by Mark Sklarow, IECA Executive Director

The Executive Committee of the IECA Board of Directors met Monday and Tuesday this week to examine current issues and ensure the Association’s future is on track, incorporating member feedback and planning for upcoming meetings of the Board of Directors.  While the officers examined numerous topics (e.g., conference changes, affinity groups, ethics, and relationships with affiliated organizations) most discussions led back to three central themes of communication, education, and IECA’s role as the preeminent organization for educational advising in the world.

Given that IECA is the leading professional association for educational consultants, the Executive Committee emphasized a three-year goal of membership growth to include the vast majority of all competent, ethical, knowledgeable, qualified consultants.  The effort revolves around the simple belief that just as the nation’s leading doctors join the AMA and leading psychologists join the APA, the nation’s (and world’s) leading educational consultants should be members of IECA. The result, while ensuring some growth, will guarantee greater awareness by the general public, general acceptance by admission directors, and partnership with leading educational organizations.

Such an effort will challenge IECA to act decisively to ensure effective communication.  This includes communication among our members, communication between the association’s national staff and the membership, as well as communication between our members and the admission and broader educational communities.

IECA has made a commitment to maintain publishing: brochures, fliers, directory and Insights.  While other groups have abandoned ‘hard copies’ we believe such printed material gives us an unequaled presence.  At the same time, our web site is updated regularly and will continue to be renewed. When families search for an educational consultant, we are committed to ensuring that IECA emerges at the top of that search.   Our social media and new media efforts are well ahead of most other associations with thousands now connecting to us through Facebook, LinkedIn, our blog, the TalkList and other efforts.  Increasingly these new communication tools will connect members with each other and with the general public.

The growing importance of our committees, of affinity groups (like the two newest groups for consultants with small children and consultants in dual roles and the coming group for BestNotes users), and newly developing regional groups are all part of the emphasis on communication.  They are also an important part of education, the last piece of our trifecta.

Members in recent surveys have indicated a desire for more educational opportunities.  Having just completed our Summer Training Institute, I know that no organization anywhere does a better job of educating consultants.  Our training is unequaled.  Now we will be looking at new training opportunities, for those just starting out, as well as for those in the process of growing their practices or adding new specialties, as well as for those more senior and experienced members looking to keep up with new technologies and changes in the world of admissions and adolescents.  This is also likely to include a new, online ethics course that all new members of IECA will need to complete during the months following their acceptance to the organization.

A central aspect of IECA’s role is our deep belief that the profession–and students–are best served by our members’ commitment to sharing: through mentoring, presenting at conferences, teaching at the STI and other workshops and seminars.  Sharing is central to our mission.

The fundamental message of the Executive Committee’s work is that IECA intends to be the leader in the field by providing exceptional service and educational opportunities to our members, and by expanding awareness of the profession and recognition of IECA from coast-to-coast and increasingly, around the world.

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by Mark Sklarow, Executive Director, IECA

Yesterday about a dozen IECA members visited three Ontario, Canada colleges. During those campus visits, one school provided the consultants with their “Recruitment Representative Agreement.” Confusing “consultants” and “agents,” this college assumed IECA members accepted reimbursements in exchange for referring students, guaranteeing a per-head ‘kick-back’ of 12% of the freshman year tuition.

Our members could not escape the irony as I had just blogged about these agency fees yesterday (IECA’s First Conference Held Outside U.S. Reflects Our International Growth), and a copy of that blog made its way around the bus. I have also addressed this issue in recent blogs (University Use of Agents Back in the News with $78 Million Fine; Note to Colleges: An Unethical Practice Domestically is No Less Wrong Internationally).

What I realized yesterday is a simple but unfortunate fact: An agent may refer a student to a college and the college knows it—after all they’ll be receiving a check for thousands of dollars. But there is no guarantee that the student is a good match and no indication that they will last their entire collegiate career at that school. A consultant may recommend a student—or several—to the college, but the college never knows because the consultant’s work is in the background, rarely seen or heard from. Yet the student working with the consultant is more likely to find the college a great match, because success of the student is the only motivator for the consultant.

A consultant considers every option, not just the few schools that agree to pay the finder’s fee. Unfortunately, colleges simply don’t know how many or which students arrived because they worked with an educational consultant.

