April 5, 2021

Social Media News

In the “don’t miss this webinar” category, if you’re concerned about the visa processing delays and other travel barriers that still exist for intl students, check this Wednesday offering from NAFSA and the President’s Alliance.
Love this! “Enrollment marketers have an opportunity to do away with their vault and build their own Disney+ by empowering their team to maintain consistent engagement and produce fresh content in support of conversion and yield.”
What works one place, doesn’t necessarily work everywhere on social media (and IRL). For example, Arabic language content on YouTube in Saudi Arabia is dominant. Are your Saudi alums a part of your strategy in the Kingdom?
Staying with the country-level social theme, in the Philippines, where people spend more time on social media each day than anywhere in the world, Web Certain shares where you need to be to reach this young, social market.
SEO doesn’t just mean understanding Google for intl admissions marketers. The team at Web Certain have put together a useful guide to understand three other massive search engines: Baidu, Yandex, and Naver.
Facebook video is ubiquitous. Are you doing it right by creating video content that gets the right eyes on it? Solid suggestions from Social Media Examiner.
There are always new social platforms that make big splashes and become super popular, but not all of them are worth investing precious marketing dollars. Here are some useful guiding principles for making those decisions.

International Education News

Big Picture Issues

What will determine where Chinese parents and students will go for studies? According to a new IIE report, they “will be primarily affected by concern for quality, financial considerations, and the impact of the pandemic both at home and in possible host countries, along with any ongoing travel restrictions and limitations on access to visa services.”
With the rise of racist attitudes toward those of Asian descent in the US, how are intl students reacting to this? Interesting perspectives shared by Karin Fischer at the Chronicle.
Intl student interest in graduate business programs is on the rise, as is a decline in the concerns over Covid-19, according to a recent GMAC report. Encouraging.
“On campus” this year has certainly felt very different for intl students. For perhaps 20% of new students as well as those who left last spring, doing studies from home presents a unique set of emotions and challenges.
So what will the impact of US consulates remaining closed for student visa interviews in key source countries be on fall 2021 enrollments? In my opinion, it would be an entirely avoidable self-inflicted gunshot wound.
The answer “it depends” is something intl admissions reps give to most every question we get from overseas audiences. But when it comes to hearing those two words when it comes to new intl arrivals this fall, the reaction is different.
Fascinated but not surprised that this is happening in the ever-changing world of virtual events and tours. In this case, a company contracts with students to provide unofficial live video campus tours to paying prospective students.
Jim Jump, a longtime US college admissions expert, makes the case that use of test scores in rankings, confusing test-optional policies, and the fairness issues involved call into question the very value of standardized tests.
Does your campus have an SIO? Do these leaders typically come from within, usually a faculty appointment, or are they true practitioners who grew up in the field? Love this piece, “institutions that are serious about internationalisation seek the services of experienced international educators who understand higher education administration specifically in terms of comprehensive internationalisation.”
Very interesting phenomenon expertly explained by Louise Nicol in this University World News piece: the rise of agent aggregators, fueled by ed tech venture capitalist funding, is exerting new pressures on institutions.

Solutions Central

Very happy to see this new partnership between IIE and IDP Connect to incorporate Open Doors data into IDP’s IQ services. The slide deck from their webinar last week shows the essential need for both historical data and prospective student sentiment tracking in international enrollment management strategy.
For those who missed the IDP Connect webinar last week, here’s the 30-minute recording from that session stressing the new services available that combines IIE’s Open Doors data and IDP’s IQ services.
One of my favorite resources for fresh takes and research in our field is Intead. Here’s a summary of their top pieces from the 1st quarter of 2021.
Loans for international students has long been talked about, a lot of it has been unrealized potential to date, but one company, Prodigy Finance, is looking to change that.
While pop-up study hubs during the pandemic is not a new (this year) phenomenon, Study Group realizes the time is now, particularly for its Australian partners that must go a second academic year without having new Chinese students on campus.

On-Campus Happenings

International student applications are up to many selective institutions, via Common App data, but the same cannot necessarily be said for all colleges.
MBA program rankings always provide an interesting take on what drives student interest. Stanford held onto the #1 spot, despite a whopping 2% rise in their admit rate (to 8.9%).
Interesting profile of Middlebury’s admitted students: 47% students of color, 35% first-gen, 13% international (from 91 countries). Largest application pool ever - 50% did not submit test-scores.

Global Roundup

There simply isn’t a lot of good news for Australian universities right now. The federal education minister said last week there will be no en masse return of intl students until 2022.
The financial damage being done to most unis down under is still yet to be measured, but at Melbourne, the 4-year budget shortfall is predicted to be $900 million, with 11 academic programs on the chopping block. FYI - a “bogan” is a backwater.
What surprises me most about the pandemic’s impact on Australian universities? That only now has their overreliance on intl student revenue truly come to light to those outside the intl ed community.
Signs are encouraging out of India where 72,000 students went abroad in the first 2 months of 2021, after an understandably down 2020 (55% down from 2019).
Despite all the evidence to the contrary in Australia, overreliance on one particular country for intl students as a source of revenue (as well as research funding) is lost on UK unis that say they cannot diversify and survive.

April 5, 2021

SMIE Consulting Midweek Roundup