Choudaha, R., Orosz, K. & Chang, L. Not all international students are the same: Understanding segments, mapping behaviour. World Education Services, New York, 2012. Pages: 20.

Released this week, the latest report from the World Education Services (WES) focuses on understanding the needs and application behaviour of different types of international students, and provides universities with an overview of the most effective strategies for recruitment based on the typology developed. WES surveyed almost 1600 potential students from 115 countries and categorised them into four types based on their level of academic preparedness (English language proficiency included) and their access to financial resources to be used during the time abroad.

The main conclusion of the authors is that international students are a highly heterogeneous group and institutional outreach strategies striving to be successful need to take this into account when tailoring their recruitment presence in different markets. One particularly interesting finding of this report regards the use of agents – 62% of all agent-users were found to have low levels of academic preparedness for the realities of US higher education. However, even more intriguing is a mentioned data limitation that states that 36% of the survey participants dropped out when questioned about the experiences of using agents.

WES