A report on the Stopover Grants Scheme

The International Education Office (IEO) has the main responsibility at the ANU for the recruitment of international students, and in this it carries out the usual activities performed by most universities, including several major overseas missions each year. Some academic areas, such as the National Centre for Development Studies, also do their own direct overseas recruitment. Surveys undertaken over the past few years have emphasised the importance of personal contact in recruiting graduate students, particularly at the PhD level. Since 1991, all newly enrolling graduate students have been invited to complete a simple questionnaire indicating what factors they considered significant in their decision to come to ANU to do graduate study. The form used in 1996 is shown in attachment 1. A survey of this type has obvious limitations. For example, it gives no indication of why students choose not to come to the ANU. However, it does indicate the factors that influential for students who did come. For research students, ANU's reputation was significant for 72%. Otherwise, personal recommendation was the major factor (28% ANU staff, 45% staff of own institution, and 21% former ANU students), with 19% influenced by ANU promotional literature. For coursework students, ANU's reputation is less important (29%), personal recommendation is somewhat less significant than for research students (17%, 17% and 22%), while ANU promotional literature is a major factor (43%) These results indicate that it is important to facilitate personal contact and strategic distribution of literature. The stopover Grants scheme initiated at the suggestion of the then Deputy Vice-Chancellor Professor Terrell in 1993, does just that