Bridging A Better Bridge Across Seas
There is a disconnect between College Admissions Counselors with High School Counselors when recruiting International students. Oftentimes, the college counselors are out of touch with the needs of the high schools and students in each country. Students need guidance as to what the admission steps are and sometimes do not know that the SAT or ACT is required to get accepted to a school in the U.S. This is one of the biggest needs that I saw when I traveled to different international high schools last fall. Of course, doing personal high school visits, are vital in bridging the huge gap with high school students and college reps.
Going to the NACAC workshop enabled me to meet high school counselors without having to travel to Guatemala, China, or Kenya. However, taking a tour opportunity will definitely help with having the presence of the University, in the American or International school.
“While counselors report that they spend the majority of their time helping students select and schedule their high school courses, they also spend a significant amount of time on college planning activities that range from the application process to finding a school to college financing.” Utilizing the important resources available, Noel Levits pulled this important statistic:
What is difficult about tracking key performance indicators of a job like student recruiting, is that it takes a year to really see actual results of new recruiting techniques. The turnover rate for this position is high in the many college admissions departments. Brandes (2016) stated, “Many of these younger staff members leave after a year — creating problems for their departments that go beyond simply hiring and training a replacement. Among myriad reasons continuity in an admissions staff is important, there’s the risk that if high school counselors don’t know whom to talk with, then they may stop referring students to the college.” Not only is there a high turnover rate in the admissions department, the intense fluctuations on passions and interests in 18 year old’s, is to be expected.
Clemens (2009) stated, “Thus, a shortage of school counselors already exists and is expected to continue into the future, and this shortage may be exacerbated by those school counselors who exit their positions prematurely because of job dissatisfaction.” When there is a shortage of high school counselors and a high turnover in both fields, it makes a continued relationship very difficult to obtain. I found it very easy to communicate with a high school counselor who had a son that was very interested in my University. It was much easier to build a relationship with that high school counselor over others due to many factors. One of these factors being that I met her in person, on a recruitment trip but also, she had a personal family member interested in our school. The time difference was off by a few hours in South America so that made it much easier to communicate. They were also receptive to sending me a whats app message on my direct phone so that they could connect with me quickly and efficiently.
When offering deliverables to my place of employment, a change diagnosis analysis brought about areas of improvement in the recruitment process for international students. I was able to overdeliver on the change diagnosis that was provided and communicated with over 50 high school counselors, offering various ways of helping their students. In reality, less than 20% of the counselors responded to my initial email on brainstorming ways to best help them accomplish their goals in the education of various colleges.
The use of internal marketing research was obtained by current student demographics at our University. These were the countries that were represented and the countries/people groups that I will continue to target: Brazil and other parts of South/Central America, Missionary Kids from all over the world, Germany, South Africa and more.
The more inquiries in the funnel, the higher the number of success. It starts at a fundamental level and builds off of initial interests. I have learned that sending high school counselors emails with testimonial videos, has been very productive. The response rate nearly doubled if the counselors knew the student from their previous school. This takes intentionality and relationship cultivation skills to do so. My student worker was able to host 9 current student’s testimonial videos. I will see the fruit of the labor and fruit of the strategic interview questions after the fall 2019 has enrolled. The disconnect or ‘fallen bridge’ in college representatives with high school college counselors is worth explaining. Unfortunately, this bridge cannot be brought together until there are intentional strides from the college reps to reach out to the counselors, sharing success stories. I’m ready for the this challenge, are you?
Resources:
Brandes, T. (2016, March 31). The Other Retention: Keeping Admissions Staff on Board. Retrieved September 24, 2018, from https://thelawlorgroup.com/the-other-retention-keeping-admissions-staff-on-board/
Clemens, E. V., Milsom, A., & Cashwell, C. S. (2009). Using Leader-Member Exchange Theory to Examine Principal–School Counselor Relationships, School Counselors’ Roles, Job Satisfaction, and Turnover Intentions. Professional School Counseling,13(2). doi:10.1177/2156759x0901300203
2017 Research Report High School Counselors and Their Role in College Planning. (2017). RUFFALO NOEL LEVITZ. doi:10.18411/a-2017–023
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