Community Conversations: International Admission in a Changing Landscape

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Hello everyone, welcome we're just going to give this a little bit to let people filter in. It always takes a couple of seconds for that to happen while we sort of wait for that. If everyone wants to kind of say hi in the chat, let us know where you're from. Things like that always welcomed.

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Alrighty, so we're going to go ahead and get started as people are kind of filing in.

But OK, so again, just hello and welcome everybody. This is our second installment in our webinar series entitled Community Conversations. Today will be focusing on the international admissions in a changing landscape. I think we're all familiar with the things that have been going on for the past eight months, but specifically we've invited a panel of experts to let us in on their ongoing conversations regarding 2 primary things, virtual events, and recruitment, as well as testing and access. We are pleased to welcome our panels Ruby Bhattacharya.

The director of international recruitment at Barnard College in my hometown of New York City and Daniel Marshner, the director of international admission at Layola Marymount University, in what I Imagine, Is Sunny Today, Los Angeles.

Yeah, it's pretty good. It's good day.

You definitely have us be. I'll let them introduce themselves a bit more in just a moment. Some of the attendees here today submitted some questions to us in advance, and a lot of those questions we've done our best to kind of work those into some of our discussion points.

And I just the last time I did a webinar, I attempted a joke in the beginning and I think this time I'm going to leave that one alone. Do you have to mention, though, that as I am broadcasting live from our New Haven office and not my living room, there is no possibility of my cat making a surprise unsolicited appearance.

However, and probably even better just to warn everyone Dan's daughter me make a surprise appearance, which I think is something that we probably all really enjoy. That being said, let's move on to our housekeeping items.

As usual, this webinar is being recorded and will be made available for viewing. Closed captioning can be enabled by clicking the CC button at the top right.

Full screen viewing can also be enabled by clicking the expand button at the top right corner of the share window. Should you need to re sync audio and or video at any point, please refresh your share window. And as always, questions can may be posted in the chat and we will get to those and just also really quickly I want to thank my colleague Sarah McGinnis, who is behind the scenes monitoring the chat, helping me out a little bit and also my colleagues Leanne can for helping out the series organised enough and running.

With that, take it away panel.

Hi everyone, thank you so much for joining us. It's really lovely to see so many familiar names appearing in the chat and in the participant list. So it's really great to be with you and thank you so much codeine technicians for including us in this panel. My name is Ruby Bhattacharya as Cody mentioned, a service director of international recruitment at Barnard College in New York City. This is my 10th year of working in international admissions, which is weird to even say aloud and I have been working at slate institutions since 2015.

So I've been working with late since 2015, so delighted to be joining the panel today. For those who aren't familiar, Barnard College is a small liberal arts College of 2600 students. We are the Women's College in affiliation to Columbia University, so a liberal arts and science College of 2600 students, about 600 to 700 students per class here. But in the heart of New York City, where in Manhattan and function as a complicated relationship as part of Columbia University. Happy to dive into the details of that at another time, but I'm going to turn it over to Dan.

Thanks for me and thanks for all of you for joining us today. I name is Dan Marsha Norman, director of international admission at Local Mirror Mount were in Los Angeles. We are medium size school. Just about just under 10,000 students. An offer wide Ray wide array of courses that students can consider. Really proud of the fact that we have about 11% of our students who are international and so they come from 90 different countries and bring a lot of great perspectives and ideas to the campus. I've been here at home. You know this is my fifth year NLM. You and about 10 years as well working with Slate. I worked previously at Xavier University, which also.

You have minutes late to great success, and again, it's a real pleasure to be with you today. So thank you for this opportunity.

Excellent, and we're thrilled to have both of you, so we figure a really good place to kind of start. The conversation is sort of just look at the data and see kind of what actually are we talking about and what are we dealing with in terms of the actual international student population and audience so.

Down if you'd like to talk about this chart.

Thank you first of all, we're happy to announce that we are celebrating International Education Week this week and so glad to be able to have this conversation with you in the midst of that celebration, but just wanted to set the the stage a little bit about where international mission is currently. As you can see here, the open door support, which was just released on Monday, indicated that for the first time in quite a long time, basically since September 11th of 2001, we actually saw a decrease in the amount of international students who were enrolled in the US.

And to be clear that that's about just just under a 2% decrease from previous years. But to be clear, there was also a snapshot survey about 700 universities who also indicated that overall there was about a 16% drop in enrollment in this current year as you open Doors, report is lagged by year and also that about 43% of new incoming students. There was a decrease there as well. So obviously we're going to very unique time in the pandemic is affected dramatically. International missions for a lot of reasons.

But just one of these sets the stage there also want to give you a sense as well, where international students are coming from, and we know that obviously were preaching to the choir for a lot of you. But just to be familiar that we are looking at students through primarily come from China, India, parts of Asia. But then there are other populations around the world as well, and so we can speak directly to have Barnard LM you fit into this pattern. So for example MU, we actually a very large population of students from Kuwait and Indonesia.

That are not part of this this typical group, and so that's certainly something that we're very proud of as well, but I think there's there's a lot of questions out there about how the incoming by administration will change that perception of international students, and obviously the helpful information received about the vaccine advances, and hopefully the end of the pandemic and somewhat near future, and how that might impact the enrollment for fall 2021 and go ahead and go into next slide.

