Supporting and Attracting International Students: Strategies for U.S. Universities:

Changing Higher Ed Podcast 221 with host Dr. Drumm McNaughton and guest Caitlin Andersen

Transcript: Changing Higher Ed Podcast 221

Drumm McNaughton: Thank you, David. Today, I begin our two-part series on international students. My guest today is Caitlin Andersen, founder and principal consultant at Auxilium Education, an education consultancy that serves international graduate business school applicants. Caitlin has helped international applicants from 30-plus countries successfully apply to the top business schools in the U.S., U.K., Europe, China, and Singapore. She comes by her expertise, honestly. She herself moved to England to get her MBA from the University of Oxford. She joined me today to talk about what international students are looking for when selecting a U.S. institution and what U.S. institutions can do to attract more international students, regardless of whether you are an elite university or not.

Caitlin, welcome to the show.

Caitlin Andersen: Thank you, Drumm. Good to be here.

Drumm McNaughton: Good to have you here as well. You are an expert when it comes to helping international students apply to graduate programs here in the U.S., and what I want to do with us today is have you take these lessons and give them to the colleges and universities. What do students want, how are they, why are they important, all these kinds of things.

But before we get into that, I’m fascinated with your background. How did you get to be an expert in this area?

Caitlin Andersen: Yeah, great question. So I am the founder and principal consultant at Auxilium Education, which is a firm that primarily supports graduate school applicants, and I help them competitively apply to the top business schools. That’s something that has come over a long journey in my career. I will say that, the students that I serve are 99 percent international. So they’ve come from over 30 countries across six continents, and that’s allowed me to really engage deeply with diverse cultures and belief systems. And I love understanding people, the cultures they come from and what motivates them. So much so, actually, I married a first-generation U.S. Immigrant. The thread in my career has been building brands. So my journey to becoming an international educational consultant really started 15 years ago when I was helping friends and family with their college applications and scholarship essays, and English papers. And I think the reason that I enjoy working with international individuals so much is probably because I was raised in a multicultural family.

I have aunts and uncles who are Portuguese, Italian, Canadian, and Japanese. And so for nearly 20 years now, I’ve been building brands professionally for international individuals, small to medium-sized businesses, and nonprofit organizations as a recruiter, as a business consultant, and then eventually now as a graduate school strategist. And what I’ve noticed across all of my professional and personal experiences is how much further we can go as individuals, as teams, as organizations, and even as a society when we’ve got diversity on our side. And I think that’s what keeps me so connected to my mission of serving international individuals.

Drumm McNaughton: Well, you came by your expertise naturally, not only from helping others, but you also moved to England to get your MBA from University of Oxford.

Caitlin Andersen: Yes, exactly right. And you would think that there wouldn’t be such a difference between international educational systems, the U.S., the U.K., the common language, it would be very similar, but there’s a steep learning curve for anybody coming and learning in a foreign country, and I definitely experienced that during my MBA.

The English educational system is very independent in the way that you learn, and the expectations are different for what you do on your own and how you come by the knowledge, than it is in the U.S. And that was definitely something I had to adapt to quickly as an international student.

Drumm McNaughton: So we all know why international students are important to U.S. Institutions. A lot of it has to do with paying more money for tuition, et cetera. But there are other reasons they’re important as far as the diversity aspects. The socialization, the multicultural, tell us a little bit about that and what’s your, experience in seeing this.

Caitlin Andersen: You’ve touched on the big ones. And in terms of academic and cultural diversity, that’s huge because we are living in this increasingly interconnected world where having a global perspective is the standard for most industries. And so it’s a key thing that people need to develop in their skill set and international individuals typically are multicultural already. I can tell you from my personal experience with these students that most of them speak multiple languages. They’ve lived in multiple countries and studied abroad already an entire degree. And so that gives them a kind of perspective that’s extremely valuable to, perhaps, domestic students in the U.S. That maybe they lived and studied and worked their whole lives in the U.S. And so that automatically broadens their academic experience. So that’s huge. I think in terms of funding they’re very important, obviously they, at the undergraduate level, especially, are paying higher tuition fees. So that gives the universities more financial support so that they can invest in new research initiatives and build programs.

