'Each student receives 40 hrs of free counselling'

ELS Educational Services, an English language training company which is a subsidiary of the nearly $1-billion, Princeton-based Berlitz Corporation, has been offering free counselling services in India for student aspirants to the US since 2010. Mark W. Harris, the global CEO of both ELS and Berlitz Corporation, recently had a telephonic interaction with Georgy S Thomas of Deccan Herald, during which he talked about the programme. He was joined in the conversation by Mallik Sundharam, the Managing Director of ELS Educational Services India.
Excerpts:

Why did you decide to launch counselling services in India?

Mark Harris: India has been the single-most important source country for postgraduate students to the US. It was only about three years ago that Chinese students exceeded those from India. However, in the most recent academic year (2013-14) for which data is available, Chinese postgraduate students declined slightly, while those from India increased by 12 per cent.

We enjoy strategic partnership with US institutions by assisting them to recruit international students. We normally prepare those students in English. Such students are from countries where English is not the spoken language. In India, however, it is one of the languages spoken. So we realised that we would not enjoy the business opportunity of teaching English to Indian students. Nevertheless, since our partner universities eagerly accept applicants from India, we decided to scale up in India. Also, our partners sought our help because they had been disappointed by some of the practices by agencies in India.

In how many countries do you offer such counselling?

Mark Harris: We do not directly offer counselling services to students outside the US in any other country except India. We have assisted 1.25 million students from 140 countries to enter US universities. However, in other countries we work with a network of counselling agencies. And those agencies customarily charge students. We don’t charge students directly.

In the US, we have 60 language centers located on university campuses. For a fee, these centers coach students from 140 countries who have arrived in the US to improve their English ahead of admissions. These centers also feature a student advisory staffed with certified counsellors who provide students with free counselling to identify schools. But these counsellors spend only about 5-6 hours per student. Last year in India, each student received an average of 40 hours of free counselling.

When do you start working with students aspiring for a US education?

Mallik: The  ELS International Education Pathways programme works with both graduate and undergraduate students. When it comes to undergraduates, we usually advise them to prepare two years ahead for their standardised SAT test. This means students usually start during the tenth standard annual examination holidays. They will be in touch with us from then onwards.

When it comes to graduate programmes, we usually recommend about a year and a half before their actual study period. If they are going for the Fall (August) programme, we ask them to start in the previous May. This will also give them enough time to prepare for standardised tests like GRE, GMAT, etc. and also to retake them in some cases.

How does your counselling  programme work?

Mallik: As a first step, students fill up a 13-page questionnaire that goes through every detail of their study abroad goals, desires, interested programmes, preferred climate, schools they have in mind, etc. We also have questions that identify deficiencies. Once the filled-up questionnaires are received, we do an extensive research and shortlist up to 10 institutions. The shortlist will cover tuition cost, housing cost, ranking, scholarship availability, and even highlight success stories of international students at each institution.

How do you help them with recommendation letters and application filling?

Mallik: Students on an average apply to six institutions. We provide them with an application checklist with details like application fees, the mode (online or paper application), number of recommendation letters required, the mode of recommendations (online or paper), address to mail the application, the number of transcripts required, transcript evaluation to standardise scores, etc. We review the applications once it is filled up and help them submit them. We also guide them in sending their transcripts to the appropriate institutions.

How do you help applicants with securing quality recommendation letters?

Mallik: We give a detailed presentation which explains that while a recommendation from, say the principal of an institution, would add weightage, but at the same time if the person doesn’t know you personally and doesn’t share your study abroad thought process and goals, the letter doesn’t have the same weightage. So we help students understand that the content of the letter, how much the recommenders know the student personally, and how much time they dedicate to helping students, are all much more important.

How do you help students with their Statements of Purpose (SoPs)?

Mallik: We require students to create SoPs themselves. We have handouts as well as presentations that will walk them through how an SoP should be written — its content, flow, crispness, precision, besides a checklist of what it should cover. An editorial team reviews the SoPs for grammatical errors, flow of messaging, structure, etc. It then provides feedback for improvement.

How many students have you counselled till now?

Mallik: We have counselled close to 500 students. Some 90 per cent of them would be graduate students. We have close to 400 students who have got admission, with admissions in the pipeline for another 100. We have secured more than $500,000 in scholarships. These range from $2,500 to $50,000 per student.

What are the trends that you have noticed?

Mallik: It appears that India is the single-most important country providing high quality engineering students to the US. We do see quite a bit of students going for STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) programmes, followed by business programmes. We are seeing recent interest towards unique programmes like film production (our partner Los Angeles Film School provides a high quality job-ready degree programme), film technology, etc.

In which cities do you offer counselling?

Mallik: We started in Chennai. We now have branches in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Coimbatore. We are looking at expanding it to Mumbai, Delhi, and Kolkata through this year as well as the next.

Do you intend to continue with free counselling in India?

Mark Harris: We are looking at charging for it. Although, we haven’t decided on a price, we are certain that it should at least cover the cost. As far as future growth is concerned, we absolutely plan to continue and expand on it. By 2020, we hope to provide counselling to 5,000 Indian students per annum.