And so you know when we're talking about virtual events in recruitment, pretty much every college that I know of that transition very quickly to virtual events in recruitment around March 2020 because of the pandemic, I know I had conversations with colleagues who, you know, we were hopeful that maybe there be a chance to be able to do some kind of international travel, which is certainly something we always appreciate about this role much sooner than we have been in. Obviously that transition very quickly to adapting to virtual environments and virtual events and experiences.

Obviously there's been a lot of successful aspects of this virtual events, and so we really appreciate the way that we've been able to utilize Slayton tools there to really take advantage of those virtual events. From our perspective, we often receive a much larger number of perspective students from the virtual list, and that we typically give entire registration list. Although the in person interactions are often lower than we would like to see from one of those events as well. But overall, I think that's certainly something that's been a positive.

But again, the certainly an institution like me won't focus so much on the community and the personal connections that we make with incoming students. That's been a real challenge to not have that kind of opportunity. But again, there's also that question too about what this might look like in the future, and so I think all of us are very realistic about the possibility that virtual events might be much more of a an Ave that institutions choose to utilizing the future, mainly because of cost concerns, for example.

Is a big factor, but I think you know we saw previous to to the pandemic. There were a lot of virtual events and I would say for the most part they didn't get a lot of traction, at least from my perspective. Obviously being kind of being forced into that environment now has made a lot of strides in this virtual event, so I think there's a lot of possibility of those being much more expensive in the future, but I think there's a real question there about to what extent the institution is really focused on virtual events versus in person experiences when that becomes a possibility.

In the future but as of right now, I think we've been utilizing these events, especially can at least it on mute.

Absolutely. And Ruby. I want to turn to you in just a second, but I think it's interesting to consider that even hopefully when we have a vaccine in the near future.

That is able to be distributed that is going to change the landscape yet again, but there are certain things that have happened throughout this pandemic event that are just going to be these indelible things that I don't really imagine are going to go away. I think virtual, although it was kind of there before, it's really picked up traction as he said it does have benefits, particularly when it comes to cost when it comes to just size and accommodations, you can host much larger events virtually and kind of still, you know, we've been gotten really good at figuring out.

Can we do to make these things more personal? And so I think that's been very exciting. So Ruby, if you could tell us a little bit about kind of the things that you've been experiencing during the past eight months and sort of personal connections and the ability to travel and meet face to face has always been huge in any part of admission. I think that's one of the huge things that both international and domestic admissions have in common. It's about forging those bonds. Whatever you kind of been working on to sort of help bridge that gap, kind of in this new.

World if you will.

Absolutely. I think part of this has been recognizing that even when we were traveling that for many last name, looking at the list of those of you who are joining as many of you might be the only international person in your office or may may be part of a very small team. And I think before travel also meant that you couldn't be everywhere all the time. That just was the reality of the work and they think this virtual recruitment.

Has really challenged us as a field to think differently about how we engage with students who perhaps were not able to connect with in person, and I think has really challenged us to think about access in a different way. I think for the first time there are many students who are engaging with our information session who are engaging with our broader admissions office by virtue of not having to travel to campus and being in New York City. Certainly being in LA as well. Those are, those are great places to visit, but not always accessible for everyone to be able to travel to those cities to even just navigate.

And frankly, even in New York City, figuring out where are you going to park? Where are you going to stay? All of those barriers have been lifted in anyways, and so being able to have now an information session that's not just restricted to those who are able to make the trip to campus. But now one that does encompass a broader audience, and so that was something that, as we were thinking about, are now our virtual visit programming, really thinking about how do we include a broader audience into that? How do we ensure that the content is applicable not just to a domestic audience that is able to travel to our campus, but really thinking about?

The students who we might have never otherwise been able to interact with, so we've really upped our virtual recruitment in terms of certainly just even our standard visit offerings. Offering virtual information sessions that include live Q&A with members of the admissions Committee. We also have live opportunities for students to connect with our current students. We no longer able to offer on campus tours, and so how do we present that current student experience to students who otherwise would never really have the opportunity to engage with the current?

Being able to connect them with opportunities to then think about what it would look like for them to be a student on our campus, and so being able to connect with faculty members, we've offered to panels throughout the season, we've been able to connect with alumnae during admitted student once after we admitted students thinking about that yield season. Really, how do we integrate parents in so much of what we do? Is international admissions officers is also communicating with families and not just students. So how do we bridge that divide when we're in a virtual space to being able to do events?

Programming for parents, even thinking of bilingual programming. So those are all of the things that we had to shift to very quickly between March and April as we were admitted admitting students and really thinking about how we were going to engage students. I think this in many ways has been so challenging. Yet I think our field is going to be better for it. We've had to really think differently about the work that we do and think about accessing a new and different way.

Yeah, I just mentioned more thing too. I think you know because of the fact that international missions always demand such adaptability and flexibility from us. I think what I found a very notable that the transition to going to a virtual environment was pretty smooth for a lot of the international team. And it comes that I work with just because we're already kind of used to this.

As compared to cones on the domestic side, or maybe we're not as familiar with these kind of tools and resources. And so again, I think it speaks to the adaptability and flexibility which is such a such a crucial aspect of being successful in this role.

For sure, and Ruby, you sort of mentioned, you know communication with parents as well as students on how that's important, but have you notice a difference in how parents of international applicants are actually interacting with you in terms of the kinds of questions that they are asking in the things that they are really important to them, given everything that's going on.

