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Many institutions in the U.S., from community colleges to major universities, are becoming increasingly global in their recruitment efforts; UMass Boston is making great strides in this area as well. Recruitment of students to UMass Boston has usually been a concentrated local effort, aimed at drawing students from locales within eastern Massachusetts. But one recent recruitment visit stands out as unlike any other ever attempted by the University: the annual conference of European Council of International Schools (ECIS) in Nice, France in November 1999. Peter Schilling, associate director of Undergraduate Admissions, attended the week-long conference and reports that, "without question, participation with ECIS is beneficial to student recruitment. The overall objective [was] to put UMass Boston on the international map, to show that there's a world-class university in Boston where the tuition is less than $20,000 a year."
The ECIS Conference provides a forum for college representatives to promote their institutions to international guidance counselors. "I consider ECIS one of the most valuable places to recruit international students," said Schilling, who has attended the conference in past years as Director of International Recruitment for Emerson College. "Establishing a network of international guidance counselors is extremely important, and attending ECIS is a way to reach many counselors from all over the world in just a few days. They appreciate the opportunity to learn about colleges world wide where they can send their students. We wanted to connect with the guidance counselors at ECIS because few if any had ever heard of UMass Boston."
Schilling believes that recruiting international students makes sense for UMass Boston for several reasons. "From a business perspective, these populations of students help maintain enrollment during the periods of ebb and flow of student populations at home - 15 years from now there may be a shortage of college-age students - and having 'feeders' outside of Massachusetts will ensure that the University meets its target enrollment of qualified students." Schilling also recognizes that diversity at UMass Boston is a driving factor. "As much as the term 'diversity' has become a bit cliché,it does help to have a student from Braintree High School sitting next to and studying alongside a student from Taiwan." The biggest obstacle in recruiting international students, according to Schilling, is "definitely the lack of University-sanctioned and administered residence halls [which] eliminates a certain segment of potential international students."
Schilling has overseen many other recruitment efforts of international students in his first year at UMass Boston, including visiting 18 embassies in Washington, DC, communication with students via email to circumvent difficulties with traditional mail service, better telephone customer service, building a base of international contacts, and setting up internet chats about UMass Boston for students abroad.