Maintaining Funding Relationships: Partnerships for International Student Recruitment

Caitlin Andersen: But what is really interesting that international students will do for these universities is help them maintain relationships with sponsoring entities that will award scholarships through the university. So you’ve got corporations that award scholarships, high net worth individuals that have scholarships, and they are specifically oriented to international students of a certain background, so only those people are eligible. So that’s really key for the universities to maintain those relationships and grow those relationships if they can be awarding the money. And that’s something that, they’ll disclose openly in their webinars. I remember, last cycle I was on the webinar with University of Michigan and they said, look, we want you if you’re a first generation international graduate school applicant coming to the U.S. Please send us your application because we want to award this scholarship money that we have. So that’s a huge motivation and a value that the international students will bring to the U.S. Institutions.

What International Students Want: Creating an International Student Marketing Strategy

Drumm McNaughton: Yeah. So, why is it that international students want to study in the U.S.?

Caitlin Andersen: Yeah, there are many reasons why they would choose the U.S. When they come to me and we talk about, okay, what countries do you want to target? The U.S. Is important for different reasons. They’re considering many things. They’re considering what are the immigration policies in those countries? They’re considering, most importantly, I would say, is the strength of the industry that they are in or that they want to move into within that country. So for example, finance focused students, they’ll always be adding UK schools, especially around the London area, to their list, because there’s a strong financial presence there. And then also in the U.S. They’ll target the East coast schools because that’s very strong. Entrepreneurial students and tech oriented students that come to me are focused on the West coast in the U.S. Or Texas, because that’s kind of a booming entrepreneurial scene and the tech industry is very strong on the West coast.

So, it comes down to that. Which actually ties into the international students primary motivations, which we could talk about too, but it’s very interesting to see that their number one motivation is career advancement, and so they’re going to be adding countries to their list that are going to give them the best opportunity to advance their careers.

Drumm McNaughton: So it sounds like they’re very similar to U.S. students, in that they choose a college based on what they want to study.

Caitlin Andersen: Yes, I would say that’s a big consideration. Not always, they’ll be more flexible, I will say, than maybe domestic students on that because they want to get that experience in the U.S. or in the U.K. or they know that certain universities have strong industry partnerships with certain firms that they’re targeting.

So they might be a little bit more flexible in the actual subject, but not too flexible, obviously, there has to be a program that applies to them in their career path.

Drumm McNaughton: That’s interesting. Let’s cycle back and let’s dive down a little bit more in that. Because my impression had always been that you pick a college based on the degree program. They’re more focused on bringing these skills back to their country. And what that tells me is U.S. Universities and colleges, it really elevates the branding that they have to have to attract these students.

Does that make sense?

Caitlin Andersen: Yes, definitely. Yes. In terms of that particular program, yes. Because when these international students are coming and looking at different countries and different programs, there are many career pathways to achieving their goals. So, they can find it in another way. So I have students that maybe they came to me and said, I want finance. But maybe they’re focused on a certain country or a certain university that doesn’t have a finance program that will suit them. It’s not the right career phase that they’re targeting. And so they will look at other opportunities. Maybe instead of the MBA, maybe you need a Master’s in management, or maybe you could do a Master’s in management with a concentration in finance.

So there are different program pathways they can take. So it’s more about, I think, getting the experience in the market, in the area of the world that’s going to set them up for success and getting a job after they graduate.

Drumm McNaughton: So it’s not only the degree program, but it is the partnerships with industry and other things. Is this what you mean by an internship? Or is this beyond an internship?

Caitlin Andersen: It includes the internship. I would say more importantly, it’s the ability to interview and hopefully get a job and not just with a company that would be, an industry partner, but with a sponsor eventually after their visa will run out.

Drumm McNaughton: We’re gonna get into that a little bit, but how are these international students quote, “different” than what we have from the U.S. Students? They’re gonna have different requirements for sure, and I’ll be interviewing next week Sean Carver, who is the executive director of International House at UC Berkeley, talking about what they’ve done.

But I’m sure, you being up close and personal with all these applicants, how are they different? What is it that they need?

Caitlin Andersen: Great, great question. I love that. They are different in many ways. I would say language proficiency is a big one.

A lot of my students, most of them, their native language is not English. And so they’re even coming to this process of figuring out which schools to add to their list and what programs are suitable for them is challenging because of the language.

