JW: Basically agency-based recruitment is quite young in the US. There are 3,500 universities in the US and many, many of them do not know how to enter the field of using agents in a professional way. We saw it had been done very successfully in the UK and Australia for many, many years, and we understood it was being done in the US, but with a hestancy on the part of many institutions, particularly because of the commission involved.

So we had the idea that if we had a certification scheme which in a way vetted agencies, building a level of trust, then there would hopefully be more acceptance of what agencies do.

The PIE: Who are your members? 

JW: Our members are recruitment agencies from around the world that have successfully been through our certification process – that’s one group. The other are our institutional members – generally universities and pathway programme providers who want to be a part of what we do. We also have an affiliate status for secondary schools. Institutional members actually write our standards and develop our policies. We have 182 institutional members right now and 50 certified agencies.

Institutional members actually write our standards and develop our policies

The PIE: The National Association for College Admission Counselling (NACAC) is soon to rule on whether its members (including most US universities) can use commission-based foreign agents. What do you think the distrust is all about?

JW: Believe it or not, in the earlier part of the twentieth century there was commission-based recruiting of American students in the US, but it got out of hand. There were issues – incentives, favours giving for placing students at certain colleges etc. So NACAC was formed and one of their guidelines was that you could not get commission for placing a student. So a logical leap was made that if that applied to domestic students it must apply to international students too.

The second issue is the fact that title four of the US Department of Education Act also prohibits paying commission for the placement of domestic students. That has to do with the schools receiving financial aid from the government. But there’s a provision in that act that allows commission to be paid on international students. However, many in the US have assumed that this is illegal too. Part of what we do is educating people about the fact that it is not in any way illegal.

The PIE: How many US institutions use agents then?

JW: We’re not sure exactly but we think it’s between 30% and 50%.

There are so many schools that are waiting for the NACAC ruling that want to enter into a strategy of using agents

The PIE: Are you confident that NACAC will rule in their favour?

JW: NACAC is supposed to release it’s initial report in June, then there should be a final decision by October. We have a level of confidence that the ruling’s going to be favourable towards what AIRC does. That’s based on discussions with them that we’ve had but we don’t know anything beyond that, it’s still very confidential.

The PIE: If for some reason it didn’t go in your favour, what would that mean for US schools?

JW: There are so many schools that are waiting for this ruling that want to enter into a strategy of using agents. Everyone would have to give up that idea and focus on other channels of recruiting: using admissions officers that do the travelling themselves and online marketing for example. No one but a university employee would be able to recruit overseas students.

The PIE: Are these channels not as effective as using agents?[More>>]