With a projected 8 million students enrolling in higher education institutions outside of their home country by 2025, the time to solidify an international student recruitment strategy is now. International students bring invaluable cultural diversity and perspectives to campus, enriching the learning experience for all students and preparing them to engage with a diverse future workforce.

Traditionally, these students have been difficult, expensive, and time-consuming to reach. However, with more people tuning into the virtual world, there are more recruitment opportunities than ever before. Here are six virtual strategies you can use effectively with recruiting international students and increasing student diversity.

1. Optimize Your Website & Consider Language Barriers
   The average website user’s attention span is eight seconds. Therefore, your school’s landing pages need to communicate relevant information in a quick, attractive, and digestible way.
   
   For international students, making the information quickly readable means recognizing and accommodating potential language barriers. Minimize your use of complex language and colloquialisms to make the information as accessible as possible to those for whom English is not a first language. Also consider adding visual elements like infographics and videos to further simplify important information like degrees, tuition fees, and how to apply for financial aid for potential international college students.

2. Dedicate a Webpage for International College Students
   Going a step further, you can welcome international students specifically by creating a dedicated landing page just for them. Some schools, like the University of Cambridge, have created a hub on their website featuring content, resources, and events specifically geared toward international students.
   
   Organizing these pages can take a variety of forms, but one way to accommodate language differences is to do what the University of Michigan did and use a subdomain for the different language versions of its website. Ultimately, no matter how you present the information, making the extra effort to welcome international students and directly address their unique needs can be the difference between their decision to apply to your school and looking elsewhere.

3. Attend Virtual College Fairs
   One of the best ways to promote your school to international students is to attend a virtual college fair. Virtual attendance is now the norm for many events, and students are increasingly turning to virtual college fairs to access information about universities that are far from their homes—a perfect choice for international students.
   
   Of course, not all virtual fairs are equal. GoToCollegeFairs provides a custom-built virtual college fair platform that mimics the in-person experience while adding resources and capabilities that are missing from a traditional college fair but are particularly useful for international students.
   
   When students enter the virtual lobby, they can use customized filters to identify participating colleges, presentations, and education sessions that interest them most. Once they hit the exhibition floor, they can bookmark and engage with select colleges in one-on-one or group formats, watch videos, and even apply on the spot.
   
   These engagement features create high usability for international recruiting. And just like the in-person fairs that use the GoToCollegeFairs system, every student’s activity and preference expressed before, during, and after the virtual fair are tracked and analyzed to support your follow-up recruiting efforts.

4. Set Up Virtual Campus Tours
   Web presence is of utmost importance because international students rarely have the luxury of visiting the campuses of prospective universities—a factor that carries considerable weight in a student’s final decision. However, with a virtual college tour, you can share the feel, look, and culture of campus with these faraway students. Even better: have a variety of current students lead the tour to help international students better envision themselves on your campus.
   
   
5. Host a Free Online Masterclass
   International students make up a large part of the U.S. graduate student cohort—in 2019, they earned half of all master’s and doctorate STEM degrees, totaling 117,000 degrees. To capture the interest of these individuals and persuade them to apply to your institution, offer a free online masterclass. Taught by faculty and easily accessible around the world, these classes help to make your university more discoverable and give prospective students a taste of what they can expect if they enroll.
   
   
6. Reach Out Through Social Media
   Given its wide reach and popularity, social media is a great medium for attracting international college students. Just make sure to create dedicated campaigns that directly target their unique needs and concerns, which will be different from more local applicants.
   
   Additionally, be sure to consider which social media platforms are available and popular in the regions you’re targeting. Students from different countries use different social media sites, so you may need to branch out from Twitter and TikTok to other sites like WeChat and Sina Weibo. If you’re unfamiliar with these platforms, enlisting help from current international students or even alumni can be a good start.

Ultimately, international college students will go to the university with which they cultivate the closest connection. These connections can be difficult to form in the virtual world—but by adopting these strategies, you’re off to a good start with working to increase student diversity.

