Welcome to the latest IDP North America partner newsletter, designed to keep you informed of the ongoing efforts to bring you qualified students, and of IDP’s continued global expansion.
This edition covers the following seven topics:
- IDP’s India Leaders Tour Canada
- Users Group Workshop Update
- Road Show Update
- Student Counseling System Update
- Meet an IDP “Subject Matter Expert”
- Student Marketing Materials
- See You at NAFSA
Canada Seminar Recap
In support of our current expansion of counseling services into Canada, we recently conducted a series of seminars in Toronto, Winnipeg and Vancouver.
The events were led by three representatives from IDP’s North America office (Mark Shay, Michael Lucci and Ayanna), as well as Harmeet Pental, our South Asia regional director, and Luna Das, IDP India’s head of North American counseling and training. The goal was to share IDP’s philosophy, provide useful firsthand knowledge of the South Asia market, and allow current and prospective partner institutions to interact.
Mark Shay, IDP’s North America director, started with an overview of the history of IDP, including how we grew from a national co-op of all Australian universities more than 40 years ago into a multi-destination student placement organization now serving institutions in Australia, the United States, Canada, the UK, and soon, New Zealand.
Then, Harmeet and Luna provided interesting specifics on the South Asia Market, including higher education trends in India, international student market analysis, in-country marketing strategies, and how IDP has placed itself above other agents in the space through hiring knowledgeable and talented staff, and through part-ownership in the IELTS English proficiency exam.
Some of the key student demographic details Harmeet and Luna provided include:
- Four of the top six reasons why international students choose a program to study is related to jobs
- The three main reasons international students select a particular institution are 1) the international ranking, 2) the reputation in the area of study and 3) the location
- The three most important factors for why students choose to study in a particular country are 1) affordable costs, 2) the opportunity to work in or migrate to the country and 3) international recognition of the degree and recognition in their home country
- Parents are by far the most dominant source of funding for an international education
Other key topics during the seminars included best practices that IDP has successfully employed to place more than 30,000 students a year in Australian higher education, how institutions can engage IDP’s Network of counselors via a number of tools and methods, and what institutions should look for when working with agents in South Asia. From her background working for EducationUSA and the CEC, Luna believes that an agent:
- Should go beyond simply providing applications, to become an essential component of your marketing
- Helping you brand yourself overseas so that students find you and apply to your institution even without going through the agent at times
- Should be able to provide access to and/or have a connection to sources of students such as VACs, high commission, government, top secondary schools, local businesses, and more
- Should work with students to provide information and advice on securing study permits and preparing for life on campus
These informal sessions were productive and interesting, and helped serve as a primer for our goal of developing a countrywide consortium for international student recruitment.
Users Group Workshop - Interact with Peers and IDP Counselors
As a partner of IDP Education, you are encouraged to participate in IDP’s second North America Users Group Workshop, held at DePaul University in Chicago, June 19-21.
Designed to allow university representatives and IDP counselors to interact with and learn from each other, this free event will provide opportunities to:
- Familiarize IDP counselors on your institution and details of your degree offerings
- Help educate IDP counselors on the elements that make your school so special for foreign students
- Receive market intelligence and information from IDP’s overseas regional experts
- Gain tips and strategies on how to get the most from your IDP partnership
- Participate in the training of new IDP counselors on the technical aspects and admissions standards of the U.S. higher education system
- Develop personal relationships with the professionals representing you overseas
The Users Group Workshop will begin with an opening reception atop a landmark Chicago skyscraper the evening of Sunday, June 19. Sessions will then run all day June 20 and 21.
The event will take place at the University Center Conference Chicago at the downtown Loop campus of DePaul University (525 South State Street, Chicago, IL 60605). Registration is complimentary and most meals and activities are included. Participants are responsible for their own transportation and accommodation.
Please RSVP to Carolyn Redmond at carolyn.redmond@idp.com or 1.866.443.6211. This is an exciting opportunity to interact with IDP counselors and fellow international educators, and you are sure to return to campus with new knowledge and new international outreach ideas.
We are also pleased that immediately following the close of the Users Group Workshop, more than 45 of IDP’s overseas Network staff will disperse into intimate groups to visit more than 45 of our partner campuses. They will get the chance to interact with university partners and some students, tour the campuses, eat in the dining halls, and even in some cases sleep in the dorms.
This is a wonderful opportunity for many of our counselors and senior managers to experience U.S. higher education firsthand, and we are grateful to the institutions that offered to host. We know the Network is looking forward to seeing your campus and bringing home firsthand accounts of their experience.
Road Show Fall 2011 – New Countries Available
The IDP Road Show remains one of the best ways to spread your name overseas and to support our continued expansion. Not only do participants receive one-on-one face time with prospective students and their families, but the various IDP offices market the events and university attendees for weeks ahead of time, so your name and logo is spread throughout billboards, online ads, newspapers, and fliers on secondary school and college campuses all throughout Asia and the Middle East.
For most stops on the upcoming Fall 2011 Road Show, IDP will for the first time run multi-destination events, meaning the collective drawing power of Australia, the United States, Canada, and the UK is expected to attract all new levels of students.
We will also for the first time be offering events for U.S. and Canadian institutions in such highly sought source countries as Turkey, South Korea and Thailand.
More details will be coming soon. In the meantime, we recommend that you hold some room in your budget for a number of these city stops. They will once again be $1,500 per city, and we recommend at least 10 to optimize your exposure.