I think certainly we will be addressing the questions around test, optional policy's questions around students who deferred to take a gap year, and the implications that May or may not have on next year's admission cycles. I would say those are questions we're getting a lot from parents, or perhaps there are still some misunderstandings about those policies and what they may or may not mean.

Where larger implications within our our admissions process, but I think those are definitely some of the biggest ones. Certainly questions around health and safety I think, are things that we as admissions officers are not we. We answer those questions fairly frequently where people have questions about, especially for those of us that institutions in cities. Just wondering what what that experience may be like for their student and an will there still be cared for and looked after. And I think for many of us that is something we we have been accustomed to answering those questions and so in.

In light of the pandemic, it's not a drastic transition and you think at the same time you know certainly what college and University will look like for students next semester. Little and next year is something that there are a lot of questions about that, and right now there are a lot of the answers are we don't know just yet and they think parents have certainly shown a lot of grace and understanding, but I think you know, as they're thinking about this educational investment for their students. Really wondering where or what will this experience look like going forward. I think at the same time too.

We have had to think differently about value proposition. You know, as many of us on this I see who are in the room today, our institution there representing institutions that are in the United States. I think in a very different way, we're having to think about our our peers who are at universities in other countries because more and more families are considering that as well as their options in the United States. Or perhaps even instead of their options in the United States. So I think in as we think about this changing landscape, I think that's also going to continue to be important as we think about.

Universities in Canada and UK and Singapore in Australia truly around the world because I think now it's as we're speaking to our colleagues on the high school side. That's also been a drastic shift. Students aren't just applying to the US, they're often applying to multiple countries. So I think parents are having more questions about the larger implications of their investment and what it may mean to be in the US versus in another country, which I think we're all still learning how we answer those questions because I think it's new. It's a very.

Meaning dynamic within our field.

You say that you know, I think, one of the things have been different about this fall semester in terms of working with parents is that we always had questions about things like having the student visa work and things like that, but I feel like we've been doing a lot more discussing about what's an LMU policy versus what's the US government policy and having to allow more education around that. So we at LM you have a full online semester for the fall semester, for example, which precludes any international students have not been in the US before to actually come and take classes with, you know.

Being in Los Angeles or being in other parts of the US, and so that's been a real challenge to try to indicate. You know, this is not on some level of decision by LM you, but also I will. Authorities in Los Angeles that we were not able to offer in person classes and that had implications for the student visa process. So again trying to commute to parse out how some of these aspects of these decisions that we made is institution. Others were policies that the Trump administration put in and that's when the challenge to try to navigate that that conversation.

Excellent so shifting gears a little bit because there are a couple of other things that we want to talk about two years, such as current student experience here interactions with those and also questions about.

I'm interested to see how you both perceive this cycle as having gone. You know, we don't have data yet. We don't really know all the answers, so perhaps it's a little unfair to ask for wild speculation, but just the experience of it has been interesting to me. But before we get to any of that, I want to talk about a topic that we in admissions talk about all the time, and that is questions around testing and access, and the implications that has which are slightly different for an international audience.

So let's I believe Ruby. She want to dive in fun first taping.

Sorry, absolutely.

And certainly you know testing and access issues are things that, as an international missions field, we do spend a lot of time thinking about. I think even prior to the pandemic thinking about international student access to testing whether it be S80 HD T as well as English language professional proficiency exams were definitely things that were always, you know, top billing at conferences always things that we wanted to really engage about thinking about. What can we do as a field that's different or better? And so it really was truly at the tip of our towns, even as we shifted into this pandemic world thinking about. OK, what now?

And so it was wonderful to see so many institutions make those decisions quickly around becoming test optional. So Barnard is test optional for this. This cycle we were not test optional previously and so making that shift to test. Optional, but certainly something that we had to navigate in talking with peers at institutions that have been traditionally test option or have been at least for the last few years. One of the biggest pieces of advice we come up from, the back go was make sure that you define what you mean by test optional, and I think that was something that took us.

A moment to really, what do you mean by that? That were test optional. We don't require the SAT or AC T, but I think taking it to a deeper level, I think it's really important that as an institution you've taken the time to really reflect on. OK, we're test optional, but what does that actually mean? Are we test optional just for the SAT or AC? T? Does that include English language proficiency exams? But then also thinking about, we've had conversations around. Do we allow a student to change if they are test optional or not right after the deadline has passed? What is the difference between a student?

You is said they are not test optional and are they missing scores or are they actually intending to be reviewed as a test optional candidate so it lead into these larger questions that we've had to really unpack throughout the course of the summer and the fall. As we've geared up for our reading cycle this year an I think it's been interesting to also then think about the implications of that are enslaved and setting that up within our process. And so speaking to different institutions where all test optional that we all approached it very differently. And that's certainly been challenging for students and counselors to navigate.

And so that's something that we've tried our best to be as transparent as possible about the the stance that we're taking at Barnard about what we mean by when we say test optional, but then really, then also thinking of you. OK, what does that mean for sleep? What does that mean for our reading process? How does that impact the way that we've set it up? When it comes to we accept the coalition application and the common application? What does that mean for score suppressing policies? What are the implications of that when when our readers are looking at applications and so thinking through those larger pieces? Thinking through?