And so what I do with my students immediately when I first meet them, one on one, is I’m assessing too, maybe they’ve already satisfied the English language requirement that they have at the universities they’re targeting, but if the English is not in a place that I feel they’ll find success in a graduate program in the U.S., for instance, I will tell them immediately, “get an English tutor” because they’re usually applying or going through the process of applying one to two years before they actually submit the application. So that’s a nice way for them to improve that and find success in the programs.

Drumm McNaughton: I want to piggyback on that very quickly. Can institutions put together scaffolding programs or coaches for these students to help them with English. Is that a way to help attract them?

Caitlin Andersen: Oh, absolutely and a lot of them have. They have these programs where they’ll see the English or they’ll interview the student and feel like maybe they need some support there. And they’ll have a program, they’ll say, “Okay, complete this four to eight week program over the summer before you enroll”, and that’s definitely helpful for those students.

Drumm McNaughton: What else? How else are they different and what else can institutions do to help them?

Caitlin Andersen: So I would say their educational backgrounds are extremely different from, domestic students because of the way that education differs across countries. Maybe their middle school experience was shorter or longer, or maybe their high school was specialized, that happens a lot in international high schools. And maybe even their undergraduate degree was only three years and there wasn’t that general ed requirement. But beyond that, there’s also a difference in the expectation of what they should be doing when they come to that program and what value they should get out of that program. And that’s something that I think university, that’s a huge opportunity for them to, try to explain that maybe through webinars or through the materials or recruiting and marketing materials and talk about how that’s different.

Maybe have current international students at their university talk about that with prospective international students because it would help them remove those misconceptions that they have, simply because they have an idea of what the educational system is like in their own country.

Drumm McNaughton: Yeah, humans are like that. We have a certain frame of reference and we try and apply that. This is very different, I remember doing a project in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. With one of the major universities over there, and every one of the people who took the class had a U.S. PhD. And of course they were all incredibly well spoken. You would expect that of somebody PhD. But their native language was Arabic, it wasn’t English. But having gone through the PhD program, this is, I think, a good example of some of the differences that we see.

Caitlin Andersen: Yes, exactly.

Drumm McNaughton: So what else or how are students different?

Caitlin Andersen: I would say that my international students are very different in terms of their career goals. And that comes from the fact that a lot of them are coming from countries that have developing economies. And so maybe there’s less structure in that country. And so when they’re thinking about their short term goal and their long term goal to apply to these schools, in the U.S. And other countries, they are thinking in a very structured, traditional career pathway, simply because that’s, what’s needed in their country.

So what’s fun for me has been to be able to explore alternate career paths that they could take in the longterm, because in the short term, obviously they should have a goal to get skills and to build a network. But long term, maybe what would it look like if you were to start your own firm or if you were to start some new entity within this larger corporation.

And so that’s been fun, and opened up a lot of interesting ideas for them. A lot of my students actually have started businesses and that has been what they’ve used to apply and gain really incredible scholarships in the U.S.

Drumm McNaughton: So many of these students are coming to the U.S.. and they’re getting a specific skill for graduate studies or even undergraduate to some degree and then they’re going back to being an economic driver in their own economy.

Caitlin Andersen: Exactly. Yes. That’s a great way to say it, absolutely. I think that the connection that they maintain to the U.S., or to wherever they studied, is huge because they’ll continue to play off that and that builds bridges for us for the U.S. Economy as well. And I think that’s extremely important for our development and for the world in general.

Drumm McNaughton: And you bring up a very interesting point about building these bridges with these students. Many of these students are going back into significant roles. I take a look in my own case, one of my roommates from my undergraduate at the Naval Academy was from Peru, and he was being groomed to take over to be the Chief of Naval Operations for the Peruvian Navy. Right there you’ve got that tie to your alma mater here in the U.S. And the country. That is an opening for colleges to be able to recruit more students from that country.

Absolutely!

Caitlin Andersen: And I think that U.S. Institutions should really leverage that, and ways they could do it is by creating these student ambassador programs or alumni, having alumni interview prospective international students to go through that process, because you’re starting to build those bonds with perspective international students and it helps the perspective international students to feel that the university is a place that they could see themselves at and it humanizes that university for them, which I think is really key in that recruiting and the application process.

