April 19, 2021

Social Media News

Do you have an email strategy for communicating with your prospective students? Do you have content to drive engagement? And does your initial welcome message convey the right tone? Good thoughts in this Social Media Explorer piece.
Cracking Facebook’s ever-changing algorithm is no easy task. However, using engagement prompts, speaking to shared values, and creating posts around specific days/events are a handful of the ways to make progress.
When it comes to Instagram, there are three ways to use video - Stories, IGTV, and Reels. As to content best for Reels, here are 9 useful suggestions to boost your engagement.
If your college has dipped its toes in the TikTok pool, figuring out what works best on that social media platform’s algorithm is a bit of an adventure. Loops, completions, shares, likes, and comments are your priority focus.

International Education News

Big Picture Issues

How US institutions have been reacting to the wave of Anti-Asian incidents on campus or in their communities is quite telling. Particular of concern is how our international students are impacted. Are you happy with your campuses response?
Interesting to see NYU-Shanghai beginning to offer a 4-year full-ride scholarship to Chinese applicants.
This article about the application overload selective institutions face, asks THE question, as one dean did, “Can colleges and universities continue to read in a way that allows them to make the best, most thoughtful decisions when they’re dealing with such a high volume?”
Encouraging to see this kind of article appearing in the Times of India sharing the important trend of a 30% increase in Indian undergraduate applicants (using the Common App) this admissions cycle.
Staying in India - a more traditional graduate market - QS is targeting this country for “Virtual Master’s” and “Virtual MBA Tours” - smart.

Solutions Central

I always make time to read Jeff Selingo’s pieces on admissions trends. What is the new enrollment playbook? This year has completely upended admission traditions, and is now wreaking havoc on predictive modeling.
Have to say, this ICEF Monitor article speaks to me on many levels and mirrors my overall recommendations toward personalization of marketing efforts toward international students.
Though the title of this article/downloadable paper is a no-brainer - Reopening the US to International Students - there is some useful content and advocacy top-level asks and justifications worth taking on board.
If you’re looking for a quick analysis of how the pandemic has impacted college admissions, check out this piece that also covers future implications of the changes wrought by the last year.
What role does a student’s academic interest play in your recruitment efforts? This Encoura article suggests that prospective students are changing their minds during the enrollment process. Are intl students as “mercurial?”
It’s fascinating to see how the pandemic has impacted how students choose institutions across a range of countries. This IDP Connect article explores how the IDP Study Abroad app launched in June 2020, now with 200K downloads, provides up-to-date content on available options.

On-Campus Happenings

Prospective students, according to a Maguire Associates survey are basically down with whatever Covid-19 safety requirements institutions will have in place this fall, up to and including required vaccinations - note this is only of US prospects.
Surprisingly, some colleges are offering rather significant incentives to current students including entries into drawing for free housing, tech, textbooks, meal credits if they get vaccinated. That’s one way to do it.
To require or to encourage? That is the question ACE hopes to help provide a framework on which to make institutional decisions for their campuses.
More universities are jumping on the requiring vaccinations bandwagon. Boston U indicate that “international vaccines with efficacy similar to US-based vaccines will be accepted to satisfy the intended BU requirement, unless federal or state guidelines mandate otherwise.”
Another Boston uni, Northeastern, also will mandate vaccinations and “will help international students or others who cannot get vaccinated before arriving on campus in the fall navigate vaccination as needed.”
Apparently, the future of ACT and SAT is not necessarily as bleak as many in secondary school counseling offices across the US might have hoped. Revealing take on the globalization efforts these testing companies are engaging in to grow.

Global Roundup

If you’re wondering about what agent aggregators are and if they are a threat to the way universities use agents, read this article. Very enlightening piece on the confluence of ed tech and agents in international education.
Australian unis are now embracing online degrees, as a result of the incredible devastation their on-campus programs for international students are experiencing as a result of the pandemic.
Why would the Australian government not support such a plan that would allow for intl students with a vaccine passport to return sooner rather than never? Good question.
In Australia the head of the IEAA believes there is “no way the $40 billion-a-year industry could withstand the loss of a third academic year next year.”
Desperate times, desperate measures for some Australian unis that plan to pay to fly intl students into the country and pay for their quarantine time. Now that’s thinking creatively. Wonder if the government will go for it?
Canada is moving full-steam ahead post-pandemic to make a new pathway for 90,000 intl graduates and skilled immigrant workers to become permanent residents. How refreshing and bold.
Meanwhile in India, a country really at the beginning of its inbound intl education strategy, the nation’s vice-chancellors have been told to
”spruce up” their campuses to attract international students.
In New Zealand, one of the countries quite successful in containing the virus, has virtually eliminated two years of intl student enrollments and now faces the prospect of no return to pre-Covid levels until 2030
Were intl students in the UK sold a false bill of goods as to how their studies would go during the pandemic? For 61% of Chinese students at British unis rated their experiences as bad. Fascinating yet troubling results.
In another anticipated side effect of Brexit, EU applicants to British universities fell this year, but few expected a 40% drop from what is as a whole the UKs largest market for intl students. Not for long.

April 19, 2021

SMIE Consulting Midweek Roundup