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Turkey Report Recruitment trip - Agents visits in Istanbul (1st to 6th July 2019) International Marketing and Student Recruitment Visit BU Representative: Nuria Moyano - Regional Manager (Europe) 1. Aims and Objectives • Conversion trip to Istanbul to encourage offer holders to enrolments and to generate

new applications for January and September 2020 entry. • To provide training sessions to new/existing student counsellors as appropriate. • To continue to support and build strong working relationships with our key agents in

Turkey. • To organise and host BU Alumni/Applicants Reception in Istanbul to develop our Turkish

Alumni Network. 2. Executive Summary • In general the trip went well and offered us the opportunity to encourage our offer

holders to join BU and to recruit new students. However, student numbers attending the meetings this year were lower than this time last year and a higher number of our current applicants have deferred their applications for next academic year. The recent political turmoil in the country with president Erdogan running two elections in less than a year has had a huge impact on the country’s economy affecting the value of the Turkish lira, increasing inflation by 20% as well as increasing the prices of necessity foods and services by a stunning 30%.

• I visited 7 offices from key representatives in Istanbul. Met with 11 offer holders and 3 new potential applicants (1 x January and 2 x September 2020). Training sessions were delivered where appropriate.

• As a new initiative, this year our current Turkish student ambassador (Talya Disagciyan) joined me on this conversion trip to Istanbul as a big number of applicants have applied for the Masters in Clinical Psychology. The same programme that Talya has just finished. The feedback I received from agents and students was excellent. The students appreciated the opportunity to meet with one of our current Turkish students to find out more about the town, Psychology course and BU facilities from a student’s point of view.

• The Alumni/Applicant Reception in Istanbul was very successful attracting around 50 people including a few applicants for September 2020. This was the third time I organised an Alumni Event in Turkey and the best attended event so far. The event was well promoted on several social media channels including different Facebook pages, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts (some pictures are available at the end of this report).

3. Activities

Istanbul visits Points of interest 1st to 6th July 2019 -ATEC -British Side -Atlas (Taksim & Besitkas offices) -Global Yurtdisim -Global Vision

Visited eight agents in Istanbul. The main points discussed are highlighted below:

- Application numbers from British Side and Atlas (two of our biggest agents in Istanbul) are down this year. The current economic crisis in Turkey is having a negative affect on the student market, particularly at PG level. Both agencies have been forced to close down some of their branches and cut down numbers of personnel.

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-BEB -Alternative

Pelin from British Side and Sinem from Atlas (both Directors) expressed concerns about a big number of master’s students postponing and some also withdrawing their applications for this year.

- I met with Deniz Akar (managing Director of Global Vision) to discuss recruitment activities for next year. The company has three separate divisions (IEFT fairs, language programmes, and university counselling) their university counselling division has now merged with BEB Istanbul so applications from Global Vision will come via BEB. Deniz assured me that BU is one of their key partners and therefore will encourage their counsellors to send us applications. He has set a target of 20 enrolments for BU for September 2020. In return, they asked us to support the IEFT fairs in the autumn and spring.

- Administered the Password English test for Merve Demirhindi and Aleyna Unsal - in two of our agent’s office (Alternative and BEB).

Student meetings: I met with 13 students (11 offer holders and 3 new potential applicants) during this trip. Global Yurtdisim

- Hatice Vuslat Akterem - new applicant LLM Sep 20. - Efe Erturk - new applicant Msc IT Jan 20. - Pelda Baran - offer holder Msc Clinical Psy Sep 19.

BEB office - Suna Kudun - offer holder Msc Clinical Psy Sep 19. - Merve Demirhind - offer holder Msc Intl Marketing Sep

19. - Batuhan Serif Cakir - offer holder Msc Clinical Psy Sep

19. Alternative Office

- Aleyna Unsal - offer holder BA CA Sep 19.

ATLAS Office - Ezgi Tilbet - offer holder Msc Clinical Psy Sep 19. - Gizem Tuna - offer holder LLM Sep 19.

British Side Office

- Dila Iplik - offer holder Msc Clinical Psy Sep 19. - Tugba Tambuga – new applicant Msc Nutrition Sep 20.

Direct applicants - Meeting in the hotel lobby - Dilan Akgoz - offer holder Msc Data Science AI Sep 19. - Engin Taskan - offer holder Msc Intl Acc and Finance

Sep 19. - Emin Karakus - offer holder MA Intl Political Comms Sep

19.

My visit to ATEC office was cancelled as there was no students to see and I had run a training session for the counsellors during my last trip in May.

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Alumni/Applicant event Istanbul

• The alumni event took place at the Chef Mezze Restaurant in Istanbul. The event was promoted on several social media channels, including the Turkish Alumni Facebook page which I take care of, the BU Alumni Association Twitter account, LinkedIn and Instagram. Currently we have 49 Turkish alumni registered on the main BU Alumni database but only 17 of the alumni who attended the dinner were registered on the system. I have asked the remaining people to sign up on our central Alumni database so I am expecting the number of Alumni on our database to increase in the next few days.

• The event has also helped us to attract new alumni to our Turkish Alumni Facebook group. It went up from 35 people to 75 people.

• I am currently working with the Alumni department and PR team to promote this event on our website and social media channels so people can see the work we do with our alumni in Turkey. Both departments have agreed to post some pictures and publish an article about the event on the relevant webpages.

• I promoted the new Mentoring Alumni Scheme during the event and a couple of people showed an interest in being part of it.

• I discussed with some of the alumni the possibility of developing employment opportunities and student work placements for our UG/PG students in their current companies. One of our alumni has confirmed that their company will be very interested in taking our students on work placement opportunities.

Action Points

• Liaise with the Alumni department and PR to ensure the success of the Turkish alumni event is well promoted on our webpages and other social media channels (NMM).

• Check Password English results and inform agents/students accordingly (NMM done).

• Follow up with our Turkish alumni and BU Careers and Placement Office in view of developing work placement opportunities for our students (NMM).

• Work closely with agents to ensure potential students I spoke to send us their applications soon (NMM done).

4. Quantitative Data – interactions with stakeholders Country: Turkey Number Visits to Reps offices 7 Agencies (8 offices) Exhibition attended n/a Institutions visited (Schools and HE level) n/a Meetings with stakeholders (funding bodies, academics, BC etc)

n/a

Student Interviews 11 offer holders + 3 potential new students Report completed by Nuria Moyano Martin, July 2019

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Appendix 1- Photos from the Alumni/Applicants Reception July 2019

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