Drumm McNaughton: So, thank you for that great segue talking about the ambassador programs. What can institutions of higher ed universities, colleges do to attract and appeal to international students? We already talked about brand recognition and things like that, but what are some of the other things that are really important to these students?

Caitlin Andersen: Well, the number one thing is the industry partnerships and the hiring companies, and I would go even a step further and say that U.S. Institutions should highlight which of those hiring companies are H1B sponsoring companies? That’s a missed opportunity, in my view, for these U.S. Institutions, because that information is not readily available and my international students, they’re looking for it.

That’s one of the first things that we’re talking about is, okay, beyond the three year visa with the school, what do they do? Is this company willing to sponsor me? How do I stay if I want to stay in the U.S. For longer than that? And so that’s something I think they should do.

Another thing is make those internships part of the curriculum and add more client projects. So reach out to companies and build those relationships, and then add these client projects to the curriculum so that they’re constantly engaging with those companies and feature that on your website, right there, front and center. Look at the companies that are hiring. Look at the client projects that you’ll be doing. You could work with this company, you could be doing a client project for this company. That’s huge. That’s what they’re looking for is those hands on opportunities, because remember that number one motivation is the career advancement.

I think another thing that U.S. institutions could do is they could increase the number of companies that sponsor their student clubs. LBS does an excellent job where they have an impact consulting club with a primary

Drumm McNaughton: lBS being London Business School.

Caitlin Andersen: Yes, exactly. London Business School. Yes, and they have this impact consulting club with a primary sponsor that is Bain & Company. So it’s one of the big firms, the MBB firms, that international students looking to get connections to, or learn from, or understand the firms better, can interact with those big names. I think that U.S. Institutions should definitely leverage those connections and add them to the student clubs.

Drumm McNaughton: Those are all great ideas. We talked a little bit about OPT, the Optional Practical Training, especially with a STEM degree. Tell us a little more about that.

Caitlin Andersen: Yeah, it’s good. So in the U.S., if an international student will complete a STEM designated degree, a science, technology, engineering, or mathematics designated degree, they have the opportunity to stay in the U.S. And work for three years without needing to be sponsored by a company. So their visa is, the university is the sponsor.

And so that is a really nice opportunity, it gives them that ability to get some experience in the U.S. And it bridges that gap that happens, but then after that, then it needs to be sponsored by a company or some other way of staying in the U.S. Needs to happen.

 Actually, I think U.S. Institutions should put that STEM designation on their websites right away so that when they go to the homepage and they look at the program, they see, okay, it is STEM designated. It’s something that will allow me to stay and work, which most of my international students want. And they’ll cross off schools off their list If it’s not STEM designated. So that’s absolutely critical to them.

Drumm McNaughton: And I wonder, too, does it make sense for institutions to have separate landing pages based on the language, based on that part of the country, and be able to have it translated over into that language?

Caitlin Andersen: Oh, absolutely. That would be great. I think that’s an excellent idea.

Drumm McNaughton: How many do that, have you seen?

Caitlin Andersen: Of the universities that are on my students radar, none. I haven’t seen a full, you can translate the page, but in terms of a different experience that might highlight different aspects of the program or things that could apply to somebody from that certain region. I haven’t seen that.

Drumm McNaughton: Wow. I came up with a good idea.

Caitlin Andersen: Yeah, I love it.

Drumm McNaughton: The marketing, the branding, the H1Bs, they’re all critical things, sponsoring clubs, the OPT. We’ve been talking primarily about the elites because that’s where a lot of the folks want to come. You mentioned the University of Michigan and I know many other institutions. They come to the elites. But, there’s a lot of capacity out there and a lot of really good programs that are not given by the elites. They don’t have the same name recognition. So what can some of these other institutions do to recruit these kinds of students?

Caitlin Andersen: Yes, there are many things, and I’m actually going to reference this report that was done by a market research consultancy called INTEAD, and it’s called “How International Students Are Finding US Jobs”. And what I love in that report is this recommendation they give about universities that don’t have, maybe, the brand recognition that other top schools will have, need to check and see if they are in a state that has a very high H 1B job to international student ratio. That would be key for your marketing materials to say, “look, there are not as many international students here in this state. And so your chances of getting a job would be huge”. And I think that plays right into that motivation my students have in wanting to apply to U.S. schools.

