IQ and the University of Auckland: Targeting and Uncovering the Blind Spots

Waipapa Taumata Rau, or the University of Auckland (UA) is a highly regarded institution within the Australasia region. Not only does it boast the largest student body of any university in New Zealand, but it consistently features atop several global university rankings and indices, including both Times Higher Education and QS World University Rankings. So, how can an institution with such history, acclaim, and growing popularity build even further upon its existing recruitment and engagement strategy? This is where IQ comes in.

IQ Analytic Tools, Solutions and Services, part of IDP Connect, are an important resource for institutions to supplement and supercharge their recruitment strategies. However, the path institutions take to adopting these tools is always different. For UA, it wasn’t so much a case of understanding why applicants chose to enrol with them, but rather why some chose not to enrol with them. Helping client institutions achieve their strategic goals is our primary focus at IDP Connect, and our expert IQ team was able to help UA address its challenges head on.

“With the University datasets, we have a good understanding of applicants who chose to enrol with us. However, we knew little about those who decided not to come to the University of Auckland,” said UA Student Services Insights Analyst Yu-Shu Hwang.

As such, Ms Hwang said her team subscribed to IQ to learn “who we are losing our students to, and what were the main drivers behind this.”

“I wanted to help our international recruitment team better understand the key drivers behind prospective students’ study destination choice, and demand from our key and strategic source markets,” she explained.

To achieve these goals, UA subscribed to a range of IQ Tools and Services, including Sector Data, IQ Demand, IQ Benchmarking, IQ Portfolio, and IQ Pricing solutions.

Through the above platforms, UA had access to a variety of perks including accessing real-time student data and cutting-edge analytics which assess student study intentions up to two years before enrolling. They also had access to IDP’s first-rate benchmarking capabilities, which help UA understand where they stand in comparison to competitor institutions, allowing them to adjust their recruitment strategy as a result.

IDP’s global scale and reach is an additional benefit. For UA’s Student Services Insights Analyst, tapping into IDP’s collection of macro, aggregated data helped to develop her institution’s international education strategy with informed decision-making, and early pattern identification.

“Developing an international education strategy involves more than just intuition; it requires a robust foundation of data-driven insights,” Ms Hwang said.

“By analysing large-scale data, decision makers gain a comprehensive understanding of trends, challenges, and opportunities in the education sector. This knowledge informs strategic decisions that impact students and institutions.”

When it came to identifying patterns in datasets, Ms Hwang said macro-level data enables her team to identify patterns and correlations which mightn’t be apparent at smaller scales.

“For example, we can uncover enrolment trends, preferred study destinations, and emerging fields of interest among international students,” she explained.

“Tapping into macro, aggregated data is also important because it helps decision makers with resource allocation, quality assurance, and risk management.”

While access to IQ Tools have undoubtedly been seen as a positive step forward for UA, at time of writing, UA had only been subscribed for two months. Whilst Ms Hwang acknowledged that it was premature to directly link IQ’s impact on their recruitment strategy yet, IQ Tools have already helped to inform her team’s decision-making process.

“The insights generated from the IQ Demand’s Subject and Sub-discipline Demand dashboards are being used to help formulate region-specific recruitment plans. Knowing which countries send the most students allows targeted marketing efforts and tailored services,” she explained.

So, whether your institution is just starting its journey leveraging IQ solutions like UA, or still isn’t sure how to enhance and supercharge recruitment and engagement efforts, IQ Tools and Services might be an optimal solution for you. From our latest innovation, IQ Analytics, which uses our unique dataset to give short-on-time clients four yearly comprehensive and bespoke reports, to our other exceptional services, including IQ Subscription, and IQ Consultancy, there is a solution out there for you. So don’t wait any longer. Take the UA team’s lead and find out more about IQ today!

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