When colleges think about reaching out to agents they know exactly how many students enrolled. Consultants have seemingly gone out of their way to hide such information; yet the field of consulting has doubled in the last six years and IECA’s membership and our reach has grown dramatically. I have begun to argue that IECA members should do more—perhaps must do more—to ensure colleges know how many students we work with and how many freshmen they welcomed worked with our members. After all, these students examined many options, determined that this specific college was the best match, and are more likely to stay through graduation. Why would we want to hide such information?

It is true that there are some consultants who “package” students, write essays, and hype profiles. But that description does NOT include members of the Independent Educational Consultants Association. And we must work to ensure that colleges know this difference and partner with us. After all, we share one over-arching goal: students that thrive and succeed on campus.

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by Mark Sklarow, Executive Director, Independent Educational Consultants Association

At the IECA Conference in Toronto

Several times a year I receive letters addressed to the “INTERNATIONAL Educational Consultants Association.” Of course the ‘I’ in our name has stood for “INDEPENDENT” since 1976, and our membership has been overwhelmingly U.S.-based. In fact if I look back at directories a decade ago or more, our international listings were on a single page and comprised mainly of American consultants with second offices in Europe.

Today, as we prepare to open our first conference outside of the United States, our growing influence internationally is unmistakable. Looking at our professional and associate members, we have IECA affiliated consultants not only in North, Central, and South America, but in Europe, Asia, Middle East, and Africa as well.

We have a good representation of educational consultants based in Canada joining us, and conference sponsors include schools in Switzerland, as well as colleges, programs, and universities from the provinces of Ontario, Alberta, and British Columbia. When we announced plans to meet in Canada, some feared there wouldn’t be any members to form a local host committee, but in fact 18 Canadians joined in planning. Scores of schools, colleges, universities, and therapeutic institutions will be joining us from throughout Canada and the world, in addition to our partners in the States.

As those in the membership committee have learned, international applications to join IECA are up dramatically, with China leading the way, but applicants reaching us from every corner of the globe. In many countries, IECA, consulting, and the ethical guidelines we adhere to are all new concepts as agents receiving per-head finders fees was the norm. Today “good match” and “appropriate placements” are being introduced to concerned parents who are beginning to understand how an independent consultant can benefit them. In a bit of irony, we know the IECA name is already being recognized around the world as educational advisors in small cities across Asia race to add “IECA” to their corporate name, and we work to protect the best known and best respected “brand’ in the field.

Meeting in Toronto, while just an hour from the U.S. Border, is symbolic of IECA’s global reach and indicative of where our future lies.

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by Mark Sklarow, Executive Director, Independent Educational Consultants Association

Our spring conference registration opened less than a week ago, and registration is already approaching 250. Early bird discounts end THIS FRIDAY (February 26), so if you are planning to attend our gathering in Toronto (May 12-15), get your registration completed right away. Full details on the conference are posted on the IECA Web site (http://www.iecaonline.com/conferences.html) and additional information, including details on all breakout sessions, will be added to the site in the next few days.

I have gotten a few questions and welcome this opportunity to clarify:

“I really don’t work with Canadian schools or universities (or ‘We don’t really get any students from Canada’). So maybe there won’t be as much for me at this conference.” Hold on!  Just because we are meeting in Canada for the first time doesn’t mean our focus is shifting. Of the first 225 registrants, just 15 are Canadian consultants, schools, or universities. The other 210 are from the U.S. What we expect is full participation by our IECA members from across the U.S. with a bit of an uptick in non-U.S. participation, reflecting how much easier it is for consultants in Asia, South America, and Europe to travel to Canada. We expect all of the schools, colleges, and programs that typically attend IECA conferences to be joining us in Toronto, but with the added bonus of greater participation by Canadian institutions. Remember, school, program, and college representatives from Nova Scotia to Vancouver helped us plan the conference!

“There’s so much going on before and after the conference, I’m still trying to figure out what to do, so I can’t register yet.” Wait a minute! We don’t want you to lose out on the early bird discount. Register for the conference now and get your discount. You can always sign back on using our Web-based registration system and modify your registration. That way you won’t miss the discount. We know there’s a lot going on: pre-conference activities include IECA tours of Ontario universities; special tours of Ontario boarding school and gap year programs; the popular Speed Meetings—actually two of them: one for traditional boarding schools and the other for therapeutic programs; and a pre-conference workshop on LD issues as well as one on Web-based marketing. Whew!! Post-conference activities include TWO different college tours: one of universities in upstate New York and the other in Nova Scotia. There’s a school tour in Nova Scotia as well.

