of the old adage “a rising tide lifts all boats,” we subscribe to the notion that, “a strong global portfolio best serves all university partners!”
Update on IDPʼs Web Infrastructure
The entire IDP Network recently updated its student-facing websites, with a partner/shareholder Web update still to come.
What this means is that all countries will now provide a dynamic, interactive Web experience that helps students better connect to counselors in their search for their ideal institution in any of IDPʼs destinations. Highly demanded student features like videos and counselor live chats are being added along with a focus on Web-based lead generation.
It also means that all the websites will be on a unified platform that allows for quick, consistent updates to content. This will ensure that school descriptions and available programs can always be accurate and up-to-date.
Already moved to this new system are the websites for Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia,
Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. Hong Kong and the Middle East should come in the next few weeks, followed closely by India, Taiwan, Korea, and China. Your patience is appreciated as we move forward with this system.
Getting to Know an IDP India Senior Counselor
In order to help you better connect with the IDP Network, and begin to understand who is out there, overseas, working to find you students, we periodically profile key IDP employees.
Today, we are spotlighting Lavanya Nair, a senior counselor in the Chennai, India office. This informal Q&A will hopefully begin to show you the personality and dedication of IDPʼs overseas staff.
How long have you worked for IDP?
For four and a half years, including a short break for three months in 2009.
Briefly describe your role.
Although my main responsibility is to counsel students aspiring to study in Australia or the United States, I have also been given the responsibility to take care of the marketing and liaising with all local institutions of Tamilnadu.
Whatʼs the best part of your job?
What else could be better than helping a student realize his or her dream of studying abroad?
If you didnʼt work in international education, what other field would attract you? Why?
If not International education, I would have started my own crèche [daycare], for two reasons.
First, my love for kids, and second, so that I could be a helping hand for employed parents.
Do you have an unfilled, burning ambition?
Yes, to travel around the world with my family.
What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Being with my family and keeping them happy.
Have you ever lived (or travelled) abroad? If so, where have you been?
Yes, to Australia and Malaysia.
Where is your favorite place on earth – and why?
Home sweet home. Being with my family, which includes my husband, my son and my parents, is what I always look forward to.
What do you feel passionate about?
Dance and music.
Who or what inspires you?
I am always inspired by the trust and confidence shown to me by my employer, my colleagues and my family.
How do you relax?
Sleeping, watching TV or reading a good novel.
With whom would you most like to have a five-minute chat?
Being a chatterbox, I donʼt think a five-minute chat would be enough with anybody. But given a chance, I would like to talk to the promising politician of India, Mr. Rahul Gandhi.
What is your motto?
1. Live, let live
2. Never underestimate the power of a simple tool.
Lavanya is a prime example of the type of motivated, inspired counselor working everyday to better peoplesʼ lives. Her passion and sense of duty is shared by other counselors and representatives, and this is what makes the IDP Network so powerful.
Print Materials
In order to best understand your offerings and describe them during counseling sessions, our counselors appreciate having a full supply of your print materials as well as access to any digital documents.
The procedure that has been established since the beginning of our partnership is for you to send all materials to the Philadelphia office. From there, they will be sent to various counseling centers when appropriate.
As you begin to establish relationships with some of our Network representatives, you may from time-to-time receive requests directly from them for print or digital materials. We ask that you refrain from fulfilling this request, and maintain the established process of sending all materials through the Philadelphia office. This will ensure maximum efficiency and organization. If at any point this preferred process changes, we will notify you immediately.
Visit IDP Counseling Centers
A message we constantly reiterate is that student recruitment results are amplified by overseas participation. Nothing draws a family to a positive outcome like a face-to-face encounter, and most international students come to our offices instead of being able to visit your campus. As your overseas representatives, IDP will find ways to make your scarce resources (time and money) as effective as possible, but what we ask is that you find a way to send yourself or someone from your institution to our offices overseas. You can observe the counseling process, meet with and train counselors, and perhaps most important of all, interact directly with prospective students.
Follow IDPʼs News
You can get IDP news and updates in between newsletter distributions by following us on
Twitter – http://twitter.com/IDPUSA
Thank you for taking the time to read this edition of IDPʼs U.S. partner newsletter. If there is anything you would like to see in future newsletters, please contact Matthew Ulmer at
matthew.ulmer@idp.com or 215.282.1885.
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