Had to do a little bit of custom SQL to to make sure that things are working the way that we need to because we are not test optional for English language proficiency exams. All speak to that that policy as to why in a moment, so making sure that that setup was setting us up both as a reading team for success but also making sure that we were being clear and communicated with counselors and students about what we mean by test. Optional because I can only imagine it's frustrating on their side that we've all said we're test optional, yet everyone needs something slightly different by that.

In terms of English language proficiency, a decision we made it Barner just about a year, a little more than a year ago, and I'm very grateful that we made these changes. We really wanted to think about how we can remove testing barriers, recognizing that testing as we all can breathe upon is a barrier in so many ways, particularly for students outside of the United States, and so with English language proficiency, we really looked at our applicant pool and really determining who actually needs to be taking one of these tests. And so we we expanded our waiver policy.

Criteria just about a little over a year ago, to be able to think about who do we actually need to see these test from and and who based on other data, are we able to say you know what we don't? We have enough data to confirm your English language proficiency, so it's very detailed on our website, but I'll give you a quick rundown. So and we were able to integrate this into slate, which is help to automate a lot of this. So for students, for example, who indicate on their application that English is one of their first language, is it is set up in our slates in our instance that students are there.

Requirement is waived, so they said English is one of their first language is we do not expect them to take one of these tests. We have also been able to waive the requirement. We have a form that students can fill out if they are in a full IB program that they're taking in English. If there is a level of studying English, we also waive it automatically if they've met certain score threshold on the SAT or AC. T for the evidence based reading, writing or reading sections of those tests. And so we have a variety of different ways of student can be exempt from having to take one of these tests. In looking at our pool.

It's actually a very very tiny slice of our pool that actually needs to take one of these things that don't need any of those requirements. So that was a really helpful change on our part that allowed us to really mitigate how many people actually take the test. Is it fully necessary? Are there other ways we can assess their English language proficiency so that was one thing now into the pandemic era? Certainly we have expanded what we are willing to accept to satisfy the requirement. If a student does need to take it so we are accepting, we have been accepting the doing the English test we were when we were.

Early adopter, we've been very happy with you. Are you being able to use that task traditionally? Also, accepting TOEFL and IELTS, but this year we are accepting the aisles indicator the tofu at home addition as well as the to polite. Plus for these newer versions of the test that were launched this year, we have communicated that we will accept them until normal testing operations resume. We do not know what that will actually look like and certainly that will vary country to country. So for us one of the things that we did in things thanks in part to having the tool of Slate.

With being able to automate some of it, some really determine who do we actually meet. These testing these tests from and is it something that is wholly necessary arm? Just having them jump through hoops? Or is this something that we're actually needing so it was really, I'm glad that we were able to reflect on that prior to the pandemic. So for institutions that are so requiring these tests, really, I hope that you will also take the time to think deeply about what are. What are the implications of this lesson? Is this something that we actually need to be requiring?

Were you surprised at all when you looked at the data at the small number of students, you actually would require this from? Or was that kind of like you sort of knew based on your years of experience? But yeah, roughly, I have a sense of like this. Is who really needs it, but just having the numbers there.

Sure, I think for ask Cody in particular, you know, being a highly selective institution for us, the reality is that we don't have the ability to support students who are still English language learners. You really do have very high expectations.

When it comes to their English language proficiency for those who are taking the test, we do expect their scores to be very high, and so I think for us you know it was never so much. You know, I think, so far as I speak from a very narrow, very privileged perspective, because for US, students who were submitting scores tended to be scoring very, very well on them, and so it wasn't a surprise to us that you know they had these other factors that were also able to confirm that they would know whether it was studying the full IB curriculum.

In English, or doing very levels in English or scoring about those particular thresholds on the SAT or AC T so I don't know that it was necessarily surprising to ask that by eliminating those barriers we really were able to pare down who actually needed to take the test. But even amongst that small group, they're scoring extremely well on those tests, because that really is our expectation, because when they are at Barnard, we are really not able to provide any support in their language learning beyond just beyond any writing support that any.

Student at Barnard would be getting, and so that's something that you know when we explained to students they're like. Why is it so high really? Well, we want to make sure that you are are ready to engage in an able to thrive at our institution in writing, reading and speaking right from the Get Go. And so as as a college that prides itself on discussion based learning in very, very rigorous academics, that's something that we've always had very high standards when it comes to that, because we want to make sure that these are students who are able to thrive.

And then what is your what is alum use experience? Been and having these conversations, it's all sort of about test, optional and sort of continuing considerations going on. I think testing optional conversations or something that I think institutions have been having a little bit before the pandemic. And certainly you know that is become a significant conversation because it is about access. You know it is not everyone around the world has.

Even without a pandemic, thoroughly has the access they need to actually go testing centers. And to get that done, let alone when they're not being allowed to leave their homes. Or you know other various conditions so down if you could just talk a little bit about your experience with this conversations you've been having throughout the way.

Absolutely. I think similar to the virtual event interest we saw in terms of how it really accelerating because of the pandemic. I think somewhere that optional powers that definitely solve similar kind of.

Interest because of the challenges that you have already mentioned, you know, I think LM you specifically was lucky that we had a test optional policy for students outside the US before the pandemic, so that transitions been fairly smooth. But we have transitioned to having all domestic students be any. Any applicant is going to be able to be test optional, you know. I think if we're prognosticating about what this will look like in the future, I think that there's a very high likelihood that there will be a lot of institutions that do a pilot project for a couple years and.