Another thing I think that these universities that may don’t maybe don’t have that brand name recognition should do is, they should focus on investing resources into building robust career services offices. And I can confirm this is an excellent pathway for them because the elite universities that my students are going to, that they’re graduating from, don’t invest as heavily in those career services offices and they’re coming back to me after they graduate and they’re saying, “Hey, can you help me with my cover letter? Can you help me with my resume?” And that is something that is an opportunity for institutions that don’t have that alumni network with all these people going to these top companies that then refer the current students to them, to those companies, and get that connection and help those graduates that way.

So that’s your moment. That’s your opportunity right there. If you don’t have the brand recognition, you give them a really strong career services office and they will flock to you.

Drumm McNaughton: Yeah. You’d mentioned earlier student ambassador programs as a good way of helping attract and recruit these kinds of students. Tell us more about that.

Caitlin Andersen: Yeah. So a lot of the elite universities on their main program pages will have a little chat box with the picture of a current student that says the student’s name, first name, and the program they’re studying, and where they’re from. And it’ll say “chat with me” or “schedule an appointment”. And I always encourage my international students to reach out to those people because they’re current students. They’re living it. Oftentimes they are international students and came from, similar backgrounds, and that’s helped them to reduce the barriers in their mind to coming and studying at that university. I think that’s something that institutions that probably don’t have that kind of established or don’t have the brand recognition should be doing is they should get those student ambassadors, talk to your current students and have one of them want to be, actually one of my previous students became a student ambassador for London Business School and talks to prospective students all the time about his journey to the school and what he studied and what his career goals are and how what it’s like to study there. That’s huge because it brings that experience to the international prospective student when they’re searching programs.

Drumm McNaughton: And it, you’ve, from a psychology perspective, it’s got to be really daunting for these kids to be coming over, kids, even, 25, 30 years old, coming over completely to a new country. They don’t know anybody, the customs, it can be night and day from what they’ve grown up and experienced. Having that connection is important.

Caitlin Andersen: Oh, absolutely, yes. Actually, a lot of my students that get multiple offers from great schools that are similar in nature, maybe a certain scholarship, will choose a university when they have already a friend group there or a brother or a sister and that’s the built in support system that they’re looking for.

They’re going to go study in this foreign country with different systems, not just the educational system, everything’s different, and so it’s really key for them to feel like there’s somebody there that cares about them as a human being finding success in that situation and knowing that you’ve got somebody there is huge.

Drumm McNaughton: Support systems and belonging. Critical. Critical. I know Madeleine Atkins who is the director at Lucy Cavendish College, which is part of Cambridge University. Sorry, not Oxford, but Cambridge. They have a bridging program where they bring in students who came from public institutions, and this bridging program helps them to get the students to feel that they belong.

You’re Oxford, Cambridge, all of these folks, only 30 percent up until recently came from public institutions. Everything were from the elite prep schools, etc. So, international students have the same type of thing as well as having a bridging program to where they feel comfortable, and to me, that would start with something you had mentioned the last time we spoke, doing public facing webinars that students, prospective students can attend. When yoU.S.Ee someone who looks like you, when yoU.S.Ee someone who has the same accent as you, et cetera, yoU.S.Tart to feel that sense of belonging, and that’s really the first step in attracting and recruiting those students.

Caitlin Andersen: Yes, exactly. That’s a great, great point. I think that having those webinars be set up in time at times when it’s favorable to people in different time zones is key, something that might go overlooked. I think that having them really engage with the admissions committee’s members that are there that are doing the webinar, and the faculty can get involved, that’s very helpful.

Also for these webinars, I’ve seen a lot of the schools do what is called coffee chats. Where it’s a one on one, you have to submit your resume, and then they talk to you about the program and your previous experience, and all of that is really key for these international students to feel like they’re being considered, their needs will be valued, and it will be a good experience for them.

So they’ll continue along in that application process because of those things. So they are making a difference, those public facing webinars.

Drumm McNaughton: So the public facing webinars, the student ambassador programs, and even in the interviewing, having prospective students speaking with someone who is similar in background, maybe further along in the program, they’re closer to the experience.

