In 2023, Minnesota State University, Mankato ranked 8th in international student population among master’s institutions in the United States. Hear from Alissa Morson, the Director of International Recruitment and Communications, on how leveraging ISC Research data rather than traditional student recruitment methods has helped them welcome students from over 100 countries.
Alissa Morson is the Director of International Recruitment and Communications at Minnesota State University, Mankato. You can connect with her on LinkedIn.
Minnesota State University, Mankato is the 2nd largest university in Minnesota and the flagship university in the Minnesota State Colleges & University System. Founded in 1868, the University offers more than 130 programs in five undergraduate colleges. The College of Graduate Studies and Research offers over 85 master’s, advanced certificate and doctoral programs. Minnesota State Mankato has embraced strategic priorities which are focused, achievable, and exciting. Results include our status as a doctoral institution and action toward becoming an increasingly inclusive and welcoming campus. This growth is the latest in our unending push to deliver education beyond what students expect – the kind of learning that transforms students’ lives, allows them to realise dreams and makes them a driving force in changing our world for the better.
In 2023, Minnesota State University, Mankato ranked 8th in international student population among master’s institutions in the United States (Institute of International Education) and currently hosts students from 107 countries.
Discovering ISC Research: An immediate realisation of potential
A colleague from a community college mentioned the company during a recruitment trip to Seattle in 2020. When things were beginning to return to normal for universities and colleges in the U.S., my colleague reached out and asked to introduce us to ISC Research. Immediately upon hearing about the platform, my director and I understood that there was so much potential in the software, and we would control our own experience. We then scheduled an appointment with ISC Research to learn more and had a contract signed within a couple of months.
Rethinking strategy: A different route to international schools
Our recruitment team had previously worked with other vendors that were more focused on actual international student recruitment. We struggled in those contracts because we didn’t have control over the information shared or the type of students being reached. While we received many inquiries from other recruitment platforms, we had no enrolments over a five year timeframe. We were tired of spending time and thousands of dollars each year on student leads that were not giving tangible results.
Additionally, our recruitment team was spending hours searching for appropriate site visits and contacts when planning recruitment trips or advertising new scholarship opportunities, academic offerings.
I chose to subscribe to ISC Research because the platform allows us to assess if a certain country or city are appropriate for staff visits. When we have new academic offerings that align with a certain countries’ development goals or scholarship opportunities for different student populations, we were able to get real contact information for the trusted advisors and get them the relevant information. The ability to communicate directly with educators has been excellent – they are the trusted advisors that students listen to. Our ability to segment communications has also increased, which means we are not sending out as many mailings to everyone and instead only send information on relevant opportunities and information.
Supportive and knowledgeable staff
The staff at ISC Research are amazing. I feel supported and know who to contact when I need help. The amount of information that is available on the portal is amazing and my rep will send me a personal email if something is published that may be of particular interest to me. They proactively set up check-ins with me and offer great suggestions on how to improve my usage of the portal.
Trustworthy data and intelligence
The most useful part of the portal in my role is the school contact section. I also review the white papers as well, since they have insight into the international school industry that I have not been able to find elsewhere. I trust the data and information that is published, because I know that academic integrity is a key value of ISC Research. I just signed up for the ISC Community and am very excited about what I can learn from my colleagues.