Go back to requiring tests, but I think there will also be a much higher number of test optional institutions once we've moved past the pandemic for the foreseeable future, then we would have seen otherwise and somewhere to burn away. Very similar perspective in terms of trying to reduce barriers from applicants. And we also saw a lot of students were at demonstrating their English proficiency through other means, but with so we do except dual lingo tests and a lot of the appeal for that was simply because the fact that students could take it at home and there was a lot more Accessibility. And so I do.

I am appreciated the fact that it's helpful and I have taken steps to be more accessible, and I think that will continue to be a trend in the future as well. You know, I just feel for all the students who, so I've seen even the applicants for the fall 2021 semester. Several who mentioned, for example, I was scheduled to take this 80 in August, September, October, and they were all cancelled and so I think that recognizing that reality you were trying to make to recognize that students have gone through. Just like we've gone through so many changes this year and so many Upson Downs that's not to hold students.

Responsible for something that's completely out of their control, and so I think from that perspective, offering students the ability to apply in really demonstrate their talents and abilities through other means and not just through via standardized tests, has been really beneficial. Move for us.

Yeah, I totally agree. It's definitely interesting and I think you know it's reflected in kind of an applicant, stories and sort of, you know it's a challenge in a different way. Obviously everyone we want to try and do the best that we can present ourselves the best through applications. But you know, kind of when your options are narrowed a little bit. That certainly can come into it. I want to take a minute to talk a little bit about some of our current students who are there. There have been a number of articles. One in the EP that I actually sent to both of you and a couple of others that we've been reading.

We have a colleague Ken, who sort of gathers lots of these kinds of articles to make sure that the staff is always off on these things that we appreciate that.

You know that I've talked about the experience of current students, who you know may have started the year in the United States, contending classes during things like that. It's sort of what their experience has been, you know. And certainly we've seen some of these stories about their students who have had to go home for various reasons throughout this. And actually, if they can't get back into the country due to various restrictions or even heartbreaking stories where there are students who.

What you go home? Because it is a pandemic and made themselves may have relatives or loved ones who are suffering and unfortunately passing away and they know that they can't leave to go to their family because it may mean that they cannot come back and sort of. I know that you work in the point of admissions, but these are kind of relationships that you sort of develop with. Some of these students in the beginning and carry through. So I'm wondering what your experiences are and sort of how your institution is kind of worked with some of these students who are here and are currently in the middle of this process and sort of.

In a lot of ways, almost kind of in a no man's land. In terms of none of the options may seem particularly the most ideal.

I can I can start so it Barnard in similar. Tell me we are. Our classes are all being offered virtually this semester. So thinking of the examples that code is given it, we're not quite in that same situation where students are having to transition that semester, and certainly they did have to last semester. You know, when in March we made the decision to shift to virtual learning and to send our students home. We did have some of our international students who did remain.

In housing at Bernard this semester, we don't have any students who are residing in Bernard Housing. I mentioned earlier. We have a very complex relationship with Columbia. Part of that. The benefit of that though, is that our students are residing in Columbia housing this semester, so we only have a handful though who are who have taken advantage of that opportunity, many of whom are international in terms of how we supported our students. A few things that have come to mind, you know, I, I'm a part of a committee on our campus that all of the different constituents on campus who work with international students in some capacity we do.

Get together at least once a month to talk through. How are we thinking of that pipeline of students, not just as perspective students are admitted students but then thinking through their current student experience and then they graduate as well. And so our Office of International Students Services has worked closely with students throughout this time. They always do. They manage their immigration process, but during this time to making sure that students have what they need academically speaking, making sure that we have both synchronous and asynchronous options for students in terms of their virtual class offerings.

Last semester when we did have students have to leave campus and go home, being able to have our financial aid office and the privileged position of being able to financially assist students in making those travel plans and being able to get them home quickly and safely and so all of that all of these offices working together collaboratively to ensure that these students felt supported, something that we've also been able to partner with Columbia on is that as an institution we also take advantage of our Columbia Global centers, which exist worldwide, so these are.

Columbia sponsored centers throughout the world. We've actually increased the number of centers. There are a variety of Columbia Global pop up centers now as well and for in countries where students are were life is starting to resume a little bit more. Normally, there are some in person opportunities for students to engage in those spaces, and so Barnard Columbia students are visiting their centers, being able to create a sense of community in person, we've been able to also take on some we workspaces where students are gathering together, basically able to.

Collaborate academically in the way that they would have on campus, but also to have that sense of you, know the college community, and so they're doing that as well, and so it's taken a lot of partnerships. A lot of across a lot of different offices, to ensure that we are making sure that our students are feeling supported. I think it's a question we're getting from perspective students as well as what does the future hold for them. And it's one that we we can't answer with any kind of certainty. But I've been able to really reassure students and families that if you are admitted to our institution, we will stand by supporting you and making sure that you know.

You you will be a Barnard student and that we will support you in that. In that journey. I think sometimes I think because of the I think often the graph has attached to this process of being parents and families feel that there is a transactional nature to it that you know that the that if they are admitted and they can't come and say OK well, never mind but we we care deeply about these students. We are looking to build very intentional communities and whether that be an in person or virtually going forward. We just don't know but.

That offer of admission and student saying that they are enrolling now. We hold that very dear and making sure that we support those students, both their academic well being but also their safety and health. So I think that's been that our conversation we're having now that's quite different than perhaps we would have been having prior to the pandemic.

