AISAP52

For admissions professionals, the “COVID years” have added enough stress and uncertainty to the market to create the need for some serious design thinking. As some hope emerges on the pandemic front, geo-political tensions – most obviously related to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and an increasingly inwardly-focused China – have forced all of us to work within and around an increasingly shifting world order.

For some of us, the natural response to grim global news is to turn to nostalgia and to circle the wagons: What has always worked? How do we minimize enrollment risk without losing valuable pipelines? Where are our un- or under-tapped markets closer to home?

What’s harder to do is to remain optimistic about the future of diverse, international student populations. In fact, this optimism, as it turns out, is exactly the marketing tool we need. Even beyond that, such “magical thinking” is often perfectly aligned with our school’s missions, our work with alumni, and the very real promises we make to parents and families.

During a recent conversation with some alumni from the 1990s, I learned that two domestic boarders had been invited, a couple of years after graduation, to the compound of the Jordanian royal family. They spent multiple weeks with the family, coming to understand daily life in that country and building connections far deeper than any brief “study abroad” experience could ever provide.

A more recent alum, now a student at Yale, spent a summer traveling with a friend from Beijing, welcomed by her family into some places not usually accessible to tourists. His family reciprocated, hosting his friend and other relatives and spending time with them in New England spots special to their family and not always listed in the tour books. While on the surface these may sound like stories of privilege, in my experience, more often than not, these gatherings include at least one student and family subsidized and supported by their network of friends and peers.

“We both learned so much about our respective countries and cultures, much of it directly contradicting our cultural assumptions and cliches. “For us,” he said, “borders were gone during that trip. We just felt a connection and care for each other and the bond of our common memories.”

Another group of alumni gathered recently in Dubai, with representatives from four continents. A student who attended this gathering reflected about how her new international friendships “radically reconfigured” her life, both professionally and socially. “I just saw the world in a different light, like it was more full of light.”

These ostensibly social gatherings seem “routine” at first, but their effects are unexpectedly strong. What is most striking is their lifelong endurance, the way these former roommates, friends, and classmates come to see each other not as casual acquaintances or professional resources but as beacons of international optimism.

The positive word-of-mouth surrounding these gatherings is very real, and their effect on enrollment is deep and quantifiable. Some of our most effective marketing extends from this simple truth: parents want their children to feel optimistic about the future, to build global connections, and to have the many opportunities born of those connections. They also want their children to be informed, good people who have learned as much from their relationships as they have from their textbooks. In fact, strong international and intercultural bonds help our kids engage in the toughest and most important forms of DEI work because students understand the value of difference and the limitations of “single stories.”

More than anything, though, these connections fulfill our schools’ commitments to building in our students a powerful sense of purpose, mission, meaning, and optimism. When our enrollment work so richly serves our school missions, parents recognize it, and our communities thrive.

“I know I can go almost anywhere in the world and find a person I care about,” noted a recent graduate from Malaysia. “That is a very powerful and reassuring truth.”