Not Harvard? No problem.
One of the geniuses of American higher education is its diversity. Not only do we have a wealth of institutions, but they’re varied in the type of instruction they offer, their learning environment, their size, their location, and more.
Yet much of the buzz overseas focuses on brand-name colleges, those that are at the top of global rankings or that enroll thousands of international students.
I recently hosted a Chronicle virtual forum focused on the challenge of getting beyond the privileging of prestige when it comes to global audiences: How do you recruit internationally when you’re not Harvard or Princeton or New York University? I spoke with admissions representatives at community, rural, women’s, and liberal-arts colleges, as well as a fashion- and arts-focused institute, about ways they have leveraged their particular identity to appeal to and attract students from around the world.
Our discussion is available to listen to on demand. But here are a few key insights and pieces of advice:
It’s not just about recruiting for your institution — you may also need to educate international students (and parents) about American higher education.
In many countries, what constitutes postsecondary education fits into a neat and narrow box — often, a large, public, research-focused university. If that doesn’t describe your institution, you may first need to give prospective students a primer on different educational models in the United States before you can talk about the specifics of your college.
For Jing Luan, who began international-recruitment efforts at the College of San Mateo, in California, that has meant explaining the notion of transfer from a two-year to a four-year college. About 40 percent of American undergraduates are at community colleges like his, said Luan, who is provost emeritus for international affairs, “but that information is scarcely known outside the U.S.”
“When I named brand-name universities that our students transfer to,” he said, “people abroad were shocked to find out. They said, it is too good to be true.”
Just because a type of education is unfamiliar to overseas students doesn’t mean there isn’t an audience for it. Students who are less wealthy or who need extra academic or language support may gravitate to a community college. And succeeding there may better position students to get into a top four-year college than if they’d applied directly out of high school — international students at San Mateo frequently go on to the nearby University of California at Berkeley.
Likewise, in many higher-ed systems, students are tracked into majors, expected to know what they want to study from Day 1. Liberal-arts institutions like Bryn Mawr College, in Pennsylvania, can appeal to the explorers and seekers, said Jennifer L. Russell, associate director of admissions and coordinator of international recruitment. “They have time to make up their mind in terms of what direction that they might want to go.”
Emphasize fit and identity.
Russell said many international students are first attracted to Bryn Mawr for the liberal arts, not because it’s a women’s college. Still, Russell said, she often finds herself talking about the benefits of a single-sex environment, especially for students in the sciences.
“What would it be like if you’re not underrepresented?” she tells students. “What would it be like if you don’t have to stand a little taller, if you’re not the only woman physics major? All of our physics majors are women physics majors. You don’t have to be a female physics major. You’re just a physics major.”
Ismael J. Betancourt, assistant provost for global education and engagement at Radford University, in Virginia, said it’s important to have a clear sense of institutional identity when recruiting overseas. “We’re not trying to be everything for everybody,” he said. “Be something to someone, be focused. We consciously thought what we wanted to be.”
“No school is for everyone,” Richard S. Sunday, director of admissions and strategic recruitment at the Fashion Institute of Technology, counsels students. He said he emphasizes that FIT, part of the State University of New York, is “unconventional.”
You say weakness. I say strength.
Parents are often nervous about safety when sending their students to study in New York City, and Sunday said he doesn’t beat around the bush. Instead, he directly talks about crime and FIT’s safety record.
Likewise, international students may be most familiar with American cities, but more-rural campuses have their advantages. “Being rural means freedom from crazy traffic. Being rural is room to roam around,” Luan said.
The open-access nature of community colleges could be viewed as a negative by students and parents who prize selectivity, but Luan emphasizes the opportunity such an education affords. “Our task is to turn these weaknesses into our strengths,” he said.
You don’t need to have “admissions” on your business card to be a good recruiter.
All of the speakers said a successful approach to recruiting students relied on more than just the admissions office. Some colleges strike formal joint- and dual-degree agreements with foreign universities as a pipeline, while Sunday said he has tapped into FIT’s relationships with international partners to expand the college’s identity overseas.