US Universities Quickest to Respond to Student Enquiries

Research benchmarks the world’s top 500 universities’ recruitment processes through the eyes of international students.

BOSTON and EINDHOVEN, The Netherlands, December 2, 2014— U.S. universities are the quickest among the world’s top 500 ranked universities to respond to student enquiries. This is the conclusion of a recently released study by StudyPortals and the British Council. The special report focusing on the performance of US institutions compared with the rest of the world was published this week.

From a global perspective, American universities ranked sixth, considering their performance in presenting themselves to prospective international students.

The U.S. institutions outperform their biggest competitors, Australia and Canada, in being easier to find on popular search engines. On the other hand, U.S. institutions lag behind their international competition in terms of their websites’ usability and providing comprehensive information online. For some, important information such as term dates was hard to find on their websites.

The study also found that top ranked U.S. institutions excel at responding quickly to new student enquiries: 47% of the universities respond in less than 12 hours. However, although a large percentage of the top institutions in the U.S. promptly reply to enquiries, 18% were found to completely ignore prospective student interest. Further, only 13% of U.S. top ranked institutions sent a follow-up e-mail to interested students, leaving plenty of room for improvement.

Between 2012 and 2013, international students contributed $24 billion to the U.S. economy[i] and created 313,000 jobs. With increasingly global competition for students, student services are of growing importance.

The goal of the research is to assist universities in improving their information and recruitment processes and helping international students make the right study choice. Each researched university will receive their individual report with guidelines and tips on how to improve their services for international students.

[i] NAFSA International Student Economic Value tool 2012-2013

The full report can be downloaded here: www.studyportals.eu/research/top-500-benchmark/