Comparing Recruitment by Country: Separate Student Stocks from New-Intake Results

When deciding where to focus recruitment, ranking countries by their total student population can miss the group your programme can actually serve. Public statistics describe the context; your university’s new-intake results follow enquiries through applications and registration. Keep those tables separate.

Define what “country performance” means

Nationality, recruitment location and a partner’s office country are different. A Vietnamese national may apply while living elsewhere, and one partner may serve several nationalities. State which country dimension the table uses.

Separate language study, undergraduate and graduate intakes. Their calendars and requirements differ. Following a common term and programme gives a clearer action than combining every enquiry.

Read the official data in its own scope

Study in Korea publishes student figures by nationality and programme. The public university-data description separately identifies enrolled populations and final registration measures.

A large enrolled population is therefore not evidence of a high conversion rate at your institution. Record survey year, programme and institutional scope in the background table; give the internal intake table its own period and definitions. Do not combine unrelated percentages into a performance score.

A country-comparison table proposed by GEA

Record	Unit	Add	Decision supported
Public context	Survey population	Year, programme, institution scope	Understand context
Enquiries	Unique people in a period	Country definition, intake, deduplication	Identify enquiry needs
Applications	Unique qualifying submissions	Submission definition, deadline	Find preparation bottlenecks
Initial registration	University-confirmed registrants	Confirmation and cancellation treatment	Reconcile outcomes
Activities and cost	Comparable-period work	Cost inclusions and target group	Plan further activity

Label an application share as applications divided by enquiries. Registration among admitted applicants has a different denominator from registration among all applicants. Define whether “application” means interest expressed or actual submission meeting the chosen rule.

A hypothetical example: the same percentage, different action

In a GEA table example, group A has ten applications from 20 enquiries and group B two from four. Both show 50%, but their sample sizes differ. Investigating A’s non-application reasons may reveal a recurring information need; B needs more cases before a stable conclusion.

Classify confirmed barriers such as pending language results, unsuitable majors, documents or changed timing. Keep missing replies separate from established reasons. Do not infer the cause from a partner’s name or country.

Turn the comparison into a decision

Compare intake groups whose observation periods have closed. A group still within its registration window should not be marked weaker than a completed intake. Display counts beside percentages, especially with small groups, and consider how single exceptions affect the result.

Choose a concrete action: revise programme information, bring preparation forward or clarify suitable departments. For cooperation with GEA, provide the country definition, programme and intake, anonymised enquiry/application/registration counts and observation period. These support a focused discussion about overseas recruitment work.

Related guides

Sources

Sources checked: 24 October 2026.

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