Concourse Global in the US is a new company poised to revolutionise the higher education admissions industry by putting college counsellors back “in the driver’s seat” during the application process, according to its directors.
The company launched its online platform in response to what it sees as a rise in families “demanding more sophisticated advising”, with an expanding range of study destinations and programs.
Addressing a perceived gap in the current ecosystem, Concourse enables in-house college counsellors to become more active participants in international student enrolment.
“Concourse puts the student’s own college counsellor in the driver’s seat”
Jamie Kanki, head of engagement & partnerships at Concourse Global told The PIE News, “Concourse is the first company in the industry that’s solving the university student recruitment challenge in a way that puts the student’s own college counsellor in the driver’s seat.”
The tool creates program and institution recommendations tailored to students’ profiles and “creates opportunities for the students to have guided conversations with university representatives”, Joe Morrison, Concourse CEO explained.
“Our platform enables counsellors to use their knowledge and close relationships with their students to guide the recommendation process and manage interactions with university admissions officers, so that students receive thoughtful, curated offers from interested institutions, not spam.”
In just one year Concourse has brought over 140 universities onto its platform, 150 high schools, and several thousand students that have collectively received hundreds of offers using its services, Kanki noted.
She added that high schools in over 40 countries are using the platform.
Concourse launched its full version in January 2018 and has focused on assisting counsellors at international high schools.
“Our initial goal had been to help with international students, but the more we thought about it, we started thinking about the high school counselling we got ourselves,” Kanki explained.
The firm ultimately plans to expand into domestic high schools around the world, and plans to start building localised versions of its software within the next two years, she revealed.
The platform is funded by universities, which are given the option to pay to connect with students via Concourse, subject to approval by each student’s counsellor. Counsellors can monitor ongoing interactions between universities and their students.
Concourse has focused on assisting counsellors at international high schools
According to Concourse, many international schools are under “enormous” pressure to provide high quality college counselling to students, and many use their counselling services as important selling points.
It also helped international students already in the US earlier this year, when more than 60 students from Nepal had their scholarships revoked from a university in Texas.
“We made a split second decision that we needed to open the platform to any universities who would be willing to help these students – especially if they were making full tuition offers. We decided that any university who wanted to come forward and make a full tuition offer to a student would not have to pay,” Kanki said.
As a result, a team of dedicated pro bono counsellors found new opportunities for many of the displaced Nepali students.
