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Insights from a test prep, language school & agency
Recruiting in India Agent - Institution Strategy
Presentation by:
Amit JalanManaging DirectorEEC India
India of Maintenance / Growth / Exploratory Market Segments
❖ Do a short survey in your institution to find out where your students come from to identify your own market segments.
❖ Traditionally metro cities have been maintenance markets such as Mumbai (Bombay), New Delhi (NCR National Capital Region), Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Bangalore (Bengaluru), Chennai (Madras), Chandigarh.
❖ Growth market cities such as Vadodara (Baroda), Surat, Kolkatta, Pune, Nagpur, Cochin, Vijaywada, Vishakhpatnam (Vizag), Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Patiala, Amritsar.
❖ Potential Exploratory cities such as Indore, Bhopal, Aurangabad, Nashik, Jaipur, Kanpur, Lucknow, Goa, Guwahati (NE India), Mysore, Coimbatore, Trichy, Mangalore, Guntur.
❖ Markets may vary with each institution depending on its historical recruiting relationship with the country and its past marketing efforts.
3. Circular Distance recruitment zones based on North American Visa Offices
Chandigarh
New Delhi
Mumbai Kolkatta
Hyderabad
BengaluruChennai
200 kms recruitment
circular zone. Juxtaposition on a
map of India
Hyderabad is #2 US Embassyin the world in terms of
number of student visas processed
Not all Intl. students are the same
❖ Source: https://wenr.wes.org/2012/08/wenr-feature-2012-not-all-international-students-are-the-same://wenr.wes.org/2012/08/wenr-feature-2012-not-all-international-students-are-the-same
Where are the Undergrads?❖ High Schools
❖ State Boards
❖ Central Boards
❖ IB / International Schools (108 schools in India provide the IB Diploma www.ibo.org) 900 IB schools projected for 2020.
❖ Cambridge IGCSE schools (310 schools in India provide IGCSE (International General Certificate of Secondary School) www.cie.org.uk
❖ Polytechnic Institutions
❖ Offers 3 year equivalents to what you might call an HND/ Associates Degree / Advance Diploma qualifications after 10th and 12th grade.
❖ These qualifications lead into year 2 of Bachelors degree granting institution in India.
Where are the Undergrads?❖ Challenges faced by UG applicants:
❖ Lack of knowledge of costs, application process, documentation and visa process. Application process to domestic institutions is completely different so students are not familiar with North American processes.
❖ Do you accept applicants with Senior Rule - students are not aware that for some institutions they do not need high school completion to apply?
❖ Limited scholarships and Financial aid.
Recruiting for liberal arts programs❖ Programs with strong undergraduate and graduate recruitment potential:
❖ Psychology
❖ Human Development & Family studies
❖ Language and Journalism
❖ New media studies
❖ Art & History
❖ Public Policy & Government
❖ Sociology
❖ International Education
❖ Fine Arts (Painting, Pottery, Sculpture)
Recruiting for liberal arts programs❖ Focus on high school applicants - more inclined towards non-STEM program options.
❖ Higher success in Psychology & Media studies
❖ Don’t hold back - position strongly your key programs.
❖ More success is possible in institution visits & education fairs
❖ E-mailers to agencies & high school counsellors at IB & Cambridge schools will greatly increase visibility.
❖ Find your USP / Niche programs and talk about them
❖ Talk about post study employment opportunities
❖ Industry & community connections with that program or department.
❖ Notable Alumni from your programs. Domestic & International. Record of India specific Alumni would be greatly effective.
Recruiting for private institutions from Canada Moving towards success!
❖ Strong opportunity in program specific transfer market within Canada.
❖ You could appoint agencies based within Canada.
❖ Special mention for providers with health programs leading to licensing opportunities for Pharmacists, Physiotherapists, Nursing, Optometry, Dental, Alternative medicine, etc.
❖ Visa Challenges for DLI approved private institutions from Canada
❖ Private providers need to get organised to undertake outreach, advocacy, and communication with trade commissioners and high commissioners and visa officers in India.
❖ Accept IELTS 6.0 overall (6.0 each) to meet SDS conditions. Higher the IELTS better the visa chances in India irrespective of past academic grades of students.
❖ Once perceived visa obstacles are overcome - Sky will be the limit for enrolment growth!
Advanced Recruiting for SDS Canada Moving beyond success!
❖ Challenges include:
❖ Managing melt - more offers go out - non-proportionate enrolments.
❖ You could stop issuing conditional offers without an IELTS score to reduce wastage.
❖ Reworking the conditional admissions which is currently only done for pending IELTS scores
❖ Use senior rule admissions like US institutions who offer admissions to final year students pending submission of final grades.
❖ By the time a student waits to apply after graduating most programs are full to capacity.
❖ In India if a student waits until the next semester or next year to start further education it is cultural program and a sign of presumed lack of success.
❖ Develop your brand amongst students from Growth & Potential markets. Space is less crowded now!
❖ Demonstrating Alumni success
❖ Notable Alumni amongst past Indian students. Where are they now? Display their success. Create a Wall of Fame of successful students.