OSCAR is Here
IDP’s growth is referred to internally as the Student Placement Expansion Program (SPEP). A key component of SPEP is a new computer system consisting of sophisticated CRM technology, that will greatly advance how IDP’s counselors interact with students, match them to ideal institutions and process their enrollments. IDP has spent the last few years working on this system that will officially be referred to as OSCAR, the Overseas Student Central Advice Resource.
The system is poised to go live in stages starting in May, accompanied by a series of intensive training sessions for counselors. Expect an overview of the system and what it will mean for the quantity and quality of your applications in the next newsletter.
Profile of a Key Participant in IDP’s Student Placement Expansion Program
In order to help you better connected with the IDP Network, and begin to understand who is out there, overseas, working to find you students, we periodically profile key IDP employees.
In this issue, we spotlight Catherine Lay See Ooi, a key contributor to the development of the new OSCAR student recruitment CRM system. Through her previous work as a counselor, Catherine has been providing critical input into how IDP’s Network will and should use this sophisticated system. Read on to learn more about Catherine.
Who: Catherine Lay See Ooi
Role in SPEP: Subject Matter Expert on the OSCAR computer system, providing input to all streams of the project
Where: Melbourne Corporate office
Contact: cath.ooi@idp.com
Briefly describe your role within the student placement expansion project. I am a Subject Matter Expert for the project team. My objective is to work closely with the team in delivering a user-friendly CRM tool that meets the needs of counselors and supports them to manage their work.
So far I have been involved in developing the business requirements and solution design for OSCAR. I provided input from the perspective of a counselor on the user interface and usability of the system. I have been involved in planning solution implementation and training as well as providing high-level feedback on the Knowledge Management (KM) functionality, the KM Administrator role and knowledge sourcing in KM piloting.
I have also provided input in relation to compliance for the new CRM.
Other role: I am currently on secondment from my role as a counselor in the Melbourne Student Services Office
How long have you worked for IDP? I have worked for IDP for eight years. I started my career in the IDP office in Subang Jaya, Malaysia. I then joined the student services team in Sydney, Australia, before moving to Melbourne, where I have been since April 2009.
What has been your most memorable moment working for IDP?
My most memorable moment occurred at an IDP recruitment event, where I got to work with colleagues from the other branches, including country directors, seniors managers, and staff from the corporate office. We shared our work and got to know each other better while helping out in the crowd of over 1,000 attendees.
What’s the best part of your job at IDP? I have always been able to overcome problems and challenges at work with great help from my peers and managers. Their support, guidance and patience have brought out the best in me.
If you didn’t work in international education, what other field would attract you? Why?
Oh! I have always been passionate about becoming a pastry chef. You create things that you enjoy the most and you bring happiness to others. I could color everybody’s life at any time with my delicious products.
Do you have an unfulfilled burning ambition?
I am happy with where I am now. So, there isn’t any unfulfilled burning ambition.
What is your idea of perfect happiness? I enjoy hearing the laughter of all friends, colleague and family when we are together. The moment of togetherness is the value of living.
If you could meet any historical figure, who would you meet and why?
I wish to see God and Buddha to enlighten me in understanding the real life, forgiveness and acceptance of others.
It is because of dedicated employees like Catherine that the IDP Network is so powerful, and is only getting better.
Student Marketing
Recently, IDP produced a number of documents for students that educate them about studying in the United States and Canada. These brochures and fliers provide such important and often misunderstood information as:
- The benefits of U.S. and Canadian higher education
- The difference between public and private institutions (including the myth that one is automatically better than another)
- The details of associate’s, bachelor’s, master’s, and Ph.D. degrees, plus special options like accelerated programs and Canadian university transfer programs
- Requirements for admission (standardized tests, the important of essays, etc.)
- How to choose the best university for their goals, needs and abilities
These informative pieces are branded IDP, but they also make sure to highlight key aspects of our partner institutions, to further our efforts to help you globally market your school.
These topics are expanded upon in free seminars as well as during the counseling process. The idea is that we don’t just match a student to an institution, we ensure that they fully understand and feel comfortable with the decisions they’re making.
See You at NAFSA
IDP’s entire North America team, in addition to key Network representatives such as Turkey Country Director Carl Holtman, will be at NAFSA, booth #1001.
We would love to meet with you and perhaps even take you to lunch and dinner. Please reach out to your university account manager or coordinator to try to set up a time to get together. We look forward to seeing you there.
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Print Materials
In order to best understand your offerings and describe them during counseling sessions, our counselors appreciate having a healthy supply of your print materials.
The procedure that has been established since the beginning of our partnership is for you to send all print materials to the Philadelphia office. From there, they will be sent to various counseling centers in bulk shipments.
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 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.
In addition, we continually collect PDFs of viewbooks, brochures, photos, and videos to load into a shared network for our counselors. Please send your latest marketing material (ideally in digital form, but in print if you do not have original files) to our manager of communications, Matthew Ulmer, at matthew.ulmer@idp.com.
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Visit IDP Counseling Centers
A message we constantly state 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. Faculty can also be a great resource, as they often travel to support their research and teaching roles and could visit an IDP office during these travels.
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Follow IDP’s News
As the level of news about IDP continues, we suggest you link to a daily update from Twitter (http://twitter.com/IDPUSA and http://twitter.com/IDPCanada). There, we post announcements, new university partners, media coverage, and other items of interest.
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Thank you for taking the time to read this edition of IDP’s North America 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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