2022 was a busy year for ApplyBoard. As part of our continuing mission to educate the world as thought leaders in the international education sector, ApplyBoard acquired TrainHub, launched in Ireland, and hosted the Top Recruiters Workshop, to name just a few initiatives. We also published over 75 ApplyInsights this year, detailing student and destination trends from all over the world.
Today, we look at some of our top insights over the past year.
Key Insights at a Glance
- 58% of repeat student visa applicants were eventually accepted into Canada from January 2016 to October 2021.1
- A delayed letter of acceptance (LOA) resulted in reduced tuition deposit rates of up to 47% from 2018 to 2021.
- Intentional student enrollment in Ireland tripled from 2010 to 2020.
- ApplyBoard students were around 50% more likely to receive Canadian study permit approval than the average student.
Approval Rate for Repeat Student Visa Applications to Canada
One of the biggest surprises we found occurred early in the year when we looked at the approval rate for repeat student visa applications to Canada.2 We combed through the data of nearly 2 million study permit applications to Canada from January 2016 to October 2021. The table below omits data after the eighth application to protect student privacy:
Overall, more than 170,000 students were approved for a student visa after their first application was refused. Although approval rates declined on each subsequent application, 58% of repeat student visa applicants were eventually accepted into Canada. This was much higher than anticipated and great news for students not approved on their first application attempt.
Two key takeaways emerged from this insight. First, looking at the aggregate approval rate—63% for all applicants, first time or repeat, from January 2016 to October 2021—understates the success rate of first-time applicants. And second, too many students give up after their first application was denied. More than 215,000 prospective students did not reapply after their first application attempt over this time frame. If just 10% of those students resubmitted a successful application, that could have brought more than 20,000 new students to Canada.
Quantifying the Relationship Between LOA Turnaround Time and Tuition Deposit Rate
While it’s generally accepted that international students are less likely to enroll at an institution the longer they wait to receive their letter of acceptance (LOA), we looked to quantify this relationship at the start of the year:
ApplyBoard’s exclusive internal data from 2018 to 2021 shows a sharp decline in tuition deposit rates the longer a student waits to receive their LOA. For Canadian public colleges, Indian students were 47% less likely to submit a tuition deposit when the LOA arrived after five weeks compared to within one week. And students outside of India followed this trend, with the over-five-week cohort 28% less likely to submit a tuition deposit than the one-week cohort.
The story was similar for Canadian universities as well. A non-Indian student who received their LOA after three weeks was 30% less likely to submit a tuition deposit than those who received their LOA within one week. And although Indian students showed more willingness to wait for their preferred university to issue an LOA, that patience was limited. The over-five-week cohort was 21% less likely to deposit tuition fees than students who receive their LOA within five weeks.
ApplyBoard is committed to connecting schools with top students from around the world. Our sophisticated vetting process means less work and time for schools, streamlining applications to better improve students’ access to education.
International Education Primed for Long-Term Growth in Ireland
ApplyBoard launched in Ireland partly due to the long-term growth potential of the country’s international education sector. Over the past decade, Ireland has bloomed as a study abroad destination:
9,563 international students were enrolled in Irish Higher Education programs in the 2009/10 academic year.3 By 2020, Ireland’s international student population had tripled, swelling to over 28,500 students. Over that time period, Ireland showed encouraging year-over-year growth, posting increased enrollment in nine out of 10 years.
What’s more, nearly one in four international students in Ireland studied health and welfare in 2021. The global health care sector drastically needs newly trained workers now and for the coming decade. That health and welfare is Ireland’s top field of study for attracting international students could position the country for tremendous growth in the coming years.
International Student Budgets Loosening, but Remain Lean
Always looking to leverage our internal data, we used the search filter data on the ApplyBoard platform to look at the evolution of the student budget since 2019:
We saw students’ willingness to spend on tuition decline each year from 2019 to 2021. The majority of searches in 2019 were for programs with annual tuition higher than 80,000.4 In 2020, the share of searches within the 20,000 to 49,000 bracket increased by 20 percentage points. And then in 2021, 56% of students searched for programs under 20,000 a year.
By the summer of 2022, students became more willing to spend on tuition than they were in 2021. Two out of every three searches were for programs under 50,000, but the under-20,000 category declined by 25 percentage points. And this shift continued when we returned to the data in October as part of our second-annual trends report, as searches under 20,000 dropped by another two percentage points from the summer results.
Sector Impacted by Once-in-a-Generation Strength of the US Dollar
In the fall of 2022, the US dollar reached generational strength:
The US Dollar Index (USDX) measures the value of the USD relative to six other major foreign currencies.5 The USDX reached $109.66 on September 1, 2022.6 To give perspective on the truly generational strength of this level, the last time the USDX reached $105 was the early 2000s. And before that, the early 1980s.
The strong US dollar means that international students relying on personal savings will generally find that their home currency no longer goes as far as it once did. And while past results don’t guarantee future performance, we believe the sector should plan for the USDX to remain high for the foreseeable future. In previous instances where the USDX surpassed $105, it stayed above that level for several years.
ApplyBoard Students 50% More Likely to Receive Canadian Study Permit Approval
One final insight of 2022 that we were proud to see came from the success of our students. On the aggregate, ApplyBoard students were around 50% more likely to receive study permit approval than the average student:
For Winter 2022, the average study permit approval rate for Indian students was just 46%. But ApplyBoard students were approved at a rate of 68%. Non-Indian students were approved at a similar rate on average, 47%, but ApplyBoard’s non-Indian students were approved at an even better rate of 77%.
ApplyBoard works hard to ensure the success of students by revolutionizing the international student journey through technology. ApplyBoard puts quality first by investing in resources, services, and training to make the application process as seamless as possible.
ApplyInsights in 2023
2022 was a great year for both the international education sector and for ApplyBoard. The ApplyInsights team is excited to continue diving into the data of the latest trends to help educate the world. And we’ll be launching more initiatives than ever before in 2023, including the following:
- Leading more webinars, which were heavily anticipated and participated in by our partner institutions and recruitment partners in 2022.
- Releasing long-form analytical reports to continue driving thought leadership in the sector.
- Collaborating with more external agencies to give you the best data insights possible.
We’ll be back in the new year with some predictions on where the new year might take us, an update on the latest trends in Ireland, and more analysis of our exclusive internal data. Stay tuned, and have a happy holiday season!
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FOOTNOTES:
1. Data courtesy of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC).
2. The terms student visa and study permit are generally used interchangeably for Canadian international students. Rather than student visas, Canada provides accepted international students with study permits, which allow those students to enroll in classes at Canadian institutions. When a student is accepted for a study permit, they are also usually provided with a visitor visa, which allows that student to enter Canada for their studies. For the purposes of this article, we’ll use the terms interchangeably.
3. Data courtesy of the Irish Higher Education Authority (HEA).
4. All amounts are listed in the currency charged by the school.
5. Investopedia, What Is the U.S. Dollar Index (USDX)? August 2022.
6. Yahoo Finance, US Dollar/USDX – Index – Cash (DX-Y.NYB).
