Recruiting Students from Near and Far

University is a big step for someone to take in their life after they graduate high school. Usually when one thinks of university, they think of the “big name” schools like USC, UCLA, Harvard, Princeton, and Yale. For internationally, one usually thinks of Oxford and Trinity. Northern Arizona University, though being smaller and less known, has various programs with which they recruit students.

One way NAU recruits students is by spending funding to cross international lines. Charles Harvey, Vice Provest for International Initiatives, sheds light on this topic. “The main method that we use in recruiting them is information sessions that are held at the schools abroad,” said Harvey.

Much like how international students are recruited, national students are recruited in a similar fashion. High schools in America have the counselors discuss schools based on the students criteria of what they are looking for, but schools also offer college fairs. A college fair is a convention for students to get questions answered from all the schools present. Representatives from schools all around the country come to these college fairs with flyers and information packets for high schoolers to look at while considering schools, and they will answer any questions that students might have.

Mandy Hansen, Director for International Admissions & Recruitment, said that, “international students are recruited in a very similar manner to American students. Not only do we do the fairs, but we also conduct virtual information sessions with students abroad and with partners like EducationUSA. We also rely on word of mouth.”

Word of mouth is a very effective technique in this new age. It can be a powerful tool. One word can destroy or praise anything now. Word of mouth was the technique that brought Colorado student Lexi Gibson to NAU.

“I heard about NAU from one of my mothers friends. She told me that I should look into NAU since she had heard great things about it,” says Gibson.

Word of mouth is a proven technique, but what pulled Swiss exchange student Lisa La Bianca to NAU, was the information sessions. “My school back home had an information session with representatives from NAU that spoke to us about the exchange program that they offered. What pulled me in was the chance to experience the American culture and to study in America,” says La Bianca.

The information sessions may have pulled La Bianca in at first, but what helped her solidify her decision to go to NAU were the virtual sessions. “When I was looking into NAU after the initial information session, the advisors made themselves available to me through virtual sessions when I had any questions,” La Bianca clarified.

NAU is rapidly growing in its student size every year, and a main impacting reason is the hard work of the recruiting teams and all that they do for the students. The International Building is working hard to bring the International rate of students up, and the work they have put in has been successful since the rate has gone up in the past years.