“I just got a conference/tour price list via e-mail and it looks like the prices really went up.” NO! That was an e-mail from some other association! Don’t be confused. The cost of our three-day college tours (pre- or post-conference) is still just $95—not the $200 the other group charges. Our conference fee for members, including meals and special events and even including a pre-conference workshop, is unchanged at $395 ($370 early bird)—not the $595 the other group just e-mailed for their conference and pre-conference registration. IECA works hard to keep our costs as low as possible (with thanks to our conference sponsors). As proof: our membership dues have not changed in 30 years! Finally, even non-members can save a bundle. Our conference and pre-conference workshop full registration for non-member consultants is $530—not the $745 others are charging, according to that e-mail. Of course, cost is just part of the story. We are confident that everyone will get a great deal out of participating in the IECA conference: amazing speakers, great educational sessions, and lots of opportunities for networking.

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by Mark Sklarow, Executive Director, IECA

Not a single day goes by when I don’t hear from some overseas “agent” offering to ‘represent’ us abroad. On a weekly basis I hear from someone wishing to join the Independent Educational Consultants Association from Asia, Europe or the Middle East who indicate that they are educational consultants but operate “differently.”

That difference makes all the difference.

In almost every case, those claiming to be such atypical consultants are in fact “agents.” They are paid by colleges on a per-head basis for each international student they can feed into the school’s admission funnel. They may tell a parent that they are helping to find a “good match” but in fact that match is limited to the two, three or ten colleges with whom the agent has a contract and they only suggest colleges who pay them a finder’s fee. That is not consulting. Consultants work independently of colleges and make suggestions based solely on the best interest of the student. In fact, accepting a fee from a school, college, camp, or program is grounds for dismissal from IECA. That is how serious a violation of parental trust we consider this.

Frankly, most colleges must agree. I don’t know of any colleges that would pay such a fee for a student referred domestically. Indeed such a scheme would constitute an ethical violation of most any association or organization in the field. Yet many colleges actively engage in this farce across the globe. Many will say they only do so because operating internationally is tougher, that economic realities require such outreach. I remind my colleagues that ethical behavior shines brightest when it is applied to difficult situations, not the easy ones. Do schools really want to communicate to students that ethical lapses are okay, if you have empty beds, or really, really want something badly enough?

Luckily, an increasing number of colleges are rejecting “agents” just as IECA rejects them from membership. Despite our hard line, our international membership has doubled in the last two years and we continue to expand to new countries. What makes this growth all the more exciting is that we can say internationally what we’ve said domestically for over 30 years: that IECA members take no money from schools and programs and their only obligation is to advise families based on the needs of the student.

I look forward to the day when colleges, too, can make the same ethical claims domestically and internationally.

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by Becky Grappo, IECA Member, United Arab Emirates

Blogging from Abu Dhabi, along the shores of the Arabian (or Persian) Gulf

I’m taking a break while waiting for my next appointment, and asked myself where I could go to chill out, work on my computer, get a quick bite to eat, and feel at home? Starbucks! I drove up and down the gridded, modern streets of Abu Dhabi until I found the reliable green logo that welcomed me “home.” I’m now enjoying wireless on my laptop with my Etisalat (Emirati phone company) USB modem, have had my sandwich and Frappuccino, and am listening to American Oldies on the music system (right now it’s playing “You Talk Too Much” which is an old song that reminded me of someone I knew!). Life is good!

But that’s about all that was familiar today. It started with an early departure from Dubai and a straight shot, one hour drive down highway E11. I finally found the general location of my 9:30 appointment with an American educational NGO operating here in the region. The American director came out of her office to retrieve me from the sea of cars in the parking lot of the local college, as I was close but not really there. I described my location, and we agreed to find each other under the shade of the date trees outside the mosque located in the parking lot. Ten minutes later when we still hadn’t connected, we realized that saying “under the dates by the mosque” was like saying “by Dunkin’ Donuts on a street corner in Boston”! They’re everywhere!

After a successful meeting with the NGO, I needed to find the location of the next meeting. My American counterpart generously offered for me to follow her, and good thing, for I never would have found this school tucked away on side streets with no street names I could discern. I was thrilled to find parking under a shade tree and set off to enter the school. Only the front entrance again deluded me—I wandered around an entire huge city block looking for the entrance, all while walking in the 100 degree in heat in shoes that weren’t made for walking! I was not quite as cheerful once I made my way inside…the heat just zapped me.