❖ Developing alternate recruitment feeds:
❖ Institutional tie ups (1+1) (2+2)
❖ Developing pathways with language schools and private providers (Australia did that successfully to some extent)
❖ Alumni recruiting / In country Alumni events and meetings.
❖ Don’t stop extended recruitment & branding communication post enrolment.
Reducing Melt❖ Define admissions requirements specific to Indian applicants.
❖ Launching a special India applicants webpage on your website.
❖ External credential evaluation requirements are a sure deal breaker due to additional costs involved at students end.
❖ Count your enrolments vs offers made, rather than applications received.
❖ Closing the gap between applications received vs decisions delivered is crucial. Recruitment done effectively requires institutions and agents to be proactive at completing applications so decisions can be reached.
❖ Appointing screened & vetted agents necessarily costs you nothing to little. Get an army of agencies to work for you and pay only on performance (successful enrolments). Over the course weed out non performers.
❖ Set expectations of students starting application stage by showing them many pictures and videos of your facilities.
Increasing revenue from applications❖ See application volumes as part of your marketing mix and consider them as a branding
opportunity.
❖ More applications will always necessarily result in higher visibility.
❖ Consider that you cannot enrol a student who has not applied, more applications, more decisions, higher probability of enrolments.
❖ Opportunity:
❖ Waive the application fee if you can.
❖ Introduce enrolment deposits which are later applied to tuition as credit.
❖ Confirmation deposits work well when combined with an application fee waiver.
❖ Students are more likely to enrol if admissions decisions are fast.
❖ Downside is almost always you will see a dramatic increase in wastage when you waive the application fee.
Understanding & anticipating expectations
❖ Key to success is a great orientation and student services department. Some real examples include:
❖ Multiple orientations - in country / online / on campus
❖ Coat program for students arriving in January.
❖ Airport pick up that is available 24 x 7 (Outsource or contract a bus service provider at the airport)
❖ Free accommodation in a dorm or motel during the first 3 days.
❖ Detailed on-boarding processes.
❖ Familiar faces before rapid acculturation. Indian origin staff member or student volunteer to help new arrivals.
❖ Help in SIM card, bank account opening, social number, class registrations.
❖ Introducing a free 2 week ESL program.
❖ Orientation about plagiarism and other academic rules and regulations
❖ Career centre - help with navigating the process to find suitable student jobs, resources to search job posts.
Understanding & anticipating expectations
❖ Challenges:
❖ Everything costs money.
❖ You could do inclusions tied in with tuition or ancillary fees.
❖ Identify student success is directly proportionate to successful orientation.
❖ Opportunity:
❖ A lot of orientation work can be outsourced to local providers.
Recruiting for Pathway Programs❖ Requires thorough understanding of the North American credit systems.
❖ Promoting them as conditional admissions is far more effective.
❖ Understanding progression requirements is very important
❖ Why are they becoming successful?
❖ Complicated admissions processes simplified. Defined admissions requirements at the local level. Institutions usually define them at a global level.
❖ A faster verdict. Admissions cycle reduced to few days from few months.
❖ Usually a free process saving students hundreds of dollars in application fees, score reporting, etc.
❖ Time to market usually same as direct entry students.
❖ Border line GPA but minimum language scores. Waiver for standardised test scores.
❖ A very attractive proposition if partner schools are highly ranked. 150,000+ students from India to US in 2015 and 80% of them went to institutions listed in very high research Carnegie classification. Source SEVIS by the numbers.
ESL & Conditional Admissions Market❖ Someone once said that everyone in India speaks English. Person replied “everyone you
know does”.
❖ Less than 7% of India speaks English.
❖ Vernacular medium school system in India is a sustainable feed for the ESL & conditional admissions market.
❖ Gujarat in India with family ties and family reunification green card applicants a good source for conditional admissions.
❖ Students typically are academically qualified with required GPA for admissions but lack the language ability.
❖ Visa officers have started to accept integrated i20’s, but a stand alone ESL only i20 will usually not get a visa.
❖ Key ESL markets in India are Punjab, Gujarat, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh
Visa Dynamics❖ Canada SDS visas slightly rationalised and tightening has been observed in the past few months.
Informal restrictions on past academic performance of applicant, perceptions of the visa officer on whether the program sought is relevant to the students academic path.
❖ Canada e-filing of study permits is a winner compared to the paper submissions previously. Visa verdicts being received in less than a week.
❖ Headwinds for US student visa after the spring scandal involving numerous deportations from US airports especially for i20’s of institutions that did not possess accreditation.
❖ Visa officers more open to Pathway and ESL integrated offers of admissions.
❖ Europe gaining popularity because of either low cost advantages, access to study, work and settlement possibilities. Poland, Germany, Nordic countries gaining traction in the market.
❖ Australia has one the most expensive visa applications at $800 a student for e-visa filing.
❖ New Zealand moving in the right direction and may take UK’s position in terms of preference spot in the market.
❖ UK declining double digits are a consequence of anti immigration rhetoric, lack of post study work rights and inconsistent immigration policy for international students.