University is the place where students can start to think and dream bigger—and a diverse student body can help them accomplish that. A meta-analysis published in Review of Educational Research found that students who interacted with racially and ethnically diverse peers showed significant gains in cognitive skills like critical thinking and problem-solving.

But student diversity has come to mean more than just race; it includes differences in sexual orientation and identity, income level, first-generation status, cultural background, and gender. As definitions of diversity in college continue to expand, universities must review and refine their college student recruitment strategies and efforts to include more of these underrepresented populations. Here we outline four strategies to effectively increase diversity in your student recruitment efforts.

1. Craft and Refine your Marketing Materials
   Creating an authentic message of diversity is critical for universities. One of the biggest mistakes is overrepresenting racial and ethnic diversity in posters, brochures, and other visual recruitment materials; no student wants to feel tricked when they arrive on campus and find a reality that is very different from what they were led to expect. Instead, make sure that your university’s marketing department understands how to appeal to different audiences. Showing that you have in-depth knowledge about diverse populations—their priorities, their needs, and any cultural differences—is a great start.
   
   You can also leverage other resources at your university, like racially, ethnically, and even gender-diverse faculty members, for recruiting events on and off campus. Involving these individuals goes a long way in demonstrating commitment to diversity in both the student population and the faculty who will be instructing them. Then, don’t forget to involve the students themselves! Returning students and alumni can help to represent the diverse voice of your student body and are great resources to involve in your university’s admission committee.

2. Go Where the Candidates Are
   High schools have many clubs and organizations that can provide inroads for communicating with your target prospective populations. In an engineering or math club, for instance, you might make an extra effort to engage with the girls in the club to recruit them for your university’s male-dominated programs.
   
   Also, consider connecting with high school LGBTQ organizations to more fully understand the needs of that underrepresented population. What are they looking for in a university? What types of support does your university already provide, and what may still be needed? This kind of grassroots marketing will help circulate your university’s reputation through community connections and word of mouth.
   
   In addition, don’t be afraid to leverage the candidates that you’ve already successfully recruited! Reach out to historically Black or Hispanic fraternities and sororities and other student interest groups serving underrepresented student populations. Asking them for their opinions and about their experience at your university will further inform your student diversity recruitment efforts.

3. Participate in Virtual College Fairs
   Virtual college fairs are a great way to meet a wide variety of students. But a word of warning: inviting students to special diversity recruiting events so they feel a sense of belonging (especially if the campus itself is not very diverse) can result in students feeling misled. Don’t assume that students’ top priority is always the diversity of the campus. Instead, take the time to connect with these prospective students and ask them about their priorities. What are the main deciding factors that are important to them? What resources or support do foresee needing on their college campus?
   
   To help you maximize your return at virtual college fairs, GoToCollegeFairs provides a custom-built virtual college fair platform that mimics the in-person experience, while adding resources and capabilities that are missing from a traditional college fair. These extra features are particularly helpful for students who are looking for a specific fit. When students enter the virtual lobby, they can use customized filters to identify participating colleges, presentations, and education sessions that interest them most.
   
   Once they hit the exhibition floor, they can bookmark and engage with select colleges in one-on-one or group formats, watch videos, and even apply on the spot. And just like the in-person fairs that use the GoToCollegeFairs system, every student’s activity and preferences expressed before, during, and after the virtual fair are tracked and analyzed to support your follow-up recruiting efforts.

4. Use Data
   Whatever methods of college recruitment strategies you are employing, you need to know if they’re working with cultivating a diverse student body. Are the demographics of the student body diversifying? What about the demographics of the audiences you are reaching? If the latter isn’t informing the former, or if it’s not at the rate you desire, there’s a translation problem. Therefore, to evaluate effectiveness, you need data.
   
   The data you collect can be as simple as who is applying from underrepresented populations, who is accepted, and who is enrolling. They can also be qualitative—for instance, asking current underrepresented students what led them to choose your university. Refreshing these data every couple of years will form a benchmark to help you continue to assess and improve your college student recruitment strategies.
   
   Students will attend the university where they feel their priorities and needs are being met. Consistent engagement with diverse prospective student populations and authentic messaging around your university’s diversity initiatives will promote a vibrant, diverse student body on your campus.