An admissions officer usually does a lot of traveling and meets a lot of students. But the contact is often brief and involves giving out brochures and telling students a little bit about your school. There’s a cost element as well: yes agents are taking commission, but using agents can be less expensive in terms of man hours and the fatigue associated with travel.

The PIE: If NACAC goes the other way and endorses agents, will the US gain a major competitive advantage?

JW: I think you’d see many more US schools at workshops such as ICEF and joining AIRC. There would be much more focus on that new opportunity to recruit, and it would increase the profile of all US schools as well as our student numbers. And in the long run it will benefit the students because they will then have more exposure to many more US universities and colleges.

Agents are just a different tool in your tool box as we like to say

The PIE: Can you really be sure that every agent AIRC works with is legit?

JW: Well we hope that people will let us know if they know of anything untoward going on. There is an opportunity for the public to comment during the process of agency joining us and once it had become a member. There’s teeth to it, too, in that we would investigate any kind of complaint if it is about a violation of our standards.

We have a means to investigate, to have the agency respond and tell us their side of the story, and we will send in a reviewer to see what is going on. If the agency is indeed in violation then we would put it on probation or revoke their certification.

The PIE: Have you ever had to take action against an operator?

JW: No. But I think an agency would only go through the certification process if they knew they were following the rules. It would be difficult to say, ‘I am only going to follow the rules for six months while I am going through certification’. That doesn’t make any sense because you’re setting yourself up for failure.

Plus if it’s a violation affecting the student it’s also going to harm the agent’s reputation and hurt their business. So it’s in everybody’s best interests to follow the rules and be professional.

The PIE: US schools have complained to the PIE about the government’s conflicted approach to agents. The Department of State doesn’t endorse their use and yet the US Commercial Service does… 

JW: It’s something we’re very much aware of and we’re working on a white paper right now, using our consultants and connections with the State Department to try to at least inform them that there’s positive and professional activity going on in the world of agent use. We also meet with embassy officials on the ground to tell them about what we do.

I think an agency would only go through the certification process if they knew they were following the rules

The PIE: Have you had any success getting them to listen?

JW: Yes. Working with the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities and legislative offices associated with some of our members, we removed a clause from a recent immigration bill that would have stopped foreign science, technology, engineering and maths students being able to obtain special STEM visas if they came through agents.

We did this by contacting people we know that have lobbyists and they exerted influence on our behalf. This was to make sure that the representatives involved in the passage of the bill knew the other side of the story. About the billions of dollars foreign students bring to the US and the fact that agents can be used ethically.