Caitlin Andersen: Yes. I think that’s something that a lot of elite schools do that it would be great for all U.S. institutions to tap into is in the interview, if you have that as part of your application process, and then you know they have to complete this in-person interview this human interview, have a second year student or a recent grad or alum that is of a similar background to the student, match them that way, and then when they have that conversation, you got to remember that yes, you’re interviewing this international perspective student, but they’re also looking to see, are you a good fit for them? And so that’s a key win for you to connect, people that have a similar background in terms of industry or the country they’re from, with these perspective students so that they can feel that there’s going to be a place for them. There’s going to be a welcoming atmosphere.

Drumm McNaughton: Caitlin, this has been fascinating for me. I normally don’t talk as much on these things, but obviously you had me engaged as well. And, maybe you can recruit me to your college next time. I don’t know. We’ll see. So, as we always do last two questions. Three takeaways for university presidents and boards, what do they need to know about recruiting international students and how to make their institution attractive to these kinds of students?

Caitlin Andersen: I think the first thing is to keep, at the center of any strategy that you create, the motivations of these international students, which is career advancement, and then bringing skills back home. Don’t get distracted by all the other things that you think might affect their decision to study at your university, like, the political environment, or anti DEI legislation, and their worries about being discriminated against. Don’t let that distract you, because my students, I can tell you on the ground, they’re not thinking about that. They are really focused, they’ve got blinders on, they’re going to make this happen and go through whatever challenge they are going to encounter.

The second thing I would say would be a takeaway is to dig into existing data out there and find those specific opportunities, based on data, the insights from international students, like we were talking about before, that is there. There’s a lot. And I think you can really tap into that and it is worth the look.

And then finally, I think the third thing would be to engage with your current international students and international alumni more. Ask them about their experience. They’re customers who said, “yes” to you, so I would go into detail and find out, what did they actually say yes to?

And then when they were at the program and had the experience, what was it that kept them there, engaged, did they join student clubs, which ones, did they take advantage of the international immersion experience in another country? What did they do with your program and with your university? And that will open up, I think, a wealth of information for you to draw useful insights from.

Drumm McNaughton: Those are great takeaways. Thank you. What are some of the things that Presidents and enrollment counselors can look at to better understand their international students.

Caitlin Andersen: In terms of data, there are many reports out there. They’ll do surveys of prospective international students. I think, look at those. NTI does a bunch, Study Portals has been involved in those. I think, look at those surveys, find out what they’re actually saying. There are a lot of write in responses as well in those surveys, I would say, to, tap into because, at some point then it becomes about a theory. Okay, what exactly was motivating that response? And so you may want to make your own conclusions based on your experiences with international students. I would say just start there with that kind of data and then you’ll fill it out with what you know to be true of your international students as well.

Drumm McNaughton: Great. Thank you. What’s next for you? You’re building this business. You’re doing very, very well with it. When are you going to start running your own university?

Caitlin Andersen: Well, we’ll see. Maybe that’s in 2030. Yeah, it’s been fun. I really loved the ride. I can tell you, I, this year, actually, I joined the graduate committee for IECA, which is the Independent Educational Consultants Association. And I’m the business subcommittee chair where I get to have all these really exciting discussions about the industry and what’s next and how AI is evolving and making our profession different.

And I wrote a book last year, and so I’m hoping that these discussions and articles I’m writing this year will help to inform that and get it released in 2025. That’s the plan.

Drumm McNaughton: Well, very good. Well, Caitlin, thank you so much for being on the show. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed our conversation and I wish you all the best going forward.

Caitlin Andersen: Thank yoU.S.O much, Drumm. It was my pleasure.

Drumm McNaughton: Take care.

Thanks for listening today and a special thank you to Caitlin Andersen of Auxilium Education. Caitlin, thanks so much for being on the program. You do an incredible job with your students and give great advice to higher ed institutions looking to enroll more international students. Thank you.

Join me next time when we continue our examination on how to recruit and retain international students as I welcome Dr. Sean Carver, Executive Director at UC Berkeley’s International House, to the program. Sean has a long history of working with international students, and he’ll join us next week to talk about what international students need when they come to this country and how I House creates an extra special situation for them which they never forget.

Thanks for listening. I look forward to seeing you next episode.