Ten Years Later, It’s Still All About the Reviews:
Abroad101 got its start as the “Trip Advisor for Study Abroad” being the first website to focus on study abroad reviews. Ten years later we host the largest collection of program reviews, in part because a number of colleges and universities use Abroad101 as their official program evaluation software. Abroad101’s system gives university administrators a nice set of web-based tools to:
- manage the publishing of reviews (approve/disapprove)
- add custom evaluation questions (optional)
- measure their students’ results against other universities (charts)
- generate performance reports on programs and providers (ratings scores)
- export reviews for further analysis and trends
More than 70% of the reviews on Abroad101 come at the invitation of university advisors, many who will read and discuss the reviews as part of school’s re-entry process. In recent years, we have opened up these features to program hosts (foreign universities) and providers who use the reviews for both marketing and quality control. Whether you invite the student or not, you can see your program reviews and can use the comparison tools by accessing your account dashboard. If you have not done so, we encourage you to login and explore what Abroad101 has for you. If you need your password reset or would like a web demo of the software, email: mark@abroad101.com.
Abroad101’s Directories
Any list of programs on Abroad101 is displayed based on an algorithm we have fine-tuned over the years. Recent review volume is currently the most important factor, adjusted by the age of the review along with several additional factors including standard deviation (range of scores). Inclusion of photos and review completeness impact positioning. We do this because as a review website, people come to us looking for current and thorough reviews so it seems only right that the programs with the most reviews are at the top of the list.
Student Inquiries:
As a reminder, the primary mechanism for prospective students to interact with providers is through Abroad101’s inquiry form. When you get an inquiry from Abroad101, you will notice a “lead type” in the message. These are:
- fav = Favorite, where a student tags your listing as one to consider later, not a formal inquiry
- rmi – the standard Request More Information inquiry
- app – student states they want to apply for the program listed.
- mp – Matching Program (a featured offered to advertisers)
Often people will visit review sites to do further research, so when you get an inquiry marked Apply there is a reasonable chance that that student is already known to you and has come to a decision to apply to the program while on Abroad101. Please don’t view these as duplicate leads, instead think of them as conversions and prioritize your response to the student.
For those of you who advertise, our LeadMatch (mp leads) feature gives students three additional programs to consider after they have sent an inquiry to a non-advertised program. These matching programs are drawn from our pool of advertised programs, matching on city, country and/or subject. It’s modeled after the popular recommendation feature on sites like Amazon.com and accounts for 13% of all leads sent from Abroad101.
Search by Subject:
As a reminder, Abroad101 is using the CIP Codes from the US Department of Education for our study subject search. We presently list a total of 423 including all of the top level subjects and the most popular of the specific disciplines. From time to time, providers will request we add a category, such as Kinesiology and Exercise Science which we added last month. We encourage you to take advantage of the study subject field when updating your program listings with Abroad101. Let us know if you’d like any additional categories/directories.
Include Abroad101 in your Advertising Budgets:
Abroad101 is supported by advertising from foreign universities as well as program providers. Advertising on Abroad101 is designed to bring you more inquiries, improve your conversions and raise the brand and visibility of your programs, all at a price that won’t blow your budget. Featured Listings start at $500/year and we offer generous volume discounts for multiple programs and display advertising. Advertising is mixed gently in the pages adding additional choice to students. With 20-25% of Abroad101’s visitors being parents or university advisors, advertising has the extra impact of reaching those that influence students. We hope you will include Abroad101 in your next year’s budget. Prices remain unchanged since 2015, please download our Ad Guide for more information.
See you at NAFSA?
Abroad101 won’t have a booth this year or a reception, but we will be at the conference. If you’d like to meet at your booth, or after exhibit hours, please email: mark@abroad101.com.
Thank you,