Community is so important, particularly in times of hardship as well as in good times. And, you know, it's important to make sure that we kind of provide that for students wherever we can. 'cause otherwise it is very silly. I think a lot of us even felt that in some of our own homes.

And you know, in March and April, and so it's kind of, yeah, it's a great thing down.

Super.

Yeah, so one of the core tenants of a judgment school like LM. You is really as focusing on the care for the individual, and we're dedicating a lot of time and energy and resources to make sure that students are really thriving on the campus. And so I think one of the way that's really manifested itself with the online classes is the way the professors would really gone above and beyond, and being accessible in really connecting with students from all around the world and really trying to find. So, for example, from the signs back on the alot of them were actually able to send lab kits to students, so they were able to do some more product to be at home and be able to continue on with their learning that way.

You know, we've seen a lot of availability of terms of resources and talent time. One thing I think is kind of fun too, is the transition to zoom classes meant that we've had a lot of really great speakers come and that would have been able to come otherwise to come directly to students? So lot of fun stories about you know various people coming in and.

And getting the only students. So I think from that perspective it's been really positive. You know to echo Ruby's point, I think you know there's a lot of skepticism, but we've heard from international students in general about online classes, and I think that that comes from their experience. Whatever the current experience is been an I think one thing that's really distinguish itself. It only is that the focus has been very much on making sure that online experiences are positive and engaging ones. And so, for example, we were pleased to see that the evaluation at the end of the.

The most recent spring semester were actually very strong, if not stronger. That we saw from previous semesters because the faculty really took the time and dedicated to time to make sure the students were doing well, and so that's continued with terms of the various clubs and organizations that are still operating virtually in terms of support services that the office ring Reactional student scholars provided that certainly meant that our job is international admissions has extended out as well, and so in previous years, you know, we always work to get the students to campus and then kind of painting them off to other campus partners to make sure they were engaged up the course of their time.

With us, but I think we've really maintain those relationships, recognizing that for some students, even though they are enrolled online, they don't really feel like they're connecting the same way as if they were on campus itself. And we do have similar to Barton, much, much smaller number of students who, well, you have a small about 10% of the students who normally live on campus are currently there in that tend to be students, student athletes, people who have specific concerns about housing, things like that. So unique circumstances. Basically, students who can't go back home.

But for the most part, it is a virtual experience and and students are coming in from home and still maintaining that community. That atmosphere and that appreciation for everything that all you have to offer. You know we're already starting conversations too about. Obviously with the spring semester will look like, but even for the following fall thinking about, well, you know if students haven't really been on campus for awhile. This current first year class. Really it means that we need to think about them essentially as if they were a incoming class as well. And so how do we provide?

An orientation kind of experience that makes sense for students have already been with us for a year. If they're not able to be on campus in spring semester, again, that's still up in the air. So that question of how do you engage with that group of students who you know who took a leap of faith and said yes, they want to be part of it? Even if they weren't able to be physically on campus with us? And so how do you make sure that those bonds continue to form a grow over the course of their first year, and then they feel like they're really part of the community when they are able to build campus in the future?

Excellent Ruby you talked about this a little bit in your previous in earlier on this slide, but sort of Slayton automations and kind of using slate to support all of the changes that happened. Obviously you know everyone realized very quickly about you know events had to go from in person to online and that was something that.

It was fairly quick to come to mind and was an adjustment that was almost expected, but with something like test optional. Using slate, there's a lot of different things that if you weren't already doing that that you may not be aware of and that just kind of presents an additional challenge.

You know, we like to think. Sleep makes it very doable, but it's unexpected resources that you have to put into this additional task in, you know, in the broader context of we have all of these other things that are still going on.

And so I was hoping that we could transition our conversation and just talking about international admissions in Slate. And with that you were talking about what resources you used to support and a lot of this stuff on this slide actually did come from the questions that were presented in advance of the web and R. But it kind of leads us into all of these other areas with how you sleep to support you, but also just in general how you are being supported and different pivots you've had to make in other areas, such as you know, communications and things like that. So if one of you would like to kick this one off.

Sure thanks Cody. I think with international missions in Slate, I think something that we wanted to acknowledge up front is that Dan and I are very involved in both capacities in our office. You know, being involved in international admissions in overseeing that process, but then also very involved in Slayton sometimes in many of you. In the.

Audience that might not be the case where you have those tool rolls, and so we want to acknowledge that, and certainly happy to take questions in that regard as well. But something we wanted to acknowledge is making sure that I think that has been very helpful at Barnard and likely at Alamut as well. Is that being an international admissions person, but also having a table you know, seat at the table in those conversations regarding Slate has meant that international students are are well represented as we have these these policy discussions around Slate an are implementing different things that.

Whether it's input using certain features or using certain tools or certain campaigns or certain features within the reader, whatever it may be, it is thought through an international lens by virtue of the fact that we are in the room when those discussions happen, and so for those of you who will have questions about that and a lot of that you may be feeling as a as a result of not being in the room, and so certainly happy to answer those questions. But also I think when you're not in the room because it's certainly been in that position as well, being able to understand what your options are out there.

And understand Officer Slate has hundreds of thousands of different features in different ways that you could use it and so just having that understanding of what's available to you and in part of that, growing that knowledge understanding certainly comes from our community. I think you know those of us working in international admissions. We really hold deep, our professional network. You know, I think that being able to being able to collaborate with peers at other institutions, being able to pose questions you know. Have you experienced this? What might you be doing is definitely something that I think is very much of the hallmark.

