Have you ever been in a room of thousands of people and felt like a needle in a haystack? The recent NAFSA Conference in LA (this year with over 7000 attendees) can induce a feeling quite a bit like the proverbial needle, especially when you are the needle hoping to be found. For our hard working corps of EducationUSA advisers, this year a record number attended, over 150 in total, plus 14 REACs (Regional Educational Advising Coordinators).
At an event as large as the annual NAFSA conference, where many international education folks look forward to each year as perhaps their one opportunity to connect face to face with colleagues from other institutions and abroad, having a plan of attack in place to find your way is essential. You may wonder why I'm raising this topic after the conference has concluded. Well, it was clear that this year, for a variety of reasons, many of which were economic, attendance was down at NAFSA. In the scope of what we do, those few days in LA last month represented a fairly substantial physical presence for our EducationUSA network. But that conference is only the tip of the iceberg for the ways US institutions can connect with the largest global network of professionally trained advisers serving as the official source of information abroad on accredited US higher education opportunities.
While there has been much talk of late as to the use of agents by US colleges & universities, an expensive venture that can have its own share of pitfalls, EducationUSA represents a low or no-cost way to help you achieve your institution's international objectives. What many of our 150 advisers did before or shortly after the event in LA is to visit a variety of US colleges & universities around the country. Because these advisers are to represent all accredited US higher education options to the students in their regions, it is vital that advisers see for themselves what life is like on a variety of different college & university campuses. As a result of these experiences, they can help their prospective students, find their own needle in the haystack--that right school for each student, the right "fit." These advisers see what community colleges are: a great often less expensive pathway to a 4-year bachelor's degree; what a large public university looks and feels like: a wealth of people, technical and social resources on campus for students to pursue their dreams; what a solid mid-size private university can offer in terms of a best-of-both worlds approach to higher education; what a small liberal arts college or specialty school can provide in a nuturing environment with very close interaction with professors.
These advisers cannot promote one university or college over another. They provide this free information and guidance to each student that comes to their centers with no other motive other than to help that student navigate through the college search process, a daunting task for anyone.Those who have been in admissions for more than a minute, especially those who are part of larger enrollment management structures at institutions know, retention rates are some of the truest indicators of an institution's overall success. Our EducationUSA advisers help the students who come to their offices narrow down the overwhelming number of choices based on what the student and/or family have identified as priorities. These advisers also ask the questions that perhaps the families have not considered in the selection process--beyond college & university rankings being the only criteria.
In many countries there are families that are willing to pay exorbidant amounts of money to agents and/or consultants to get their children into the best schools, or any school. This phenomenon may be part of the culture in that country, or it may be a status thing. But in the end, there is no guarantee that the student has found a good match with the right school for them, where they are happy and able to succeed. While no advisers can likely claim that every student that they see never transfers to a different institution once they arrive in the US, one thing does ring true--that student got the most comprehensive advice about all the options he/she had.
We all want our students to be happy where they come to our institutions. Having worked on the US international admissions and students services side for over 15 years, I know what it takes to keep students happy and in a healthy environment once they get to campus, but I also know in working with students during the admissions process that a student who came through an EducationUSA advising center and decided to apply to my institution has good reasons for applying. Likewise, students who randomly applied without having any prior contact with our office (or with an EducationUSA adviser), if admitted, and decided to enroll, typically had a rougher transition, and oftentimes did not know what they were getting into.
Doesn't getting your institution's admissions prospects in touch with EducationUSA advising centers as early in the application process as possible make sense? EducationUSA advisers provide soup-to-nuts advice for prospective students, from the daunting college search, testing information and sometimes prep courses, assistance with finding the funding students need to complete their dream move, preparation for the visa interview at the US consulate, and pre-departure orientation before students leave for the school they have chosen to attend. As much as we (international admissions folks) think we are experts on the world around us, nothing can compare to the on-the-ground, in country support that EducationUSA can provide to your prospective students.
Connecting with EducationUSA has never been easier for US institutions. And with budgets shrinking across the country for international recruitment, it stands to reason that our advisers around the world can assist you with your potential students. If your institution's international admissions page doesn't already have the EducationUSA logo with hyperlink to the www.educationusa.state.gov website, all you need to do to get a hyperlinked version of that logo sent to you is to email educationusa@state.gov with your institution's name, your name, position, and a request for the logo. We suggest when you add this logo to your site, that you include a descriptive paragraph indicating what EducationUSA is and how the advisers can assist students in applying to your institution throughout the process. And this service is free to institutions.
Another free benefit of partnering with EducationUSA is Weekly Update. This weekly email newsletter goes to all advisers in our network (in 170 countries). If your institution has scholarships that are available for international students and/or if you have new academic programs that may be of particular interest to an overseas audience, you can send an email with those details (a short paragraph with weblinks/email addresses for further information) to educationusa@state.gov. If there is a short video that describes these new programs or scholarships, we can embed those in the Weekly Udpate as well. We distribute the Weekly Update to all 450+ EducationUSA Advisers, many of whom for forward it to their student contacts each week.
We also invite you to sign up for the quarterly HEI E-news that highlights the upcoming conferences, recruitment fairs, and event that EducationUSA is either participating in or sponsoring worldwide. Once again, a simple email to educationusa@state.gov will get you added to that distribution list. A new edition will be coming out June 19th.
Online you can also find us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/pages/EducationUSA/72457958318 where we invite you to become a "fan" of EducationUSA and have a forum where will post events, photos, and other newsworthy items. This venue is meant mainly for EducationUSA advisers and US higher ed folks to come together.
With any luck we'll be seeing you either virtually or in-person at an EducationUSA event. Hope to see you soon. Comments and feedback are always welcome on how EducationUSA can be better serving the US higher education community.