But once inside, my meeting with this local international school that offers an American curriculum was delightful. I found the headmistress of the school to be warm, friendly, engaging, and obviously passionately committed to her students. She used the word “love” in relationship to her students multiple times. Her main advisor is her daughter, who earned her Ph.D. in education at Boston University, and I found her to be very attuned to the latest best practices in education. The third person I met with was the special education teacher, trained in Lebanon, who was also very committed to her students. We discussed a student I am working with, and we all agreed on the plan of action. We also discussed professional collaboration, and I pointed to the IECA materials that I had presented to them about “Working with Students with Learning Disabilities” as well as the brochure about IECA’s Principles of Good Practice. I told them of my personal belief about the importance of collaboration, pointing out—with pride—my association with a group of collaborative professionals in the U.S.

I left satisfied that I had made new allies.

Next up: a meeting with parents of a struggling teen. Just as in the U.S., a difficult conversation awaits me regarding a serious situation. I think I might need another cup of ‘joe’ before I venture back out into the heat—both metaphorically and literally.

Just another day in the life of an IECA consultant…

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by Mark Sklarow, Executive Director, IECA

We are looking forward to hosting two outstanding Canadian Universities at the IECA office on Tuesday evening. Starting at 5:00 p.m., the University of Toronto and University of British Columbia will share insights about their schools and about college study in Canada. The event is open to Washington, DC area educational consultants. If you wish to attend, contact UT’s Janet Hurd at janet.hurd@utoronto.ca

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by Becky Grappo, IECA (Oman)

OACAC, the overseas version of NACAC, just concluded its annual conference at Chapman University yesterday. It was a huge success with excellent breakout sessions and networking opportunities. My presentation on Transitions 101 produced a lot of conversation and dialogue, which made me very pleased. My goal was to have the audience ponder the question after the session, and it seems like that goal was met!

There were over 200 colleges there, too. While there was no way that I could meet and talk to all their representatives, I did find out about many more schools and programs than I was previously aware of. And as always, I had my students in mind and was also looking for schools and programs that would fit their needs. I have some new ideas that I can’t wait to share with them!

What makes this conference unique is that it focuses on the kids who attend international schools. That includes Americans living abroad as well as international students. It was nice to be with a group of people where the majority of the college side participants not only know Oman and Dubai, where I live and work, but have been there!

One highlight of the conference was the dinner aboard the Queen Mary in Long Beach. Many participants wore the national dress of the country in which they live and work. It was a parade of nations, to be sure! (My dress from Oman got lost somewhere either in the mail or the move, I’m not sure which!)

Overall, it was a very positive experience and I look forward to participating again next year.

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Today was the first day of the 16th annual Overseas Association of College Admissions Counselors conference. Our host for the conference is Chapman University in the quaint and charming town of Orange, California. It’s a very exciting conference with over 600 attendees representing over 70 counties – that figure represents almost 1/3 of the countries of the world! There are also over 300 schools here, including international and American international schools as well as many U.S., Canadian, and a few European universities. Most of the conference attendees are high school college counselors or international admissions representatives from various colleges and universities. There are also a few other members of IECA present – Deb Landon, Rosa Moreno, and myself – and it’s great to see them here!

Dr. James Doti, president of Chapman university, spoke of the transformative experience of American education in the lives of international students, as well as the importance of sending students abroad. Certainly, this group is convinced about the importance of a global perspective!

This is much different from an IECA conference! The mood is laid back summer casual, and has the feeling of a family reunion than anything. That’s because international admissions officers travel the world constantly to recruit students from overseas, and high school counselors often receive them with open arms and hospitality that goes beyond the school walls. So there is a genuine sense of joy of friends being brought together again. Such are the counselors/admissions office relationships in the world of international schools and recruitment. I, too, have already seen many of the international admissions people who came to Oman over the last few years, and it’s wonderful to reconnect with them here!

Tomorrow I will lead a session on Transitions 101 with a panel made up of two high school counselors and two college international admissions officers. We will discuss the unique needs of Third Culture Kids and international students as they go through the experience of applying and transitioning to college, and how schools and colleges can better respond to their needs. Stay tuned!

Posted by Becky Grappo, IECA (Oman)

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