What we do as international admissions officers. And so I wanted to just elevate one particular space. The There's the globe trotting Slate users group on Facebook. There are certainly lots of other Facebook you inflating their groups as well, but this one in particular tends to be more internationally focused. If you aren't a part of that group, I would encourage you to consider joining because it is a space where you have people who are thinking through both of those lenses of being involved with, like also in that international admissions capacity. And that leads into the next bullet point of really making sure that as slate policies are set.

Or as features are implemented or different campaigns are constructed, to what extent are international students being thought of within that capacity and so really thinking about?

How do you make sure that international students are? You're being their best advocates within those slate conversations, so certainly we're happy to take those questions. I don't know if Dan and I will have all the answers, but I think relying on our community has been really, really helpful in that something that we've been able to do it garnered for this particular here, and we're still very much giving this a try is really thinking about our marketing campaigns in our email campaigns and thinking about now that we're operating more and more in this virtual space. And that doesn't. It doesn't seem like it's going anywhere anytime soon.

Thinking around intentionality around mailings that we're doing not just for all students, but does it make sense to shape them differently for international students? Thinking about how, when advising knew staff members about international admissions when we do presentations, it's not. It's not sufficient to just hate what we do first, domestic audience and try and shove it into an international perspective. We really do have to think about how we convey our institutions very differently at Barnard. Being a liberal arts college, explaining liberal arts and science, explaining what it means to be a liberal.

Arts College and understanding and really helping families and students to understand what that means and understand what that means. You know in terms of their career prospects and whatnot and so then taking that logic and really applying it into slate as well. Do our email campaigns need to perhaps use different language? Do they need to be explaining principles that we often assume as understood in a lot of other spaces? Thinking as well about Parent Communications is also something that we've been discussing more and more, especially since we, as international admissions officers are not getting.

That FaceTime with parents that we often do when we travel and so thinking differently about our communications plan for sure within slate to Cody's point earlier about how we are integrating slate within our yield plans, I think it was incredibly helpful to have that feature that allowed us to check in students as they attended various events that we hosted in zoom, particularly those large scale events. Knowing that I didn't have to do it for one by one by hand, or it wasn't incredible. It was such a relief, and so being able to leverage those little features that I think.

Really do go along way when you are hosting that session at midnight because that's the best time zone for other students. It's a little things like that have also been really helpful and just bolstering our our ability to connect with students across the world.

Yeah, I think that I can speak to you know, really appreciate all of my colleagues at home. You have really have done just as we described, really thinking about the international mission perspective as much as possible when we're considering the way the messaging that we send out or the processes that we create, I think that's certainly been something that's been a big advantage to being able to recognize that we really do dedicate a lot of time and energy to making sure the international student experiences positive one. I guess we directed deferral process since we had.

A pretty good number of students who chose to defer to either the spring or the fall 2021 semester enable being able to truly create a form and a process that made a lot of sense in the house at all within Slate really help to simplify things. So, for example, we have students to submit additional commitment deposit for that additional semester to recognize that they were more serious about the possibility of starting at a later date with us, and also that we were trying to be very clear with students about who were considering the idea of doing it referral.

Really think about how they're going to use that time productively, and so you know, we, for example, recognize that there weren't a lot of experiences that students would typically have done with a gap year. So the travel, for example, wasn't really an option or a lot of the programs they would have opted into previously weren't really happening or were happening in virtual space as well. And so, for example, we adapted through our colleagues of the Korean Professional Development Office, a process where students were doing internship that could benefit from that experience as well. But overall I just just trying to make sure that students recognize it.

Yeah, there's a lot of benefit to maybe not initially, that they were excited about online classes, but there's a lot of benefit to maintaining their career path and maintaining their their trajectory to be able to graduate with it with their cohort, but also recognizing that we need to have a policy that was straightforward and simple for students to opt into if they chose to do that. And so again, we continue to maintain those communication streams and making the connections with students who chose to defer and very much helpful that the majority of them will ultimately choose to enroll, don't you?

For sure, I completely see why it's sort of attempting option, particularly in this situation to say, OK, let's put this off, but you're absolutely right, the opportunity anywhere really, I guess. Except until very recently when things are starting to loosen up in other countries.

You know they are there and it's sort of, you know, the value really isn't coming and seeing face to face through virtual screen. Kind of an interaction actually does have a lot of benefit and they can maintain some of that. Things that are actually kind of healthy feeling in a certain way. It's you're maintaining some kind of regularity and some kind of normalcy, even as things are kind of in flux around you.

I will leave this open for questions in just a moment, but if I could just kind of like end this part of it with a sort of from each of you. What are your biggest takeaways of this year and what have you learned about not only yourselves? What have you learned about the student population that you are serving?

And I don't know. I'm kind of hoping for some nice uplifting.

I think to confirm what Dan said earlier. I think as international admissions professionals. This ability to pivot and pivot quickly is something that we've had to deal with it's been a part of my professional development. I think through the entirety of my years in admissions. I think also that ability to connect with students virtually is something I've had to think about for a long period of time and so I know for for those of my colleagues who were not working as much international admissions where that's something that's a little more new to them.

