IDP Live transforms international landscape for next generation of students

IDP has today launched its new student-centred app, IDP Live. IDP Live brings together a suite of tools, including a ground-breaking new service that fast-tracks students through to receiving an offer, prior to submitting their application - ensuring that students can find the right courses and institutions faster and more easily.

IDP Live, alongside the fast-track application and offer service, will play a critical role in helping lead the industry as it recovers and accelerates its growth. Bringing together IDP’s trusted human connections and digital innovation, IDP Live will help students around the world, matching them with their ideal course so they can gain acceptance faster.

As part of IDP’s student-first approach, all institution content is published within IDP Live, ensuring students have all the information they need to make the right choices. With 10 Australian universities already using the fast-track service and more soon to be announced, students will be able to gain more control over their education future faster - receiving in-principle offers for their dream course right from their smartphone or in an IDP office, alongside one of IDP’s expert counsellors.

Following the pilot of Australian universities, the app will be rolled out for a global pilot, including interested institutions across the US, Canada, and the UK.

On the app, students are invited to share their study goals and current qualifications. Upon completing this academic profile, they are matched to courses they are eligible to apply for. If they want to proceed, students can receive an in-principle offer from their chosen institution within 30 minutes of submission. This transformative real-time response means the student need only apply to courses where they know they meet the entry criteria, greatly reducing the number of applications they make, while institutions receive higher quality applications more quickly.

Neil Pearson, IDP Chief Digital Officer, said that by working with students and institutions IDP is addressing students’ needs in a sector that has been in need of modernization for the next generation - presenting personalized choices, making it faster and improving their chances of success.

“When making a life decision as significant as where to study overseas, students need to have access to trustworthy and personalized advice. IDP’s unmatched global dataset now enables us to provide students with faster, more transparent information on their study options and match them with the best possible course,” Pearson said.

“At the same time, our expert counsellors can provide more informed, higher-quality recommendations for our students. This means better outcomes for our students and for our counsellors. Rather than students speculatively applying to multiple institutions, IDP Live matches them earlier in their decision-making journey.” The new fast-track service also ensures the best outcomes for institutions. Using this service, institutions can select the students who will thrive at their institution, learn more about students’ preferences, streamline applications and create real-time student engagement, driving the rebound and addressing challenges in volume, diversity and quality of their prospective international students.

Aleicia Shekhar, University of South Australia Deputy Director of International Systems and Operations, said her institution jumped at the chance to be involved in the new service. Shekhar said her team were unanimously impressed by IDP Live’s revolutionary nature, which has flipped the traditional international student recruitment model in favour of a student-first approach.

“In the past, institutions would go to students and tell them what we think they need, and the process would take months. Now the student tells us what they want and can find the best course that matches their profile almost instantly. It means better outcomes for students and better outcomes for institutions,” Shekhar said.

Andrew Barkla, IDP Education Chief Executive Officer, said the service represented an entirely new way for students to find the best-fit courses.

“IDP Live will bring our industry into a future in which technology enhances the interactions between our counsellors, students and institutions, driving the best outcomes for all. The introduction of the fast-track service, which combines cutting-edge technology and trusted human interactions, has immediately begun to help students around the world to find best-fit courses. Our evolving ecosystem, a connected community of students, institutions and counsellors is working to help drive the recovery of international education,” Barkla said.

IDP Live features include:

- Fast-track service – course search and matching service for students and institutions leading to the student receiving an offer faster

- Personalized search and course recommendation engine

- Course favourite shortlist directly connected to and actionable by IDP Counsellors

- Student 360, connecting counsellors to the most relevant updates about their students

- Access to IDP’s global team of education experts

- Course application tracking with real-time updates and personalized notifications

- More than 1,000 student and institution video answers to prospective student questions

Students in regions where IDP has counselling offices can download the IDP Live app free from their smartphone’s app store and begin searching, applying and preparing for their dream study experiences now. Learn more here: idp.com/global/app