It was a little bit more of a drastic shift to thinking about OK, how do we? How do I present this college to someone who's never seen it? We know completely site on singing. How do I convey that to an audience? And I think that's something that, as international admissions professionals, we were fairly accustomed to doing. I think if anything this pandemic time has definitely taught us how to think differently about our work. I think even as things you know, hopefully you know go back to the way they were before. I think we are forever going to be changed in terms of being.

Able to you know. OK, if I'm traveling to these particular regions in over the course of my fall travel season, knowing that I'm still able to do significant engagement with students in other parts of the world or a counselor is being able to do more counselor professional development. That's something that I was really excited that we were able to to be able to do virtual counselor programs and offer opportunities to engage with our peers on the other side of the desk. And so I think in many ways we will have learned so many lessons and I think if anything as a field.

Will be better because of it because we it brings us together in a way that we weren't always able to engage previously.

I think that I've just been most impressed with the resiliency that I've seen. You know, the dedication that students, so we talked to students. For example, we've had some who have mentioned, you know, hey, I have to get up at crazy hours of the night to be able to take my classes and connect with my student. My fellow classmates, but I'm willing to do it and I'm excited to be able to connect with them. You know, we talked to students who have taken at the first semesters and said, you know, what? I'm really.

This kind of bored. I'm stuck at home. I really do. I really want to maintain that educational experience and get back into that environment and make the best of it. I think that's certainly been something that has been impressive to me. I think if you go back to that chart that we showed at the very beginning about the international student numbers, the amazing part to me about that. And this is, again, this is a 6070 years worth of data even after an advantage. Dramatic is September 11th. You can see there was a couple of year dip and then it came back.

And I think that's likely the scenario for international missions as well. When I've talked to students, there's not. There's not so much of a question about, you know is it really doesn't really make sense for me to study to Rd, pursue education, and if anything, I think there's a huge huge interest in really be able to have it in person. Experience in like Connect with people again, and so I think as soon as that is possible, that's going to make huge difference in terms of students interest in coming. And again, I think that having a new administration that is more handsome, more positive.

Perspective by international students and they will make huge difference as well. I'm really inspired by Kamal Harris's life story, the fact that her parents were international students on that. I think that's certainly a good sign for us as a profession. And so I think again, I think that that's the part that's really appealing to me and that that resiliency and that the hopeful nature of the work that we do, and that the sense of students are really very much appreciative of the opportunities that they have in studying in the US.

Alright, thank you both say I have don't think I've seen any questions come into the chat, yes, but if anyone would like to take this time to kind of put their questions in a very go. Have you had any trouble getting transcript evaluation done during this time as somehow schools go as some high schools abroad had to go into sort of lockdown mode?

You know, I think we really had to be flexible as much as possible and recognize that you know, just as we're adapting quickly to the new environment, a lot of the schools are as well. I think, for the most part, the schools have been pretty resilient, pretty good about providing us with information that we need, but we certainly been a lot more flexible starting with pass fail classes, for example, seeing a lot more of those we would see normally, but I think it just reinforces the the relationship aspect that rubies mentioned. Those connections with counselors have valuable, those experiences are and really trying to understand as best as possible.

How to really support students in it. Very, very trying and unique time and so from that perspective you know we have been lucky to be able to have their strong relationships and be able to work through a lot of challenges and see.

Absolutely. I mean to do it for this question particular at Barnard we don't use any of those companies for our turns are transported valuation, but I think like Dan said, you know, in terms of leveraging the relationships, we do have new weather. If there are things that I have questions about, it's reaching out to those counselors directly reaching out to Education USA. They've also been very helpful, i.e. Acrow they've.

Old and very helpful in thinking through some of those issues. I think Cody, if I'm not mistaken. I think there was something in this latest news in the newsletter that came out today about transcript evaluation and so also making sure to connect with our colleagues attacking Aleutians when you're having those issues because they are always very, very helpful.

Yes, actually that's brand new. I think we deployed that. Want to say last week and it's probably documented it's all there, so feel free to check it out, Brian says. Are you considering graduate applications with only five semesters of work? IE6 semester results in delayed are delayed because of Covid student starting 7th semester of studies. What is your experience with that or whatever you hurt hearing, working with, etc.

Yeah.

Yeah, so we typically will review applications from around the world we try to as much as possible, put that into the context of what the current student is studying in, and so again based upon types of resources that Bri just mentioned by connecting with those of the reason trying to figure out ways you know if the student has completed a diploma that you feel is valid and viable, that's certainly something that would take into consideration.

I work with graduate admissions as well, and so again, there's a lot of questions there, and we do work with various partners. Try to make sure we understand we have a clue, clear picture of what the documents were getting, what they mean, and how accurate they can be. And so, again, I think that's certainly something that we are trying to be as flexible as possible and trying to recognize the current circumstances than in which students find themselves.

We are undergraduate only at Barnard so I have I have nothing helpful to share, just just sympathy.

Sometimes that's all you need.

Anything else?

Alright, well thank you both for taking the time to chat with us today. It's been wonderful. I look forward to continuing to see around the forums, but we really appreciate you taking the time to come with us because it is a really important conversation and it's something that I think we all need to have and be aware of an if on a slightly other personal note, I would like to say hey to Shirley Bay, it was international counselor who I worked with for many years at my former position and not only an incredible counselor between extraordinary human.

Who really fought and fights hard to champion the rights of these international students and make sure they represented in the process. So this awesome work you do, and I'm glad you were able to share a little bit with us today. So thank you all very much.

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Paper one.

Everyone well.